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.
ID most certainly does start with "facts." It begins with the fact that particle matter, as well as most observable phenomena, demonstrate patterns, consistentcies, predictability, and much that intelligent design entails. You can make "ID is not science" your personal mantra if you wish, but that does not negate the fact that ID begins with the assumption that intelligibility, intelligence, and design are closely related, and that the universe presents overwhelming evidence of the same.
It starts with a particular explanation, which it would be unwilling to change no matter what facts may be put forth.
Atheistic science is just as culpable in this regard, for there is nothing in the universe that cannot be explained as "natural." And you are quite wrong in asserting that faith and science are mutually exclusive. Any time science makes inferences based upon indirect observation it is indulging faith to some degree.
Yes, I know what the word "natural" means, but it is dependent solely upon each observer to apply it, and therefore it lacks both the openness and the precision science might enjoy as it is rightly defined. The word "natural" is loaded. Does it only apply to that which can be apprehended by human reason and senses? Then why do we bother to look into quantum theory?
Why study the force of gravity since we can only observe its effects and not its cause? Does natural only apply to processes that have been going on since the beginning of time? We don't even know when time began, let alone whether we've apprehended all dimensions of reality. Is there something "supernatural" about intelligence, design, or some combination of the two? No.
To insist that the word "natural" be attached to the definition of science is to throw an albatross around its neck, if only because "natural" is in the eyes of the beholder.
Intelligent design theory is best falsified by the presence of disorganized matter that does not behave according to predictable laws. So far that evidence has been minimal in forthcoming, so it is hardly unreasonable, or unscientific, to approach science, and conduct science, according to the theory of intelligent design.
Fester, don't you see how important this is? How can you test some idea, if the idea cannot fail any test? If an idea can't be tested, how can it be considered scientific? It would say nothnig about the way the world is - it couldn't predict anything.
An assertion just as "damning" is saying "that's how evolution did it."
The point is, there are possible observations that would say "evolution can't have done this". You've seen the list: the Precambrian rabbit, the mutations that are shared the wrong way among people, chimps and gorillas, and so on and on.
But there are no observations that would say "the designer couldn't have done this." ID is inherently untestabale.
Merry Christmas!
I understand quite well the assumption of naturalism. I don't see what it has to do with this distinction you insist on, but, if you're right, I must be making it.
You actually think I'm wrong that modern science is naturalistic?
It's not a question of a mere lack of evidence, the point is that ID can't have any evidence because it permits no deductions. Do you understand what evidence means scientifically?
This can't be a theorem of ID because an intelligent designer could also produce a "structure" with no discernable pattern. (I will be happy to produce one if you like.) If both A and not-A are compatible with your axioms that neither can be entailed by them.
But it doesn't stop there. ID purportedly claims that no naturalistic theory can explain nature fully. This is what you really need evidence for. Based on history, humans are pretty darn good at coming up with naturalistic explanations.
In this case it is not "the idea" that needs to be tested. We are given a physical universe to explain. If the universe inherently reveals organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws, then we can happily attribute that to God and get on with the program. Or, we can happily assume God has nothing to do with it and get on with the program.
The point is, there are possible observations that would say "evolution can't have done this".
I disagree. Once one defines science as treating of an arbitraily defined realm, the evidence can be made to fit the definition. There is nothing in the known universe than cannot be attributed to a "natural" process of evolution. Does there happen to be a "quirk" in the record. Well, that's natural too, because "science only deals with what is natural."
Given the possibilities you are most correct in so saying. But we are not dealing with possibilities. We are dealing with what IS, and what IS is organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws, and as such, intelligent design, while not an infallible explanation, is a good one.
Do you understand what it means to condescend to reality? To get from evidence to naturalism, you have to first doubt what you know, then you have to find a principle to know, then you take what you know to prove the non-existence of what you doubted. If that is the philosophical basis of your scientific evidence, you will no doubt have science and nothing but. But a the same time you've shrunk all the world to science. Now, back to subject and object. If you don't want to discuss first principles, you're a sham and a propagandist.
Write this in your notebook: ID is an inference about the evidence.
Yes, there are real cases. Do you want to know, or do you only want to be snotty? We agree with you. We don't use government, and want government to stay as far away from us as possible. That is not what I'm talking about.
So I can add smug and disingenuous to psuedo-intellectual egghead.
And as an ex-evolutionist I know exactly where you're coming from.
You didn't refute anything. And I am not going to waste my time trying to shed some light onto your darkened intellect. One day you will eat your words. I am confident of that.
hoity-toity punk elitists with their three digit IQs! who needs 'em?
Real cases? Yeah..I'd love to hear about how Christians have had their Bibles taken by force from the government. I'd love to hear about how the government is burning down Churches. Tell me all about how Christians are being publicly flogged for wearing symbols of their faith. If all you have for me is a couple of people who are p*ssed off because they are NOT allowed to control the public arena, you can keep it to yourself and hopefully feel ashamed for even trying to equate it to REAL persecution. Hurt feelings do not equal persecution. And FYI, I'm not being snotty...but I have zero tolerance for whining from people who've NEVER had to hide their faith for fear of death.
Also, could you be a little more explicit about what "organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws" means to you?
The theory of intelligent design is handy from both an indictive and deductive standpoint. I tend to think most people would take the inductive approach because most people sense there is a God. At least that's what recorded human history denotes. It is true that from a logical standpoint a theory that demostrates a smooth corroboration between inductive and deductive reasoning could easily be construed as circular reasoning. Maybe that's all it is.
To say, "God designed the universe, therefore it will give evidence of intelligent design, or to say "The universe gives evidence of intelligent design, therefore God designed it," is to say the same thing while exchanging the subject and object of focus. But from a simply reasonable standpoint, it makes sense to deduce intelligent design in any case where human intellect is capable of apprehending data as opposed to deducing some other case or agent. What else can reasonably account for the fact we have data that retains its consitency to the extent human intellect is able to observe and comment upon it?
You will have to tighten your axioms to constrain the designer so that he must necessarily produce "organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws" for our observations of it to constitute evidence.
On the contrary, it is not a matter of necessity but of reasonable inference. "Necessity" is an absolute concept. Science is speculative.
Also, could you be a little more explicit about what "organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws" means to you?
IMO the most convincing evidence of intelligent design is the fact that particle matter does not disintegrate but retains its properties and consistencies from age to age. The best evidence to falsify intelligent design would be the disintegration of particle matter. There may be examples of it out there, but in terms of human science I am hard pressed to find an example.
To insist on conventions and rules for science is not shrink the world to science at all. Rather it means only that science isn't all there is. The world is full of non-scientific things, law, philosophy, sport and so forth. ID is one of these non-scientific things.
Now that that's cleared up, what is the subject and object stuff you're going on about?
The repeated historical failure of self evidence is clear. Only a fool would rest his convictions on a proven failure.
Also, what you're taking for smugness is better described as disdain. We'll see who eats his words - my observation is that converts such as you lose faith as easily as they gain it.
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.