Posted on 12/12/2006 8:52:13 AM PST by editor-surveyor
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by ACLU lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute.
One year ago, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones' 139-page ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover declared unconstitutional a school board policy that required students of a ninth-grade biology class in the Dover Area School District to hear a one-minute statement that said evolution is a theory and intelligent design "is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view."
University of Chicago geophysicist Raymond Pierrehumbert called Jones' ruling a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" while lawyer Ed Darrell said the judge "wrote a masterful decision, a model for law students on how to decide a case based on the evidence presented." Time magazine said the ruling made Jones one of "the world's most influential people" in the category of "scientists and thinkers."
But an analysis by the Discovery Institute, the leading promoter of intelligent design, concludes about 90.9 percent – 5,458 words of his 6,004-word section on intelligent design as science – was taken virtually verbatim from the ACLU's proposed "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law" submitted to Jones nearly a month before his ruling.
"Judge Jones's decision wasn't a masterpiece of scholarship. It was a masterpiece of cut-and-paste," said the Discovery Institute's John West in a phone conference with reporters yesterday.
West is vice president for public policy and legal affairs for the group's Center for Science and Culture, which issued a statement saying, "The finding that most of Judge Jones' analysis of intelligent design was apparently not the product of his own original deliberative activity seriously undercuts the credibility of Judge Jones' examination of the scientific validity of intelligent design."
(Excerpt)
"He probably didn't want the Galileo treatment. You know, the Inquisition..."
I guess that would also explain why Pascal, Pasteur, Kelvin, and Maxwell were devout Christians who believed their mission as scientists was to discover the laws of the Creator.
Most modern evolutionists don't have a clue about the history of science, and they routinely piss on the legacy they inherited from.
DAWKINS: (snip)"…But yet we have this gathering together of genes into individual organisms. And that reminds me of the illusion of one mind, when actually there are lots of little mindlets in there, and the illusion of the soul of the white ant in the termite mound, where you have lots of little entities all pulling together to create an illusion of one. Am I right to think that the feeling that I have that I'm a single entity, who makes decisions, and loves and hates and has political views and things, that this is a kind of illusion that has come about because Darwinian selection found it expedient to create that illusion of unitariness rather than let us be a kind of society of mind?"
If this kind of garbage doesn't frighten or disgust you, you may well be beyond hope.
Dawkins is a charlatan who impresses small minds (or should I say "mindlets"). Check out my review of his book The Blind Watchmaker at http://RussP.us/Dawkins.htm
You're so right, and it makes no sense to be requesting that others pray, while you openly disobey the word of God. Another thing that I have noticed is how quickly my friends here are dying, and I don't take that lightly.
Just to observations:
That is media propaganda, not fact. Lifespans are exactly the same now as they were when the Lord walked the Earth.
"The Japanese are amongst those with the longest lifespans..."
More media myth. White northern Europeans, and Americans descended from that group continue to be the longest lived population. The "oldest person in the world" just died in Tennessee a few days ago, and was replaced by a woman in California.
That is correct. However, there is a substantial difference between the court's opinion and it's order. The order merely denies or grants relief requested while the opinion explains the legal rationale for the courts order.
That said, many courts will adopt much of the legal argument of the winning side in an opinion. Generally, the court (especially on a landmark decision) will do more than merely cut & paste from one sides brief.
This doesn't necessarily mean the ruling was wrong or the brief incorrect - but does demonstrate intellectual laziness.
Oldest Living people...
Held title from.... to.... name.. age at death ..town, country
march 2002 oct 2003 Kamato Hongo 116 Kagoshima, Japan
oct 2003 nov 2003 Miyoto Kawate 114 Hiroshima, Japan
nov 2003 may 2004 Ramona-Tridnidad 114 Puerto Rico
Iglesias-Jordan
may 2004 aug 2006 Maria Capovilla 116 Guyaquil, Ecuador
aug 2006 11 dec 2006 Elizabeth Bolden 116 Memphis, Tennessee
11 dec 2006 - Emiliano Mercado 115 Puerto Rico
del Toro
Outrageous. This ruling should be overturned imediately.
Even more so when the judge asks the parties to submit proposed findings and conclusions. The whole purpose of the exercise is that he will then take the document submitted by the party he's decided for and either sign that as his order, or modify it to his liking, which is apparently what happened here. This is a very routine procedure.
That looks to me more like science vs. cartoons -- and you seem to be on the side of the cartoons.
es: That is media propaganda, not fact. Lifespans are exactly the same now as they were when the Lord walked the Earth.
You are kidding, aren't you? What kind of statistics are you using? Heck, any life-insurance company calculating its premiums on your assumptions would be out of business next Tuesday...
st:"The Japanese are amongst those with the longest lifespans..."
es:More media myth. White northern Europeans, and Americans descended from that group continue to be the longest lived population. The "oldest person in the world" just died in Tennessee a few days ago, and was replaced by a woman in California.
The media spin reached the CIA factbook: Here is its ranking of nations by life expectancy by birth.
Japan: 81.25 years
US: 77.85 years
Again, my question: is the Lord more pleased with Shintoism?
Obviously not, since his own have eternal life in his presence, while shintos get eternal fire and brimstone.
"So what?" is exactly the point: Newton's beliefs are absolutely irrelevant for the topic of evolution vs. ID as he was a creationist by default.
You may not believe this, but the Theory of Relativity is actually a relatively minor refinement of the Newtonian model of the world. Newton's model, on the other hand, was a profound step forward -- arguable the greatest scientific advancement of all time.
Newton's model fitted perfectly the available data. The Theory of Relativity had to be developed when new data occurred resp. electromagnetism was to be integrated. "Relatively minor refinements" is a relative fuzzy term :-)
Incidentally, I read years ago that Newton's model may have actually been more accurate than we realize. His force equation is usually written as F = m dv/dt, but he actually wrote it as F = d(mv)/dt, which may be more accurate and capture the relativistic effect. But I am not a physicist, so don't hold me to that.
Yep, by this all bodies with changing mass (like rockets) fit into his theory. I have my private hypothesis (absolutely made up from thin air) that he did it for aesthetic reasons: "force is change of momentum" has the idea of derivation in it, "force is mass times acceleration" sound more static...
"Newton's beliefs are absolutely irrelevant for the topic of evolution vs. ID as he was a creationist by default."
Newton emphasized in no uncertain terms his awe at the Creator and the Creation. He did not need to do that for any reason other than to express his genuine feelings and thoughts. He was a great scientist, arguably the greatest of all time. You ought to try to learn something from him.
I think you missed the point about the force equation. Note that
F = d(mv)/dt = m dv/dt + v dm/dt
where dm/dt could have relevance to relativistic change in mass with velocity. Again, I am not a physicist. I am just throwing this out for anyone who might be interested.
Newton was also a fervent alchemist and spent virtually his whole career after the Principea seeking the "Philosophik Mercury" and trying to turn lead into gold.
He was also (by all reports) a jerk who kept his mathematical discoveries secret for decades before being forced to publish them when another scientist (Liebniz) was closing in on developing calculus seperately.
The fact that Newton was "in awe of the Creator" is an argument from authority (which Newton actually isn't in this case) and is a logical fallacy.
It's essentially the same argument as those who point to the reports of Darwin recanting on his deathbed as disproving evolution. (he didn't, and even if he did, it wouldn't prove or disprove a thing.)
I'm interested in the basic assertion: was his ruling roughly 90% or so of the ACLU brief?
If nothing else, it says he liked their brief.
But what about the basic fact: is the 90% number true?
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