Posted on 01/09/2006 8:26:54 AM PST by PatrickHenry
If there’s anything to be learned from the intelligent design debate, it’s that branding “activist judges” is the hobby of bitter losers.
For those who care about the fight over evolution in biology classrooms, Christmas came five days early when the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District ruling was handed down. In his decision, Judge John E. Jones III ruled that not only is the theory of intelligent design religion poorly dressed in science language, teaching it in class is an outright violation of the First Amendment.
The ruling was a concise and devastating demonstration of how law, precedent and evidence can come together to drive complete nonsense out of the courtroom. But if the aftermath of the event proves anything, it proves that nine times out of 10, if someone accuses a judge of being an “activist,” it is because he disagrees with the ruling and wants to make it clear to like-minded followers that they only lost because the liberals are keeping them down. Gratuitous overuse has, in just a few short years, turned the phrase “judicial activism” from a description of an actual problem in the legal system into a catch-all keyword for any ruling that social conservatives dislike.
During the months between the initial suit and the final decision, a high-powered law firm from Chicago volunteered some of its best to represent the plaintiffs pro bono, defenders of evolution and intelligent design mobilized, and few people really cared other than court watchers, biology nerds and a suspicious number of creationist groups. The trial went well for the plaintiffs: Their witnesses and evidence were presented expertly and professionally, and it never hurts when at least two of the witnesses for the defense are caught perjuring themselves in their depositions. Advocates for teaching actual science in school science classes were fairly confident that Jones was going to rule in their favor.
When it came, the ruling was significant enough to earn a slightly wider audience than the aforementioned court watchers, biology nerds and creationists. What drew interest from newcomers was not the minutiae of the trial, but the scope of Jones’ ruling and the scorn for the Dover School Board’s actions that practically radiated off the pages. He ruled both that intelligent design was a religious idea, and that teaching it in a science class was an unconstitutional establishment of religion by the state. He didn’t stop there, however.
“It is ironic,” he wrote, “that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the intelligent design policy.”
Such harsh language might provoke some sympathy for intelligent design advocates, if they hadn’t immediately demonstrated how much they deserved it by responding — not with scientific arguments for intelligent design or legal precedent to contradict Jones’ ruling — but with ridiculous name-calling. The Discovery Institute, the leading center of ID advocacy, referred to Jones as “an activist judge with delusions of grandeur.” Bill O’Reilly also brought out the “A” word on his show. Richard Land, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and noted drama queen, declared him the poster child for “a half-century secularist reign of terror.” The American Family Association, having apparently read a different ruling than the rest of America, insisted that judges were so eager to keep God out of schools that they would throw out even scientific evidence for Him. Funny how so many creationist groups seemed to have missed the memo that intelligent design isn’t supposed to be about God at all.
It was depressingly predictable that the intelligent design crowd would saturate the Internet with cries of judicial activism regardless of the actual legal soundness of the ruling. In only a few years, intellectually lazy political leaders have morphed an honest problem in the judiciary that deserves serious debate into shorthand for social conservatism’s flavor of the week. The phrase has been spread around so much and applied to so many people that it only has meaning within the context of someone’s rant. It is the politico-speak equivalent of “dude.”
Only when one learns that Jones was appointed by George W. Bush and had conservative backers that included the likes of Tom Ridge and Rick Santorum can one appreciate how indiscriminately the term is thrown around. Jones is demonstrably a judicial conservative. In fact, he’s the kind of strict constructionist that social conservatives claim to want on the bench. Their mistake is in assuming that the law and their ideology must necessarily be the same thing.
In the end, no one could defend Jones better than he did himself. He saw the breathless accusations of judicial activism coming a mile away, and refuted them within the text of the ruling. In his conclusion he wrote:
“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 intelligent design, 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.”
Jones knew his name would be dragged through the mud and issued the correct ruling anyway. One can only hope that the utter childishness of the intelligent design response will alienate even more sensible people, and that the phrase “judicial activism” will from now on be used only by those who know what they’re talking about. No bets on the latter.
We are a different species than the other apes. It may or may not be possible to successfully interbreed, but that uncertainty is part of the definition of speciation.
#####Then why did they write "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" instead of "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the 1866 Civil Rights Act"? You are attempting at least as much activist interpretation as you are accusing others of doing.#####
Because the 1866 Civil Rights Act was a statute and thus could be repealed. Putting something in the Constitution makes things more permanent. In addition, the 14th would have "constitutionalized" additional future legislation on the same issues.
####That has already been shown to be incorrect.####
Sorry, but it hasn't.
If that were true would calling it a religion make it a negative thing?
You do understand the ramifications of "interpreting" the Equal Protection Clause to give women the vote, don't you? Once upon a time, in a less judicially aggressive era, people did so understand. That's why it took a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT some fifty years after the 14th was ratified to establish a constitutional guarantee of female suffrage.
Death
In other words, the suggestion that man descended from apes is nothing more than speculation; isn't it.
BTW, why do evolutionists assume that man descended from apes? If evolution is true, isn't it possible that apes descended from man?
Surely you are kidding?
modern apes did not descend from modern man, nor did modern man descend from modern apes. They had a common ancestor species, about 20 million years ago. Generalizing your question, if you are referring to the DNA evidence for common descent than no, the evidence does not permit of an interpretation tht the common ancestor could actually have been the common forerunner.
This weakens your argument even more. The ambiguous 'privileges or immunities' did nothing to ensure any statute. Implanting the verbiage of 1866 Civil Rights Act into the 14th Amendment would have. Further, are you saying that they intended the 14th to be a 'back door' through which they could jam any old statue they pleased without requiring it to go through the amendment process? And you support this idea? And question my conservative nature?
Sorry, but it hasn't.
You are saying that announcing that the proposed amendment would explicitly extend enforcement of the Bill of Rights to include the states during the actual consideration of the amendment wouldn't have clued them in that it might cover the 1st Amendment?
If Darwinism claimed to be a religion, then Darwinists would have a perfect right to worship evolution, as long as they kept the basic laws and moral prescripts of society. By which I mean, for instance, that it wouldn't license them to kill off weaker people in the name of advancing the species. But they could certainly believe that such a process naturally occurs.
However, the one note you keep hearing on these threads is that Darwin is science and anything opposed to Darwin is religion or superstition. I called that kind of attitude "religious," because although it pretends otherwise it really doesn't permit anyone to examine the evidence. Perhaps a better name for it would be superstition, since Darwinism strikes me as a particularly credulous and irrational sort of religion.
So, now we have judges proclaiming from their judicial thrones that Darwin must be taught in all the public schools, but that no other theory, no argument that questions Darwin, no competing hypotheses, will be permitted. Our children must be protected from hearing anything at all but all Darwin all the time.
Frankly, that's not the kind of position that will have much staying power, once people start to really look at it.
No it is not. Evolution is a scientific theory.
"I have looked at some of the more intelligent writings on ID theory, and it makes scientific sense."
ID is not science, it abandons science.
ID states and believes that, "the laws of physics are insufficient to govern the world." That is not science, that is religion.
Proof:
ID uses the laws of physics to make some calculation. The ID guy swears his logic is OK and his math likewise. The output of his calculation says, "the result of the calculation can't explain the observaitons."
There are then 2 remaining possibilities, because he swears his model is good:
1) The model is missing some knowledge and understanding.
2) The model is right, the physics are 100% correct, that's all the physics there is, and there's an intelligent force. A fifth arbitrary force that science can neither observe, examine, nor quantify.
Take your choice:
1.) The laws of physics are not sufficient and you abandon science to inject an IDer to arbitrarily desribe and make claims about the 5th force.
or
Stick with science and continue.
"My problems with Darwinism are basically scientific, not religous... What makes him wrong is the extreme scientific improbability of his general theory.
Evolution is a scientific theory. Ir is quite advanced in both knowledge and understanding from Darwin. There is no improbability that it happened. The probability is that evolution did and continues to happen.
If it is, isn't a little foolhardy of you to ignore some or all the rules in the OT as you stated you do in an earlier post?
To answer your question, I am.
Anything to shut us up.
When it passed the civil rights act in the '60s.
Highly debatable. More likely scenario: "Jones knew his name would be reduced to a shibboleth in every cranny of tony liberaldom if he didn't treat ID with high judicial dudgeon."
So I assume then that the Southern states can legally re-institute slavery under the 14th amendment.
My question is very reasonable. As one can readily see, the likelihood of such a sequence is so remote as to be virtually impossible? If it wasn't, you would have offered up a rational response. "Surely you are kidding?" does not cut it.
It's the Civil Rights Act of 1871, not 1866.
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