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.
It's just too hard to believe that the states would have ratified the 14th Amendment had they thought it would impose the Establishment Clause on them, particularly a modern secularist version of it.
This whole thing seems to be similar to the battle over the failed ERA. Proponents of the amendment would occasionally speak in broad terms about how it would revolutionize gender law, but when they saw that this was harming the ratification effort they would back down and assure everyone that it wouldn't be all that radical, wouldn't legalize gay marriage, wouldn't force women into combat, etc.
Bingham alternated between claiming the 14th would impose the Bill of Rights on the states and assuring reluctant colleagues that the states would still retain all their traditional powers under his amendment. It can't be both. There were also two versions of the 14th. The original draft was tabled because it was seen as too threatening to states' traditional rights.
The best way to judge this is to look at what Congress itself did, as well as what the states did, concurrent with the amendment. The real issue with the Blaine Amendment is that the states, three-fourths of whom had ratified the 14th, didn't seem to behave as if that amendment had imposed secularism upon them. There was no rush in any of those states to sever their ties to religion.
Not to mention the problems with incorporating the Establishment Clause in the first place. Recognizing the existence of God isn't the establishment of a religion.
The year is still young and there are thousands of future faux pas ripe with potential...
Let me just add that the term Christian Fundamentalist when bandied about by those outside the fold (only God knows Will Durant's heart) is always off the mark. Today, it is frequently used by those on the left to compare a so-called Christian Fundamentalist to the Taliban. Christian fundamentalism is a family quarrel within Protestantism, especially within American Protestantism.
Historically, the roots of this term are found in the late 19th century when a group of pastors and theologians penned a series of essays to define a position against the theological liberalism of the day. The essays were published in 12 volumes under the title "Christian Fundamentals".
Today, the term fundamentalist is understood within what I will call mainstream evangelical Protestantism as those Protestant Christians who practice stricter life-style rules: no drinking, smoking, dancing, etc.
I stand corrected in my earlier post in regard to Thomas Jefferson. I had placed the date for the Danbury letter later than it was, and in fact Mr. Jefferson was in office when the letter was written. Nevertheless, I think the point I was trying to make that the appeal was to persuasion and not force of law still stands.
I do indeed. I also realize the human construct known as the concept of science is not infallible nor holds all the keys to the universe.
Science converges upon an increasingly accurate description of the universe. Whatever its real limitations, there seems to be nothing better for this purpose.
Unbelievable. I asked for a number, and you gave me how many links? Read the question, moron.
If you really believe Dawkins' assertion that "small" mutations have a 50% chance of being beneficial, then you must think that computer programs can be "developed" by randomly flipping bits one at a time and then just "selecting" the half that cause an improvement. I suggest you give it a try. You don't have a clue about what is required to develop a complex system.
I have a high-pressure, high-paying engineering job to go to now, so I don't have any more time to waste with the adoloscent evolutionists on this thread. I can't compete with kids who have infinite time to spend online.
Nice reply. Much better than I was about to attempt.
One more point.
This silly post you responded to was by the same guy (ME :( )whom just last week posted a list, and a link to a larger list, of genome size and chromosome number that included Canidae.
Sheesh, what a dufus eh?
Serious respose this time (sorry, the last post was too good to resist). A living system is not a computer program, and arguing my analogy to a computer operating system only shows you have zero insight into how biological systems work. As b_sharp pointed out, one third of mutations have no effect at all; and mutating a leucine, say, to an isoleucine seldom makes any more than a small change in the properties of a protein.
Dawkins' point - that small changes have linear effects on fitness and therefore are equally likely to be positive or negative - is simple math. You did learn calculus training for that 'high-paying engineering' job, right? (It doesn't involve driving a big yellow truck?) Well, consider fitness a function you've expanded as a power series. Truncate at the first (linear) term. Now make a random small change in the independent variable. What are the chances fitness will increase?
Yes, and a number of other physicists. I find their ideas quite fascinating.
quite fascinating placemarker.
Another problem with amendments added later on to the Constitution is that they often show a lack of understanding for the original design of the Constitution. The relationship between the people, the states, and the federal government was carefully laid out by the founders at the Constitutional Convention. However, some amendments have changed that relationship or removed checks and balances from the original system thus placing the Constitution as a whole in jeopardy. Such amendments that have done this are the 14th whose ratification is extremely controversial, the 17th, 16th, etc. When amending the Constitution it should be done with great consideration with respect to the original design lest you should break the system.
500
Now?
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