Posted on 08/29/2006 10:35:35 AM PDT by JSedreporter
Last year’s decision in Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School Board caused quite a stir. Evolutionists loudly trumpeted their victory, while others spoke out in disagreement with the ruling for a variety of reasons.
Some attacked Judge John E. Jones III for his decision, saying he was a judicial activist. According to the ruling, Jones anticipated that.
“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.”
In this case however, it seems the Judge is protesting too much, at least authors of a new book about the decision think so.
Reading another statement from the decision, an arrogance and overreach is distinctly apparent:
“[T]he Court is confident that no other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than are we to traipse into this controversial area…[W]e will offer our conclusion on whether ID is science not just because it is essential to our holding that an Establishment Clause violation has occurred in this case, but also in the hope that it may prevent the obvious waste of judicial and other resources which would be occasioned by a subsequent trial involving the precise question which is before us,” Jones writes in the decision.
David DeWolf is a professor of law at Gonzaga Law School, Dr. John West holds a Ph.D in Government and chairs the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific, Casey Luskin is an attorney and a scientist, and Dr. Jonathan Witt holds a Ph.D. in English.
Together, these four men wrote Traipsing into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision, the title coming from Jones very own words. It was released by Discovery Institute Press in May.
Criticism of Jones as a judicial activist is only one of the points made in Traipsing. In the short, 103-page book, the men detail the case’s one-sided history of the Intelligent Design Movement, the poorly made case against I.D.’s status as science, the failure to treat religion neutrally, why it has limited value as precedent and then offer up evidence for their conclusions with three appendices.
The authors point out many things including the fact that Intelligent Design proponents “neither sought nor supported the policy adopted by the Dover School Board.” The Discovery Institute, a leading organization in the Intelligent Design movement, disagreed with the Dover Board’s method of introducing I.D. in classrooms, promoting instead a “teach-the-controversy” approach.
They state that in his decision, “Judge Jones repeatedly misrepresented both the facts and the law in his opinion, sometimes egregiously (e.g., he asserted that scientists who support intelligent design have published no peer-reviewed articles of research, which is demonstrably false). When cross-checked against the evidence and arguments presented in the court record, many of Judge Jones’ key assertions turn out to be erroneous, contradictory, or irrelevant.”
And on the issue of judicial overreach, the authors explain “it is a standard principle of good constitutional interpretation that a judge should venture only as far as necessary to answer the issue before him. If a judge can decide a case on narrow grounds, then that is what he ought to do.”
Simply put, when Jones found that the school board was acting without a legitimate secular purpose all he needed to do was rule the policy unconstitutional. That would have been the end of it.
Instead, as Traipsing points out in detail, Jones put the intelligent design movement on trial and ruled against it even though it was unnecessary and unfair. But if you want to know the whole case against Jones’ flawed reasoning, you’ll have to read this book for yourself.
Julia A. Seymour is a staff writer for Accuracy in Academia.
Then DI was reduced to whining about "teach the controversy" and making ad hominem attacks on Judge Jones. And trying to spin the defeat of DI-backed candidates on the Dover school board.
DI was getting desperate because some of their chief financial angels like Ahmanson began asking what he was getting for his $$millions. Chapman and Myers pay themselves handsome 6-figure salaries--what to do when the income drops?
Under pressure, DI pulled out all the stops in their effort to keep ID-supporters on the Kansas school board. DI lost significantly in the primary on Aug 2. After spending a reported $3.1 million to defeat pro-science candidates with billboards, radio and TV ads, and direct support to candidates, the "intelligent design" supporters lost their majority. DI came away from Kansas totally empty handed, and poorer.
Ahmanson and other other contributors were furious. DI has established a pretty solid record that whenever the Disco Institute gets involved, "intelligent design" loses.
I don't think it is fair to say AIA has jumped on any bandwagon or should lose any credibility whasoever. I...myself, Julia Seymour, the author of the piece chose to review a book and I gave my opinion. It was not required and I was under no obligation to write about the book. I think some people who comment on here are very quick to take their disagreement on an issue or an organization and make very sweeping judgments based on the difference of opinion.
That being said, I am not an IDer. I am a creationist. I do not agree completely with any of the authors of this book or with Michael Behe. But I believe this book clarifies the role Discovery Institute played and dissects several instances of bad law. As a person who believes sound reasoning is extremely important the book interested me. Some of you might actually want to read it before denouncing me, AIA or DI.
I hope you're right, though you're not the first self-identified AIA person I've seen spouting creationist nonsense in a public forum.
I...myself, Julia Seymour, the author of the piece chose to review a book and I gave my opinion. It was not required and I was under no obligation to write about the book.
I'm glad.
I think some people who comment on here are very quick to take their disagreement on an issue or an organization and make very sweeping judgments based on the difference of opinion.
When I see someone visibly affiliated with an organization advocating a position akin to a flat-earth or witchcraft, I react more strongly than if it were a mere difference of opinion.
That being said, I am not an IDer. I am a creationist.
Even worse.
I do not agree completely with any of the authors of this book or with Michael Behe. But I believe this book clarifies the role Discovery Institute played and dissects several instances of bad law.
Believe what you may.
As a person who believes sound reasoning is extremely important the book interested me.
If you really believed in the importance of sound reasoning, you would not be a creationist.
Some of you might actually want to read it before denouncing me, AIA or DI.
I've read the arguments in the book in essays by Discovery Institute Fellows. That's enough to get the gist. I don't have time to read every piece of nonsense that comes out.
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