Posted on 11/16/2005 2:38:35 PM PST by PatrickHenry
The link to the pdf file from which this thread's lead article was taken is found at the end of "week 6" at this location:
Legal documents, trial materials, updates.
The pdf file is 95 pages long, and the defense closing argument starts on page 60.
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What new and fledgling science movement is he talking about? I thought the dispute was over Intelligent Design?
Steve Fuller's colleagues on the editorial board of SciPolicy Journal just submitted an amicus curiae disagreeing with him. An editorial in that journal also took a diametrically opposed viewpoint from Fuller. It appears we have yet one more ID 'expert' who's way out in left field.
Here's the editorial
The Dover Area School District mandates that a statement be read to students in biology classes announcing that “Intelligent Design” is an alternative theory to Evolution. According to School District Administration, the content and procedure of the announcement were “...developed to provide its ninth grade Biology students with a balanced view and not to teach or present religious beliefs...” and “...teaching intelligent design is not part of the ninth-grade biology curriculum and students will not be tested on this subject" (Defendants' Statement of Material Facts, Nos. 23, 25). However, the School District Administration fails to explain how stamping official imprimatur on an essentially faith based concept promotes a "balanced view" of science in a public school setting and further, identify what educational value there is in a bland reference to intelligent design? Moreover, the Administration defends the mandate as devoid of teaching content, and it suggests that teaching is different from making announcements about the existence of possible alternative explanations to evolution. However, the proffered rationale is not supported by generally accepted principles in educational psychology and psycho-educational processes, which treat the teacher as a very powerful influence on students. Additionally, the mandate has an institutional influence, conveying legitimacy to the notion of intelligent design when in fact such notion is not sanctioned by the scientific community - including The National Academies (of Science), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the panoply of physical science professional groups and associations.
Quality education, especially in the teaching of science at the high school level, depends upon the exposure of students to the important intellectual history and philosophical inquiries that shed light on the authority of science. Science teaching, to be valid, should foster an understanding of the discovery process and the way that scientific theories come into being and change over time as discoveries are made and new knowledge is developed. The importance of teaching critical and rational thinking -- processes that require the comparative reading and analysis of literature in an unbiased environment -- is denied when the alternative of "intelligent design" is simply announced as "an alternative theory."
There is a logical fallacy in mandating the inclusion of intelligent design since it provides neither scientific explanation nor empirical evidence of the actual existence of a designer, but through fiat simply asserts that a designer must exist to explain the gap in knowledge. Stripped of its intellectual facade the announcement is nothing but a transparent effort to engraft religious dogma onto the classroom examination of scientific theory.
There is no challenge here to the legitimacy of the concern among some groups about the erosion of family value and the proliferation of crime and drug abuse among the young. These same groups are free to espouse the view that the root cause of these conditions is the deterioration of the role of religion and faith in daily life. However, the School District’s blatant attempt to introduce spiritual considerations into science as a means of promoting religion is intellectually biased and totally unacceptable.
There can be no challenge to the right of parents to expose their children to secular views. And, especially in the arena of public education, we are long past the time when there can be a legitimate challenge to the co-extensive right of parents to insulate their children from secular views. Instantly, the School District Administration devised a mechanism to impose religious views on an entire public school community. We have no quarrel with the right to harbor faith and to espouse it. We do, however, maintain that the School District Administration has no right to proselytize others in a public school setting or to introduce explicitly religious notions (such as intelligent design) into public school curricula. And we have requested the Court to declare the policy of the Dover Area School District to be violative of constitutional principles.
So, their argument is that the introduction of ID into the curriculum was not meant to advance religion, but merely "reference to the possibility of supernatural causation"? What other kind of "supernatural causation" do they have in mind?
If we are to teach the science of "supernatural causation" in high school should we then inform students that all scientific investigation into "supernatural causation" reveals a phenomenon indistinguishable from one that does not exist?
Typical liberal logic. This is the same logic that the pro abortion industry uses in defense of such things as the morning after pill. If there is a threat to preventing an abortion than it must classified as pro-life which they might as well say is unconstitutional.
How am I supposed to eat dinner after reading this?
but you do not comprehend.
[I.D. is necessarily a religious belief because a supernatural agent is its central tenet, and therefore it should not be given weight as a scientific theory and should not be taught in science class in a public school.]
But I'm all for teaching it in a political science classroom or in a social studies classroom or in a journalism class.
That would at least be useful and perhaps even intellectually honest.
Because you say it is so we are to bow to your opinion. But sir, you have no credibility here. How are we to believe what you say when your opinion has no value?
So the attorney's argument is that it's not fair to ID proponents that science only studies the natural universe. And we're supposed to take this seriously?
First, the statute [or state action] must have a secular legislative purpose;With that legal background, you can see what all the testimony was about, and how the defense is seeking to show that Lemon doesn't apply to what the school board did.second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion,
finally, the statute must not foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion."
The third paragraph of the closing argument gets right to it:
I am confident that upon a full deliberation and reflection on the evidence of record, not rhetoric, that, as I said at the beginning of these proceedings, you will find that the plaintiffs have failed to prove that the predominant purpose or primary effect of the curriculum change which was approved by the Dover Area School District on October 18, 2004, is to advance religion.This is specifically addressed at the first prong of the Lemon test. If the plaintiffs proved this point, they win.
Next paragraph:
Quite the contrary, the evidence of record demonstrates that the curriculum change at issue here had, as its primary purpose and has as its primary effect, science education. It is true that it attracts attention to a new and fledgeling science movement. But look at Steve Fuller. See it through his eyes. See it through the eyes of history and watch how he can see what may be the next great paradigm shift in science ...That's the school board's argument in order to avoid flunking the Lemon test.
Moving down a dozen or more paragraphs (and I'm inserting some stuff in brackets, to clarify what I think the attorney is getting at):
More importantly, neither Bonsell nor the board can be penalized for [having an] interest [in religion] because the law prescribes improper purpose, not interest. Bonsell had an interest in creationism, but the evidence shows he never took any action to require the teaching of creationism in Dover.Again, they're arguing that the actions of the school board slip through the Lemon test. My last excerpt from the argument is a few dozen paragraphs further on, and it's aimed at the next prong of the Lemon test:Quite the contrary, the net result of the curriculum policy challenged in this litigation has been to absolutely prohibit the teaching of creationism. Indeed, the record shows that interest and action are two very different things, and it's an important distinction, Your Honor.
The real purpose at issue here is the purpose that underlies the four-paragraph statement that mentions intelligent design twice, that does not even describe the hypothesis advanced by intelligent design theorists, but simply informs students that it's an explanation for the origins of life different from evolutionary theory and tells students that there are books on the subject in the library.And so it goes. It's all about Lemon.This modest result, so far removed from what various board members contemplated at different times, shows that the plaintiffs have failed to prove, as they must prove to prevail, that the actual primary purpose of the actual policy at issue here is a religious purpose.
The evidence has also demonstrated that the plaintiffs have failed to show that the primary effect of the curriculum change is to advance religion. As an initial matter, the primary effect of a curriculum policy is the effect it has on instruction in the class.
Hmmm. Does, this mean speciation goes through the finches, or that Miller teaches through finches?
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