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Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal ^ | 1006 | Chris Mooney

[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.

[Right Wing Professor]

I have always hated atheism

Imagine the uproar here if someone posted 'I have always hated religion'.

[HEY4QDEMS]

I'm tired so what ever you say Professor.

I'll just keep reading Scientific American and check with you as the higher authority.

[Right Wing Professor]

I'll just keep reading Scientific American and check with you as the higher authority.

I have no idea what you're reading, but you are completely wrong about the history of quantum mechanics.

[orionblamblam]

> Atheists will never be able to protect themselves. I doubt they would fight and die for each other.

You would be wrong. Atheists, for example, are over-represented in the military, for starters.

> I have always hated atheism.

That's nice. I've always hated unthinking and ignorant religious bigots.

> Many of our worst problems--family breakdown, government corruption, metastazing government--I believe are caused, or at least aggravated by, atheists.

Ah. Another proponent of the "Protocols of the Elders of Atheism."

[HEY4QDEMS]

This is what I'm reading.

Ive been reading it for about six years and I love it, I swear I'm not a Geek.

[Servant of the 9]

and gain acceptance in the scientific community."

Einstein dismissed quantum mechanics as junk science. For that reason it was never studied for almost three decades, now it is one of the hottest research areas of physics.

It's a good thing a Judge didn't affirm Einstein's sentiment.

Bullshit.
Einstein never dismissed quantum theory as 'junk science'.
He won the Nobel Prize for his paper on Brownian Motion, which was one of the founding papers of quantum theory.
There never was a time when quantum physics wasn't one of the hottest areas of physical research.
He had some strong quibbles as to whether quantum theory was the bottom layer of reality, or only the best current aproximation of it, but he never dismissed it as junk or untrue.

So9

[Right Wing Professor]

So where does it say QM was not studied for 30 years because of Einstein?

[Coyoteman]

(WHERE'S ALL THAT FOSSIL EVIDENCE) -- your tagline.

Why, here's some now!

---

Fossil: KNM-WT 15000

Site: Nariokotome, West Turkana, Kenya (1)

Discovered By: K. Kimeu, 1984 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.6 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7, 10), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Male (based on pelvis, browridge) (1, 8, 9)

Cranial Capacity: 880 (909 as adult) cc (1)

Information: Most complete early hominid skeleton (80 bones and skull) (1, 8)

Interpretation: Hairless and dark pigmented body (based on environment, limb proportions) (7, 8, 9). Juvenile (9-12 based on 2nd molar eruption and unfused growth plates) (1, 3, 4, 7, 8). Juvenile (8 years old based on recent studies on tooth development) (27). Incapable of speech (based on narrowing of spinal canal in thoracic region) (1)

Nickname: Turkana Boy (1), Nariokotome Boy

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=38

[peyton randolph]

I believe there may or may not have been a prime mover who set the wheels in motion of the universe and then went out for a beer and hasn't been seen since.

Deism in a nutshell.

[Blzbba]

"Many of our worst problems--family breakdown, government corruption, metastazing government--I believe are caused, or at least aggravated by, atheists."



You may believe that, but statistics show that prisons across America are filled with Christians and Muslims, not atheists. Atheists make up a very-small % of the criminal population.

Also, just the fact that a mere 10% of the population considers themselves to be 'atheists' shows that their effects can't be as large and as insidious as you accuse.

The fact that roughly 50% of Christian marriges end in divorce is yet another indicator that it isn't atheists who are wrecking families - it's adulterous Christians.

[Physicist]

Einstein dismissed quantum mechanics as junk science. For that reason it was never studied for almost three decades, now it is one of the hottest research areas of physics.

Preposterous. Quantum mechanics has been the very backbone of physics since it was devised in the 1920's. Einstein never called it "junk science"; his objections were subtle points of interpretation, not a dismissal of the formalism. Furthermore, he stood virtually alone in promoting those objections; they didn't delay scientific progress by one second.

[peyton randolph]

Another proponent of the "Protocols of the Elders of Atheism."

LOL. Don't forget those atheists on the CFR, the Bildebergers, and the Trilateral Commission.

We've got some Art Bell show material here.

[Netheron]

Okay, if you want to argue that the Manhattan Project is merely an application, what about all the work done on (Quantum Electro Dynamics, i.e. Quantum Field Theory) QED/QFT from the 20's to the 50's.

[orionblamblam]

> Don't forget those atheists on the CFR, the Bildebergers, and the Trilateral Commission.


You know, even though I'm not an atheist... I need to *find* these people and sign up.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[Vaquero]

I flagrantly stole the 'went out for a beer' bit from a funny sci-fi novel call 'Venus on the Half Shell' by Kilgore Trout a pseudonym created by Kurt Vonnegut and used by another sci-fi author Philip Jose Farmer by license.

(And may I say in reference to you Tagline that I worship at the Shrine of the almighty FUDD every time I enter the fields and forests in search of Waskawy Wabbits. )

[highball]

I have always hated atheism.

It's nice to see that the left doesn't have a monopoly on religious bigotry.

[Mamzelle]

I guess a shill poster will have to do the job--welcome to Free Republic.

Mooney is in the pay of Soros and others on the far left--a documentarian who did "Super Size Me" is making a Michael Moore style "The Republican War on Science"-- his minions here on FR seek to tear up the place just enough to get a few vulnerable GOP Senators out of office (and maybe get a Dem Senate.)

The idea--sow disloyalty between the urban libertarians and religious conservatives, which thus far has been an unbeatable combo for putting the GOP and GOP conservatives into office.

Beware. These are leftists in evo-freak cloning....er...clothing.

[Oztrich Boy]

I have always hated atheism.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love. - Jonathan Swift:

[Junior]

I have always hated atheism.

So much for "love your neighbor as yourself..."