Methinks it is like a weasel 
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.
So, in short, those who accept that the theory of evolution is the best current explanation for biological development and diversification are not, and cannot be, conservatives?
Thanks for the ping!
There are sincere evo-fanatics, of course, crankish bores are everywhere. And then there are their directors and users who see this sidebar as a way to make the pridefully-intellectual feel rather embarassed about their religious allies. Be alert to any mention of a vulnerable GOP pol in a blue state. Santorum is one they're after--keep yer ears on.
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How does freedom of thought and liberty serve the interest of the left? It seems to me, religion with its tenets of absolute and unquestioning obedience to a central authority ("God") would mirror the left's desires more.
Is that a compliment or an insult?
I'm sorry, but what chapter and verse is that?
If you're exclusively reading Scientific American for info on the history of the field, you're going to be fed a lot of mistaken information. It's an excellent source for pure science (Gordon Kane's articles on physics are some of my favorites) but it's very erratic when it comes to chronicling the history of science, and completely worthless when it comes to discussions of society and policy.
My point is that the rhetoric serves another agenda--that of trying to pry off a few votes for some vulnerable pols and give the Soros-Dems a chance at taking over the most vulnerable of GOP winnings--the Senate. What Soros can't do by attacking the dollar, he does by spending them.
This article is a bit of trash from a "skeptic" source, a goony gang of fanatics who also take their funding from the Soros trove. It hardly belongs in News. But you've got to keep those articles coming--probably talking points to be posted here from...Media Fund, maybe? They're awash in cash...
I notice that freedom of thought and liberty went suddenly silent when a catastrophic fraud was exposed in Korea and stem-cell research...
Methinks it is like a weasel
Oh, puh-Leeeeze. I've been an atheist since I was fourteen, and never got drunk or drugged, never got laid, and am still very close to my family, including my very Catholic and very liberal mother. Come to think about it, I'm still not getting drunk or drugged, or....
What I imagine is that if I were to repost that original post by Syncretic but change all the 'atheist' words to 'Jewish' I'd most likely be banned.
(Syncretic pinged as a courtesy since I mentioned him.)
:-)
I suggest you check out the fellows of the masthead of this "skeptic" publication. A more puny and feeble crew you won't see outside of a Poindexter Look Alike Contest. They don't look very hopeful, either. Maybe evo-cranks are selecting themselves out of the gene pool?
How did you get that out of "How does freedom of thought and liberty serve the interest of the left?"
I notice that freedom of thought and liberty went suddenly silent when a catastrophic fraud was exposed in Korea and stem-cell research...
Really? In what way? Both NPR and the local news-talk station have been talking about it all morning. If anything, the hoax has stimulated thought.
Einstein laid the foundation for quantum mechanics, but had problems with the theory as it was then formulated. Groundbreaking work continued by Neils Bohr and others. Bohr was considered to have won the debate with Einstein.
Maybe those religious conservatives who have done a bang-up job of organizing, getting out the vote( ....and...actually voting! Libertarians of my acquaintance like to stay home or throw away their votes.) do tend to alienate a faction of urban libertarians who dislike rubbing elbows with their cultural unfamiliars. That's what some folks here are counting on--first up, try to jack up the anti-religious, anti-Christian rhetoric enough to make a few of your "fundamentalists" angry.
Typicall Christians are evo-doubters, and quickly catch on to the demeaning and condescending tone of the Intellectuals who hold evo sacred. Or pretend to hold evo sacred--a rhetorical stick to beat away a few votes.
It is a curious thing, how many new posters come here just to throw around buzz-words like "fundamentalists" "extremists" on the subject of evo, and don't participate in other threads. You can find several in every evo thread. These might be called "seminar posters"--
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