So true.
Posted on 01/10/2006 4:51:17 AM PST by tpeters
Welcome to Science Court
The ruling in the Dover evolution trial shows what the legal and scientific processes have in common--intellectual rigor
Chris Mooney; January 9, 2006
Legally speaking, Judge John E. Jones III's ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District--Pennsylvania's much-discussed lawsuit over the teaching of "intelligent design"--can only be called conservative. The decision draws upon and reinforces a series of prior court precedents, all of which barred creationist encroachment upon the teaching of science in public schools.
In another sense, though, Jones' ruling is revolutionary. We live in a time when the findings of science themselves increasingly seem to be politically determined--when Democrat "science" is pitted against Republican "science" on issues ranging from evolution to global warming. By contrast, Jones' opinion strikes a blow for the proposition that when it comes to matters of science, there aren't necessarily two sides to every story.
Over the course of a lengthy trial, Jones looked closely at the scientific merits of "intelligent design"--the contention that Darwinian evolution cannot explain the biological complexity of living organisms, and that instead some form of intelligence must have created them. And in the end, the judge found ID utterly vacuous. "[ID] cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory," Jones wrote, "as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community."
ID critics have been making these same observations for years; so have leading American scientific societies. Meanwhile, investigative reporters and scholars studying the ID movement have demonstrated that it is, indeed, simply creationism reincarnated--all religion and no science. On the intellectual merits, ID was dead a long time ago. But before Judge Jones came along, it's astonishing how hard it was to get that acknowledged, unequivocally, in public discussion of the issue.
Up until the Dover trial, well-funded ID proponents based at Seattle's Discovery Institute had waged a successful media campaign to sow public doubts about evolution, and to convince Americans that a true scientific "controversy" existed over Darwin's theory. And thanks in part to the conventions of television news, editorial pages, and political reporting--all of which require that "equal time" be allotted to different views in an ongoing political controversy--they were succeeding.
For example, a national survey conducted this spring by Ohio State University professor Matthew Nisbet in collaboration with the Survey Research Institute at Cornell University found serious public confusion about the scientific basis for “intelligent design.” A slight majority of adult Americans (56.3 percent) agreed that evolution is supported by an overwhelming body of scientific evidence, but a very sizeable proportion (44.2 percent) incorrectly thought the same of ID.
Ritualistically "balanced" news media coverage may not be the sole cause of such confusion, but it’s can hardly have helped. Consider just one of many examples of how journalists, in their quest for "objectivity," have lent undue credibility to ID. The York Dispatch, one of two papers covering the evolution battle in Dover, Pennyslvania, repeatedly summarized the two sides of the "debate" thusly: “Intelligent design theory attributes the origin of life to an intelligent being. It counters the theory of evolution, which says that people evolved from less complex beings.” Here we witness the reductio ad absurdum of journalistic "balance." Despite staggering scientific consensus in favor of evolution--and ample documentation of the religious inspiration behind the "intelligent design" movement--evolution and ID were paired together by the Dispatch as two competing "theories."
Judge Jones took a thoroughly different approach, actually bothering to weigh the merits of competing arguments. He inquired whether an explanation that inherently appeals to the supernatural--as "intelligent design" does--can be scientific, and found that it cannot. He searched for published evidence in scientific journals supporting the contentions of the ID movement--and couldn't find it. And in his final opinion, he was anything but "balanced."
We have seen this pattern before. During the early 1980s, the evolution trial McLean v. Arkansas pitted defenders of evolutionary science against so-called “scientific creationists”--the precursors of today's ID proponents. Today, few take the claims of "scientific creationism,” such as the notion that the earth is only a few thousand years old, very seriously. At the time, however, proponents of “creation science” were treated very seriously by members of the national media covering the trial. According to a later analysis of the coverage by media scholars, reporters generally tried to create a “balance” between the scientific-sounding claims of the “scientific” creationists and the arguments of evolutionary scientists.
But in the McLean decision, judge William Overton did no such thing. Rather, the judge carefully investigated whether "creation science" fit the norms of science at all--and found that it did not. Overton therefore concluded that the attempt by the state of Arkansas to include "creation science" in science classes was a transparent attempt to advance a sectarian religious perspective, as barred by the First Amendment. Now, Judge Jones is following in Overton's footsteps very closely. In his decision, Jones cites the McLean case repeatedly.
If there's an underlying moral to be derived from Judge Jones' decision, then, it may be this. It's very easy to attack well-established science through a propaganda campaign aimed at the media and the public. That's precisely what "intelligent design" proponents have done--and they're hardly alone in this. However, it's much more difficult for a PR attack on established science to survive the scrutiny of a serious, independent judge.
That hardly means that courts are more qualified than scientists to determine the validity of evolutionary theory, or other scientific findings. But in their investigative rigor, their commitment to evidence, and their unhesitating willingness to decide arguments on their merits, courts certainly have much more in common with the scientific process than many of today's major media journalists do. The fact that today Judge Jones has become America's leading arbiter of what counts as science certainly underscores his own intellectual seriousness. But it also exposes the failure of other gatekeepers.
Actually, I blame Hollywood for presenting a creationist paradoy of evolution every time mutations get mentioned or used as a plot device. Saltation is the norm for Hollywood.
With a last name like that, he must have gone through hell in grade school..
Then why are you helping the left? It should be patently obvious to anyone on these threads that there are many genuine conservatives that will not tolerate religious anti-science agendas? So then why are you continuing to push such a thing, unless it's you who are working for Soros?
And I am happy to have the votes of the Christian right for my party, and hope to keep them--and I think we will.
Well, they're certainly not going to vote for Democrats. Duh.
we'll be keeping an eye on Santorum, since the evos have indicated that they'd like to replace him with a Dem.
If Santorum had continued his creationist views, he would have lost the Republicans far more than one Senate seat.
You don't get it, but people will not have religion shoved down their necks. ID is religion, pure and simple. The Republicans require support from non-religious and non-creationist Christians and Jews in order to remain viable. Why are you attempting to alienate them, unless you're working for Soros?
You're full of it. Conservatives of any stripe do not want Santorum replaced by a dem.
Interesting that Einstein won the Nobel Prize for his contribution to quantum theory (1905 paper on the photoelectric effect) and 23 years later, the backbone of quantum theory was finished.
What decades are you referring to?
Note, I am not a psychologist. I'm just married to one.
I think you're right. She's the one trying to put a wedge in, so to speak.
She doesn't want any atheists, agnostics, secularists or Buddhists voting Republican.
You poor sap. I've been an atheist since I was 14 (1969) and did get drunk frequently from 17 to 20, and did my share of Acid and smoke dope. Also had a few girlfriends. *You* could have had all of this if you were a proper atheist.
Just as an aside, I haven't touched drugs (other than as prescribed by my doctor) since my daughter was born in 1977 and I drink maybe 3 oz of alcohol a year. I've been married for 29 years. See? Families mean nothing to me.
I really am just a no good nasty atheist aren't I?
So true.
Your reply is not making any sense in light of your earlier posts and my replies to them. I'm not offended; I'm a skeptic -- and I'm a 230 lbs. Navy Chief Petty Officer with nearly 19 years of service under my belt; a far cry from your denigrating remarks about "frail" "pencil necks."
Quite right. It's the progressives who'd seize upon any promising tool to overturn the Senate majority. ID/evo is as good a tool as any--and it's helpful that there are so many poseurs from the Temple of Science, and resentful libertarians, who'll carry their water.
You posted ad hominems, and now you have the nerve to be surprised to be called on it? Gimme a break.
I'll be gauging your "anti lookism" sincerity next time there's a Helen Thomas thread.
You mean there are people here who know something about science? That's a little hard to accept, I think we need to see some 'cites' for this.
Where did this "lookism" stuff come from? Oh, I forgot -- your fevered, paranoid imagination. You were the one that brought up the physical appearance of your (mental) enemies, as if that had any bearing on their arguments. It was the equivalent of the "wel, well, you're ugly!" method of argumentation.
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