(background: the trial is a non-jury trial. At one point, the judge demanded a transcript of two depositions by a witness for the defense (a school board member), and proceeded to cross-examine the witness himself to give the guy a chance to clear up the inconsistencies in his testimony (he couldn't), getting more and more angry by the moment. Pretty wild stuff, if you read some of the court transcripts and newspaper article descriptions of the goings-on. One of the obviously biased reporters is trying to get the board to adopt his idea that cows think in Spanish, noting that it seems to meet Dr. Behe's criteria for "science"; if not that, then teach the controversy over this "theory".)

The six week trial is now in the last day. "Bacterial flagellum" has been raised by the defense and debated innumerable times. Things have been getting rather tedious at times, too.

Seems that the first edition of the book "Of Pandas and People", which was being pushed by the school board, used the word "creationism" quite liberally. The next (and current) edition was shown at trial to have numerous instances where the word "creationism" was merely replaced with the phrase "intelligent design". Drafts of the future edition was shown at trial to have had the phrase "intelligent design" replaced with the phrase "purposeful arrangement of parts" (a phrase stubbornly used over and over in Dr. Behe's testimony when (not) answering questions). After noting that the courts had ruled in previous trials against creationism in public schools, and this trial was now debating intelligent design, the plaintiff's attorney asked (I believe) Dr. Behe if in the future we would see a "purposeful arragement of parts" trial. "Not on my docket", said the judge.

You had to be there, I guess.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"