Posted on 12/22/2005 6:09:22 PM PST by KingofZion
Like many evolutionary mistakes, intelligent design may be on the road to extinction, put there Tuesday by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III.
When Jones ruled that the Dover Area School District's intelligent design policy violates the First Amendment and barred the district from mentioning intelligent design in biology classes or "from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution," he wasn't just applying a pinprick to the trial balloon intelligent design supporters had chosen to float in this case.
He aimed a cannon at it. And fired. Several times. Odds are, other courts will find it hard to argue that he missed his target.
In one of the most closely watched cases in recent memory -- not just in Pennsylvania but across the nation -- Jones took the opportunity in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District to frame the case in the much larger context many, including supporters of intelligent design, had seen it in.
The impact of his ruling can't be overstated. Not only did Jones find the policy unconstitutional but he also ruled that intelligent design is not science.
"[M]oreover ... ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," he said in the 139-page opinion.
Jones didn't pull any punches in making his ruling, criticizing the school board for its policy, as well as those who saw the case as an opportunity to make law that would pave the way for greater acceptance of intelligent design.
"Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge," he said. "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."
Not surprisingly, several groups that endorse the teaching of intelligent design, or "ID" as Jones referred to it throughout his opinion, lashed out and accused him, as he anticipated, of being an "activist federal judge."
Who knew that Republican judges appointed by Republican presidents could be such hacks for the left?
Well, if activism is changing the norm and imposing one's will from behind the safe confines of the bench onto the helpless masses, then Jones' decision in Kitzmiller hardly fits the bill, since the opinion follows closely the reasoning of other federal courts on the issue, including the U.S. Supreme Court. If anything, Jones was critical of the changes the Dover Area School Board made for an entire community and potentially a whole generation of school children.
But organizations like the Discovery Institute, the Thomas More Law Center and the Cato Institute Center for Educational Freedom should be angry with Jones. Because what he did in his opinion, systematically and ruthlessly, was expose intelligent design as creationism, minus the biblical fig leaf, and advanced by those with a clear, unscientific agenda: to get God (more specifically, a Christian one) back into the sciences.
Jones goes into an exhaustive examination on the intelligent design movement, and what he found will make it difficult for future pro-ID litigants to argue that the whole thing isn't religion masked in neo-scientific terms.
According to Jones, the Discovery Institute's Center for Renewal of Science and Culture developed a "Wedge Document" in which it said the goal of the intelligent design movement is to "replace science as currently practiced with 'theistic and Christian science.'"
He said that one of the professors, an ID proponent, who testified for the school board "remarkably and unmistakably claims that the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God."
Jones also points out that the ID textbook the Dover policy encouraged students to check out, "Of Pandas and People," is not only published by an organization identified in IRS filings as a "religious, Christian organization," but that the book was meticulously changed following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in 1987 that the U.S. Constitution forbids the teaching of creationism as science.
By comparing the early drafts to the later ones, he said, it was clear that the definition for creation science was identical to the definition of intelligent design and that the word creation and its variants were replaced with the phrase ID and that it all happened shortly after the Supreme Court decision.
As Jones points out throughout his opinion, ID's supporters couldn't shake two problematic facts -- its close association with creationism and its inability to divorce itself from the supernatural.
"ID is reliant upon forces acting outside of the natural world, forces that we cannot see, replicate, control or test, which have produced changes in the world," he said. "While we take no position on whether such forces exist, they are simply not testable by scientific means and therefore cannot qualify as part of the scientific process or as a scientific theory."
All of which lead Jones to conclude that "ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory."
There's plenty of other things worth noting in Jones' opinion, including how school board members talked at meetings about creationism and complained of "liberals in black robes" taking away "the rights of Christians," or how the Discovery Institute was in contact with board members prior to the policy change, and a number of other machinations that might leave one feeling less than secure about the separation of church and state in Pennsylvania, but those are facts specific to this case.
The real impact of the opinion is what Jones lays out with regard to intelligent design's roots, its proponents, its agenda and the tactics (and there's really no other way to describe them) being used to advance it. It reads like a cautionary tale, one that we should all be reading.
And while it's unlikely that the country has seen the last of this issue, one can hope that Jones' decision might save future judges a little bit of time, if not discourage groups with a religious ax to grind from using residents of small communities as pawns in the name of a dishonest, fruitless agenda.
Calvin's Geneva wasn't exactly a model of freedom of thought either.
I don't lie. period. Not anymore.
My comment was aimed at that particular sentence I posted. You were unable to refute it I see. You simply resorted to calling me a liar.
If science agrees with the Bible then these people will reject that science.
Good science does not rule out any potential answer just because it came from the Bible. That is bigotry.
BTW: The Bible states that committing murder is wrong. Will we reject that idea soon as well? (oh wait, that is just exactly what is happening with abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide...)
...and yet *another* example of creationist "insults, ridicule and half-baked pompous answers" to add to the list. Thanks!
And hey, Jorge, if *we're* the ones who "have no REAL answers for anything", please explain why you have now run away, THREE TIMES (first two documented, and third time), from my challenge that you answer about what "must" be wrong with the evidence for evolution that I posted for you to critique? After all, something "must" be wrong with it, if evolution is actually the "idiotic theory" you claim it is.
So why do *YOU* "have no answers" every time I ask you to justify your claims by explaining where the evidence is allegedly flawed?
If it's the *evolutionists* who "have no REAL answers for anything", why is it always you *creationists* who keep running away from my questions? Why are the evolutionists always answering questions and explaining things and providing evidence on these threads?
Face it son, you're blustering and telling falsehoods to cover the empty shell of creationism. Creationism can't deal with the evidence, so it tries to pretend it doesn't exist, and tells tall tales about how evolutionists don't have anything to support their field of science.
Do even *you* believe the propaganda that comes out of your brain?
Really? Quote me the words that state this in the Constitution.
You are proof that our education system has been dumbed-down with a bent towards creating mind-numbed robots that are hostile to Christianity.
Where's your "tolerance"? Simply show me the scientific evidence against ID and we can refute it scientifically, not based on anti-Christian religious values
The converse of your statement is true. There is a 100% chance of the "laws of nature" being such that intelligent life would arise. If they were any different, you and I would not be able to have this discussion.
We simply would not exist.
Did you miss the part where that paper was putting forth a hypothesis?
No one's claiming that all the questions about abiogenesis have been answered already. But the point is that those who try to imply that the process is entirely baffling, impossible, or has not proceeded beyond the Miller-Urey experiment are grossly ignorant of the huge amount of research and work that has been done in this field in the past few decades. In fact, the problem now is not that there are no plausible scenarios for the various stages of abiogenesis, the problem is that there are so *many*. They need to be tested and compared so that they can be narrowed down to the best candidates.
And if you read the papers, including the ones that are just putting forth new models to be tested, you'll find that a huge amount of evidence already points very strongly to specific events in abiogenesis, including a the existence of an RNA-based world. This would not be the case if life had actually been "poofed" into existence in its modern form, by a designer or some other method. So while a lot of the details are yet to be fleshed out, the evidence already points very, very strongly to the kind of natural "bootstrapping" sequence that the creationists love to ridicule and falsely claim that there is no scientific support for, or plausible scenarios for.
No he wasn't. Calvin was not Christ either. He was just another man with his own ideas. If you like them fine, if not then fine also. Calvin did not rule anybody at gunpoint, or force anybody to believe him (unlike the Catholic church, any socialist government or Mohamed...)
The Bible tells us not to follow false prophets. There was only one prophet to follow, Jesus.
Beware of any man, or men, who tells you he/they has/have all the answers. They won't teach you that in school anymore because they want you to believe that men (the State) do have all the answers and should be the only supreme authority.
"No King but King Jesus" -- a cry of the men of the US revolution who agreed with George Washington that we should have no tyrant rule us.
Really? Quote me the words that state this in the Constitution.
Try reading the First Amendment.
You are proof that our education system has been dumbed-down with a bent towards creating mind-numbed robots that are hostile to Christianity.
Uh huh. Sure. Try reading some Madison, Jefferson, or even Theodore Roosevelt sometime, they said the same thing -- was their education "dumbed down" too? Or perhaps it's just yours. Here's a former post of mine dealing with another person who was as unfamiliar with this subject as yourself:
The First Amendment says no such thing,
I'm sorry that you're ignorant of American history. Madison and Jefferson both felt very strongly about the separation of church and state (even using that very term), and wrote of the importance of not using the public moneys or institutions to support one or more religions. In Madison's famous "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments", he wrote strenuously against using public money to underwrite in any degree the promulgation of religious teachings. In another opinion, he wrote:
A University with sectarian professorships becomes, of course, a sectarian monopoly: with professorships of rival sects, it would be an arena of Theological Gladiators. [...] On this view of the subject, there seems to be no alternative but between a public University without a theological professorship, and sectarian seminaries without a University.In another essay, he wrote:Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.And:Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In the strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. [...] If Religion consist in voluntary acts of individuals, singly, or voluntarily associated, and it be proper that public functionaries, as well as their Constituents shd discharge their religious duties, let them like their Constituents, do so at their own expence. How noble in its exemplary sacrifice to the genius of the Constitution; and the divine right of conscience!Writing of the success of the First Amendment's unique new approach to the age-old problem of religious/government entanglement, Madison wrote:It was the Universal opinion of the Century preceding the last, that Civil Government could not stand without the prop of a Religious establishment, and that the Christian religion itself, would perish if not supported by a legal provision for its Clergy. The experience of Virginia conspicuously corroborates the disproof of both opinions. The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State.And in the same vein:Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance.But hey, what would Madison know, he only *wrote* the First Amendment...As for Jefferson, he also wrote favorably of "a wall of separation between church and state" on many occasions, for example:
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.Like Madison, Jefferson was likewise of the opinion that public schools should be secular. When the College of William and Mary wanted to become Virginia's state university, Jefferson would allow it only if that school divested itself of all ties with sectarian religion. The college declined, so Jefferson himself instead founded the first truly secular university, University of Virginia. Of his new University, Jefferson wrote:A professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution.And to teachers at his University, Jefferson said:This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate error so long as reason is free to combat it.And from a famous earlier historian of the US:... I questioned the faithful of all communions; I particularly sought the society of clergymen, who are the depositories of the various creeds and have a personal interest in their survival ... all thought the main reason for the quiet sway of religion over their country was the complete separation of church and state. I have no hesitation in stating that throughout my stay in America I met nobody, lay or cleric, who did not agree about that.The "complete separation of church and state" is no modern ACLU invention...
-- (Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805-1859The modern court cases upholding this principle of keeping religious advocacy out of the schools merely uphold the original intent and meaning of the First Amendment, and indeed make explicit reference to Madison and Jefferson's writings on this matter:
As the momentum for popular education increased and in turn evoked strong claims for state support of religious education, contests not unlike that which in Virginia had produced Madison's Remonstrance appeared in various forms in other states. New York and Massachusetts provide famous chapters in the history that established dissociation of religious teaching from state-maintained schools. In New York, the rise of the common schools led, despite fierce sectarian opposition, to the barring of tax funds to church schools, and later to any school in which sectarian doctrine was taught.So yes, just as I said, attempts to get religious views taught in public schools, whether overt or thinly disguised, are a violation of the First Amendment -- not just the modern view of the First Amendment, but the original intent as well.[...]
The upshot of these controversies, often long and fierce, is fairly summarized by saying that long before the Fourteenth Amendment subjected the states to new limitations, the prohibition of furtherance by the state of religious instruction became the guiding principle, in law and in feeling, of the American people.
[...]
The preservation of the community from division conflicts, of government from irreconcilable pressures by religious groups, of religion from censorship and coercion however subtly exercised, requires strict confinement of the state to instruction other than religious, leaving to the individual's church and home, indoctrination in the faith of his choice. [...] The extent to which this principle was deemed a presupposition of our Constitutional system is strikingly illustrated by the fact that every state admitted into the Union since 1876 was compelled by Congress to write into its constitution a requirement that it maintain a school system "free from sectarian control".
[...]
We find that the basic Constitutional principle of absolute separation was violated when the State of Illinois, speaking through its Supreme Court, sustained the school authorities of Champaign in sponsoring and effectively furthering religious beliefs by its educational arrangement. Separation means separation, not something less. Jefferson's metaphor in describing the relation between church and state speaks of a "wall of separation," not of a fine line easily overstepped. The public school is at once the symbol of our democracy and the most pervasive means for promoting our common destiny. In no activity of the state is it more vital to keep out divisive forces than in its schools, to avoid confusing, not to say fusing, what the Constitution sought to keep strictly apart. "The great American principle of eternal separation"--Elihu Root's phrase bears repetition--is one of the vital reliances of our Constitutional system for assuring unities among our people stronger than our diversities. It is the Court's duty to enforce this principle in its full integrity. We renew our conviction that "we have staked the very existence of our country on the faith that complete separation between the state and religion is best for the state and best for religion."
-- Justice Felix Frankfurter, U. S. Supreme Court, in McCollum v. Board of Education, the 1948 decision that forbid public schools in Illinois from commingling sectarian and secular instruction
classic Marxist/ACLU double talk...
Yeah, boy, that Theodore Roosevelt, what a Marxist and ACLU lawyer:
"I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be non-sectarian and no public moneys appropriated for sectarian schools."
-- Theodore Roosevelt Address, New York, October 12, 1915.
The ruling is enitrely consistent with the law as the Founders intended it be applied. It is not anti Christian, and your effort to portray it as such is dishonest, because you know the details of the ruling.
Horse manure. Try to support this bizarre claim, it should be amusing.
Good science does not rule out any potential answer just because it came from the Bible. That is bigotry.
It would be if anyone actually did that, but in many decades of studying science and being among scientists and reading the works of thousands of scientists, I've never once seen anyone do the kind of stupid thing you describe.
None of the papers explains why molecules in the soup decided it was important for them to convert and store energy with a drive to reproduce.
Why reproduce? Why were they not "happy" simply being proteins in a puddle? They had no brain that told them they would die without children. They had no brain that said it was better for them if they reproduced.
Bottomline: What was the force that drove the molecules to create a complex system (using energy) that could reproduce itself? Why did the molecules care?
What was the reproductive force? What was the motivation to copy themselves?
They are "mixed" every time a Christian or a Muslim becomes a politician or goes to work for the government because either man will put his religion ahead of government. Thus his religion rules his personal decision making. The ONLY way to prevent mixing is to never allow people of any religion to participate in government (but that is impossible, everyman has some set of religious values, formal or otherwise).
You also failed to understand that I do not want the government involved in regulating formal religion and vice versa. You also fail to understand when a government becomes intolerant of a person for practicing their faith in an effort to scrub religion from government.
Furthermore, none of your discussion about the beliefs of the founders and the US Constitution are correct in your premises because the government at that period was far more inclusive of Christ than the government today. They did not make the government of that time in the way you suggest they believed because you are still demanding that our government go further still in scrubbing out the Christians today "in accordance with the founders desires?"
Perhaps the following might clear things up for you. Pay attention to difference between supporting a Christian church versus supporting Christian values.
"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian."
-- Justice Josiah Brewer, US Supreme Court Feb 29 1892, 143 US 457-458
"...in Updegraph v. The Commonwealth, it was decided that, Christianity, general Christianity,is, and always has been, a part of the common law...not Christianity with the established church...but Christianity with liberty of consience to all men."
-- Justice David Brewer, US Supreme Court, 1892, church of the Holy Trinity v. United States; (143 US 457-458, 465-471, 36 L ed 226)
"These fundamental objects of the Constitution are in perfect harmony with the revealed objects of the Christian religion. Union, justice, peace, the general welfare, and the blessings of civil and religious liberty, are the objects of Christianity, and always secured under its practical and beneficent reign.
The state must rest upon the basis of religion, and it must preserve this basis, or itself must fall. But the support which religion gives to the state will obviously cease the moment religion loses its hold upon the popular mind.
This is a Christian nation, first in name, and secondly because of the many and mighty elements of a pure Christianity which have given it character and shaped its destiny from the beginning. It is preeminently the land of the Bible, of the Christian Church, and of the Christiani Sabbath... The chief security and glory of the United states of America has been, is now and will forever be, the prevalence and domination of the Christian Faith."
-- Benjamin Franklin Morris, 1864, notable American historian.
"America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.:
-- President Woodrow Wilson , 1913
Like I've said many times before, ID/Creationists lie and distort the facts. Here is the wording of the Constitution:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Keep on running, Wolf.
Hi Rudder. I'd reply and have a conversation with you, but you didn't give me much to work with here. Let's try again.
I was merely making an observation on one small element of the judge's decision, namely his quote from Behe's testimony contrasted with how ID proponents generally argue the a priori exclusion of the supernatural (which the judge adopted elsewhere in his opinion).
How is any of that "intellectual masturbation"?
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