Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
Posted on 12/20/2005 9:07:12 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
SEATTLE — "The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate, and it won't work," said Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute, the nation's leading think tank researching the scientific theory known as intelligent design. “He has conflated Discovery Institute’s position with that of the Dover school board, and he totally misrepresents intelligent and the motivations of the scientists who research it.”
“A legal ruling can't change the fact that there is digital code in DNA, it can’t remove the molecular machines from the cell, nor change the fine tuning of the laws of physics,” added West “The empirical evidence for design, the facts of biology and nature, can't be changed by legal decree."
In his decision, Judge John Jones ruled that the Dover, Pennsylvania school district violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by requiring a statement to be read to students notifying them about intelligent design. Reaching well beyond the immediate legal questions before him, Judge Jones offered wide-ranging and sometimes angry comments denouncing intelligent design and praising Darwinian evolution.
"Judge Jones found that the Dover board violated the Establishment Clause because it acted from religious motives. That should have been the end to the case," said West. "Instead, Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur."
"Anyone who thinks a court ruling is going to kill off interest in intelligent design is living in another world," continued West. "Americans don't like to be told there is some idea that they aren't permitted to learn about.. It used to be said that banning a book in Boston guaranteed it would be a bestseller. Banning intelligent design in Dover will likely only fan interest in the theory."
"In the larger debate over intelligent design, this decision will be of minor significance," added Discovery Institute attorney Casey Luskin. "As we've repeatedly stressed, the ultimate validity of intelligent will be determined not by the courts but by the scientific evidence pointing to design.”
Luskin pointed out that the ruling only applies to the federal district in which it was handed down. It has no legal effect anywhere else. The decision is also unlikely to be appealed, since the recently elected Dover school board members campaigned on their opposition to the policy. "The plans of the lawyers on both sides of this case to turn this into a landmark ruling have been preempted by the voters," he said.
"Discovery Institute continues to oppose efforts to mandate teaching about the theory of intelligent design in public schools," emphasized West. "But the Institute strongly supports the freedom of teachers to discuss intelligent design in an objective manner on a voluntary basis. We also think students should learn about both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwin's theory of evolution."
Drawing on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines, the scientific theory of intelligent design proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. Proponents include scientists at numerous universities and science organizations around the word.
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.- Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board
Full title is "Dover Intelligent Design Decision Criticized as a Futile Attempt to Censor Science Education".
Response from DI.
I guess they expected the ruling. HAHAHA.
For your list? If you want :)
"Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The constitution does not say anything about "Judges shall make no law....", looks like the judge just made a law.
Your list too? I am nothing if not courteous :)
Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
They're mad. They were hoping for a narrow ruling, and they didn't get one. Jones didn't just strike down ID here, he gave a roadmap for striking down the DI's more cautious 'teach the controversy' strategy.
career in marketing? ;)
I'm out for a while - last minute Christmas shopping. Everyone have fun.
Perhaps you read past Art I Sect 1?
"All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States . . ."
Or did I misunderstand your point?
As all constitutionalists should be.
And your science.
So if I attempt to introduce Astrology into Science classes and a Judge says no, it is "activism"? Total bunk. Let's hope these jokers take a lesson from this.
Yes. It's not the judge's call to make.
I don't have time at the moment to read the entire decision, but the judge seems to have made some rather explicit comments on the perjury committed at the trial.
|
Seems like there is already much extrapolation beyond the actual interpretation of the law by the court. So far, has anybody read the actual decision or even the extract?
I thought the case was about ID? /sarcasm
One would expect DI to defend their sales and donations.
And my keyboard was brand new!
It's here: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/051220_kitzmiller_342.pdf
A PDF file -- 139 pages
Go to the URL at #24. Do a word search on "perjury". Let me know what comes up.
The decision, anyway:
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED THAT:
1. A declaratory judgment is hereby issued in favor of Plaintiffs pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 2202, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 such that
Defendants’ ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and Art. I, § 3 of
the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
2. Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 65, Defendants are permanently enjoined
from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area
School District.
3. Because Plaintiffs seek nominal damages, Plaintiffs shall file with the
Court and serve on Defendants, their claim for damages and a verified
statement of any fees and/or costs to which they claim entitlement.
Defendants shall have the right to object to any such fees and costs to
the extent provided in the applicable statutes and court rules.
Finally, although Buckingham, Bonsell, and other defense witnesses denied the reports in the news media and contradicted the great weight of the evidence about what transpired at the June 2004 Board meetings, the record reflects that these witnesses either testified inconsistently, or lied outright under oath on several occasions, and are accordingly not credible on these points.
Oh, I forgot. You wanted me to search on the word "perjury" rather than the phrase "lied outright under oath on several occasions."
Mad? They're positively insane!
No, but the First Amendment prohibits Congress (and by 14th Amendment incorporation, the State legislatures and their subordinates, here Dover County) from making a law establishing religion. The judge saw a law which establishes a religious doctrine in the school curricula, and because he paid attention the day they taught Marbury v. Madison in law school, he realized that an unconstitutional law is no law at all.
This is well within the realm of judicial power. I might not like the ruling as a Creationist, but the simple fact of the matter is that the judge's understanding of the law is unassailable. This was most certainly not judicial activism. He read the Constitution and the precedent correctly, and it is not for a trial court judge to do anything but apply the caselaw as written.
After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community.
The judge gets it...
Isn't lying for God ok?
This changes things, how?
Censorship of science education? What nonsense. The Discovery Institute is such a bogus institution.
Not gonna win West any points...
No "religious doctrine" was ever taught in the classroom. If the students were taught that evolution is wrong because the Bible says so, then there might have been a case. But that's simply not what happened.
Until it has, it has no place in the public schools.
LOL -- you can lie under oath without committing perjury. That must be another piece of this "Clinton Legacy" I've heard so much about.
From page 81:
With ID, proponents assert that they refuse to propose hypotheses on the designer’s identity, do not propose a mechanism, and the designer, he/she/it/they, has never been seen. In that vein, defense expert Professor Minnich agreed that in the case of human artifacts and objects, we know the identity and capacities of the human designer, but we do not know any of those attributes for the designer of biological life. (38:44-47 (Minnich)). In addition, Professor Behe agreed that for the design of human artifacts, we know the designer and its attributes and we have a baseline for human design that does not exist for design of biological systems. (23:61-73 (Behe)). Professor Behe’s only response to these seemingly insurmountable points of disanalogy was that the inference still works in science fiction movies. (23:73 (Behe)).
BWAHAHAHA!
Thanks for the ping!
I think the judge seriously erred when he made the statement in his opinion that "ID grew out of fundamentalism." (And he meant "out of the religious movement."
That's an egregious error of fact.
And it is totally prejudicial of the case since he decided a priori that ID is a religion. The proof is that he felt compelled to apply the Lemon Test.
Moreover, at the meeting, although the teachers had already watched the video “Icons of Evolution” from the Discovery Institute, at Buckingham’s insistence they agreed to review it again and consider using in class any portions that aligned with their curriculum. (26:122 (Baksa)). Although Baksa believed that the teachers had already determined there were no parts in the video that would be appropriate for use in class, the teachers capitulated in order to secure Buckingham’s approval to purchase the much needed biology textbook. (35:93-94 (Baksa)).
In the midst of this panoply, there arose the astonishing story of an evolution mural that was taken from a classroom and destroyed in 2002 by Larry Reeser, the head of buildings and grounds for the DASD. At the June 2004 meeting, Spahr asked Buckingham where he had received a picture of the evolution mural that had been torn down and incinerated. Jen Miller testified that Buckingham responded: “I gleefully watched it burn.” (12:118 (J. Miller)). Buckingham disliked the mural because he thought it advocated the theory of evolution, particularly common ancestry. (26:120 (Baksa)). Burning the evolutionary mural apparently was insufficient for Buckingham, however. Instead, he demanded that the teachers agree that there would never again be a mural depicting evolution in any of the classrooms and in exchange, Buckingham would agree to support the purchase of the biology textbook in need by the students. (36:56-57 (Baksa) (emphasis added)).
It didn't? You don't see many ID adherents that aren't Christian fundamentalists. Most other groups - even other Christian groups - to a greater or lesser extent accept the theory of evolution.
And it is totally prejudicial of the case since he decided a priori that ID is a religion. The proof is that he felt compelled to apply the Lemon Test.
Until ID has been subjected to falsifiable testing and peer-review like any other scientific hypothesis, it is nothing more than a religiously-motivated hypothesis. The Lemon test is then the only correct test he could apply.
Sorry, Jude, but you seriously misunderstand ID. That's not your fault. The disinformation campaign has really muddied the waters.
It is not religion, and it MOST CERTAINLY did not grow out of fundamentalism.
The judge is way off base, and has bought hook, line, and sinker the disinformation campaign of the opponents -- BEFORE his decision.
Ahh, so you contend that GW put an idiot for this job who has no ability to discern anything for himself, totally subject to a disinformation campaign.
OK.
Does that give you pause on his other judicial nominees?
The Dover School district did nothing more than to post a disclaimer (which appear specifically intended at quelling the objections of those who believe that Evolution as taught in Public Schools is in contradiction to their religious beliefs).
Here is the so-called unconstitutional disclaimer:
The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.
Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations. Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.
With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.
It is clear that any specific references to Intelligent Design were not required to be taught. Students were only required to listen to this 20 second blurb from the District which essentially states that if you want to learn about Intelligent Design, or any other competing theory, then you are encouraged to do so on your own.
The Judge relied heavilty on the "Lemon Test" which essentially invalidates a statute or law if there is evidence that the statute endorses "religion". Not specificially one religion over another, but religion in general.
If Marriage were to be instituted today and the same analysis was given to it as was given in this case it would obviously be struck down by the Lemon Test. Clearly the one man one woman marriage laws would be struck down. Tax laws giving tax breaks to Churches would be struck down as well.
In this case it serves a legitmate SECULAR purpose to explain to students that the Theory of Evolution is not set in stone and if your deeply held religious beliefs contradict what is going to be taught to you in evolution class, that there are places you can go to get information on that subject.
I think we can rest assured that with O'Connor gone the Lemon Test will be gone as well. I expect that this case will be overturned at the Supreme Court Level and that the Lemon Test will be overturned with it.
So you don't see evidence of intelligent design in the universe?
Or are you a Christian Fundamentalist?
Until ID has been subjected to falsifiable testing and peer-review like any other scientific hypothesis, it is nothing more than a religiously-motivated hypothesis. The Lemon test is then the only correct test he could apply.
Oh, he did apply it. He applied it wrong. He took it to its logical extreme. In essence he showed how flawed the Lemon Test is. The Supreme Court will hopefully review this case and see the monster they created. With O'Connor gone the Lemon Test will hopefully retire with her.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.