Posted on 12/15/2005 12:36:53 PM PST by JeffAtlanta
Three federal appeals court judges today indicated a lower court judge got key facts wrong in declaring unconstitutional an evolution disclaimer sticker put in Cobb County science books.
During oral arguments, all members of the federal appeals court panel noted that U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper made incorrect findings as the basis for his decision that the stickers violated the First Amendment by endorsing a religious viewpoint.
Judge Ed Carnes dominated much of the 40-minute arguments by tearing apart sections of Cooper's January ruling that ordered the stickers, which declared evolution "a theory, not a fact," removed from almost 35,000 middle- and high-school science textbooks.
"The court gives two bases for its findings and they're absolutely wrong," Carnes told Atlanta lawyer Jeffrey Bramlett, who argued on behalf of five parents who sued the school board to get the stickers removed.
At the end of the arguments, Carnes took the highly unusual step of calling Bramlett back up to the podium and suggested he may have mislead the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in his legal brief filed with the court.
Judge Frank Hull also noted that Cooper said the sticker misleads students even though there was no evidence to support that position.
"The order's problematic, you'd agree with that, in the way that it was written?" Hull asked Bramlett, who had little time to argue his position.
Judge Bill Pryor also noted that Cooper relied on facts that "are just contradicted by the record."
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
FYI.
Dan 5:25 And this [is] the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
You lose Patrick and rightfully so. A victory for the constitution and federalism, a defeat for radical ideologues attempting to rule from the courts.
And the US Constitution is the law of the land, not Richard Dawkins.
Merry Christmas my fellow dreaded creationist.
Even Judge Cooper never asserted such garbage.
Congress is getting ready to pass a law endowing terrorists with 5th and 14th amendment rights while letting courts interpret just what "cruel and unusual" means in the context of interrogation of same. Congress has no interest in asserting their power. They have one and only one interest, reelection.
No it isn't. It is a concept.
And a blessed Christmas to you and your family.
Oh, that's right we don't have a "list".
Umm, no. Sorry. Only somebody utterly, completely, totally ignorant of both the practice of science the body of research and evidence supporting evolutionary theory would be foolish enough to say that. In other words, a Creationist or IDer.
Are y'all such fascists that you think it's unconstitutional for a school board to put a sticker stating only that "Evolution is a theory, not a fact" in a high school textbook? Sheesh. I can understand the America-hating liberals taking such a stand, but aren't you guys supposed to be freedom-loving Americans? Just like the Michael Moore democrats, you guys demand total thought control. What a bunch of arrogant, self-righteous fascists.
My nephew sued our city for a false arrest and imprisonment after three cops tried to frame a kid for murder. His brief was thrown out as the worst written legal argument the judge had ever seen.
The judge was playing politics. The city eventually settled.
They don't have an interest in doing what's right, and that goes completely without saying. If all we did was give in to what they had an interest in doing, we'd be in far worse shape than we are. Politicians almost always have to be made to act despite their interests.
LOL! Of course evolution is not "constitutionally protected". It really has nothing to do with evolution per se. The question is whether evolution was singled out among the hundreds of scientific theories taught in any textbook for unique and special qualification because of a religious motivation and in the absence of a valid secular purpose.
If some religious group was opposed to say, the germ theory of disease (and some are, btw) and legislated stickers about that, the same issue would arise.
Evolution is a fact, as evidenced by the overwhelming fossil record. The Theory of Evolution is a theory of how evolution happens.
Absolutely ROFL! The fossil record? You are either mis-informed or attempting to mislead. Since you believe in Stephen Jay Gould, here's his take on it.
"The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:
1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.
2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and `fully formed.'"
(Gould, Stephen J. [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University, USA], "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. 86, No. 5, May 1977, p.14).
Next falsehood, please?
During oral arguments, all members of the federal appeals court panel noted that U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper made incorrect findings as the basis for his decision that the stickers violated the First Amendment by endorsing a religious viewpoint.
Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
As Judge Cooper made his ruling months before she said it, I and not greatly surprised rhat he made no reference to it.
How much titillation did you give the Dover case with your daily new threads?
Only if it's done from a religious motivation and with a religious purpose (absent a valid secular purpose).
And let's not be coy. Whatever can be legally proven we all know as a practical matter that this is done from a uniquely religious motivation. Otherwise you would never have this one particular theory singled out from among the hundreds or thousands covered in our textbooks (most more dogmatically than evolution, and many taught so matter of factly that, unlike evolution already is, they are never referred to as "theories" at all).
If this was done from an ingenuous and principled motivation the stickers would use language applying to ALL scientific theories, or to the nature of scientific theory in general.
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