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A Cut-and-Paste Ruling: Judging Intelligent Design (Judge in Dover case busted)
Breakpoint with Chuck Colson ^ | 2/2/2007 | Chuck Colson

Posted on 02/02/2007 8:12:16 PM PST by Mr. Silverback

Judge John Jones once told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he became a judge hoping that someday he would have a chance “to rule in matters of great importance.”

Well, last year he got his chance. He ruled on Kitzmiller v. Dover, holding that you could not teach intelligent design in public schools. But given what’s leaked out about his decision, Judge Jones is not likely to be remembered as “an outstanding thinker,” as Time magazine called him. Instead, we might remember him as the judge who let a litigant write his opinion.

Maybe I am an idealist, but going back to law school, I have always respected judges. I believe they take seriously their oath to uphold the laws and the Constitution and to rule impartially. Sad to say, this judge apparently did not.

Maybe I should not have been surprised because, two months before the case was heard, the judge said in a newspaper interview that he was going to go see Inherit the Wind, the old film about the Scopes trial, hopelessly biased toward the evolutionists’ view. He said he wanted to do it to get a context for hearing the Dover case. I wrote him and explained that it is historically inaccurate; he never replied.

Now it turns out that even as the media was praising Judge Jones for his brilliant insights, the Discovery Institute found that ACLU attorneys had actually written key sections of the ruling. In the section on intelligent design, more than 90 percent “was taken virtually verbatim from the ACLU’s proposed ‘Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law’,” so says the Discovery Institute.

Thus, as the Discovery Institute notes, the central part of the ruling reflects no original, deliberative activity or independent examination of the record on the judge’s part.

And that’s not all. The problem when you let somebody else write your decision is that they may make a mistake. And you, then, look silly.

For example, Jones misrepresented biochemist Michael Behe; he claimed that Behe said that articles purporting to explain the evolution of the immune system were not good enough. But what Behe actually said was: “It’s not that they aren’t good enough. It’s simply that they are addressed to a different subject.” This came right out of the ACLU’s writings.

Jones also claimed that intelligent design “is not supported by any peer-reviewed . . . publications.” Again, wrong and, again, straight from the ACLU’s brief.

This, it turns out, is not even the first time or maybe the worst of Judge Jones passing off other people’s words as his own. In a commencement address, he “employed direct quotations from the book The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America,” according to World magazine, “without providing citation or indication that he was quoting.”

As World magazine noted, none of what Judge Jones did in the Dover decision amounts to a violation of judicial ethics. But other judges will hardly be impressed, which is a good thing since the press are saying this is a precedent for future cases.

The Old Testament warns judges: “You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality.” Cutting and pasting from one side’s brief does not say much for impartiality—something for you to point out next time someone throws the Dover decision in your face.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: breakpoint; dover; evolution; evolutiondover; judges; law
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To: Jeff Gordon
"God exists because we allow Him to exist."

Sad to see such twisted, depraved ignorance posted here. The time will come when you will wish that he had not allowed you to exist, but exist you will, eternally.

101 posted on 02/04/2007 7:47:48 PM PST by editor-surveyor
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To: William Terrell; Mr. Silverback
"How many judges watch movies, and how many moviemakers know it?"

Or, how many court rulings are based on nothing but hollywood fantasy?

102 posted on 02/04/2007 7:53:05 PM PST by editor-surveyor
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To: Balding_Eagle
"PLUS, you got it in early, so guys like me, who don't know some of this stuff can learn the whole truth before we get sucked in."

But apparently you got sucked in by his deliberate lies anyway.

103 posted on 02/04/2007 7:56:07 PM PST by editor-surveyor
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To: editor-surveyor
Or, how many court rulings are based on nothing but hollywood fantasy?

And if Hollywood understands what influenced those rulings. . .

104 posted on 02/04/2007 8:01:22 PM PST by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: editor-surveyor

By whose lies?


105 posted on 02/04/2007 8:34:47 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (If America falls, darkness will cover the face of the earth for a thousand years.)
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To: editor-surveyor

At least while I am on earth I am not cowering in fear of the giant bully is the sky.


106 posted on 02/04/2007 8:40:05 PM PST by Jeff Gordon (History convinces me that bad government results from too much government. - Thomas Jefferson)
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Comment #107 Removed by Moderator

To: Jeff Gordon; editor-surveyor
//not cowering in fear of the giant bully is the sky//

Well good, I am not either.

Such statements as that are an in-look to a degree to the size of the box that a mind works out of.
108 posted on 02/04/2007 10:49:59 PM PST by RunningWolf (2-1 Cav 1975)
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To: RunningWolf
Such statements as that are an in-look to a degree to the size of the box that a mind works out of.

Please restate in standard English. I am sure you have something interesting to say. I would like to understand it.

109 posted on 02/05/2007 12:08:43 AM PST by Jeff Gordon (History convinces me that bad government results from too much government. - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: Jeff Gordon
"At least while I am on earth I am not cowering in fear of the giant bully is the sky"

Yes, it's the promise of what is to come of which I speak.

110 posted on 02/05/2007 2:37:19 PM PST by editor-surveyor
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To: Jeff Gordon
Well I guess I felt that to much would be lost in the translation if I whittled my message down into the context of 'bully in the sky' metaphors. and I don't think I could do that anyway.

I guess when I hear something like that I wonder how far a person has really given intense deep thought to it and/or meditation.

Regards,
111 posted on 02/05/2007 9:46:26 PM PST by RunningWolf (2-1 Cav 1975)
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To: spunkets
Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories
112 posted on 02/15/2007 10:06:04 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: RunningWolf; Jeff Gordon
I guess when I hear something like that I wonder how far a person has really given intense deep thought to it and/or meditation.

Thanks, Wolf. You've really given me an in-look to the size of the box that your mind is working out of.
113 posted on 02/21/2007 10:10:27 PM PST by aNYCguy
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To: aNYCguy

LOL


114 posted on 02/22/2007 12:06:27 AM PST by Jeff Gordon (History convinces me that bad government results from too much government. - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: zylphed
The 14th amendment applied all individual rights to the states and all jurisdictions of the government. Hence, if California decided to make Islam the literal "state" religion, it would be unconstitutional. And if school boards decide to teach what is clearly a religious concept as fact, that is also unconstitutional.

Actually I believe that they want to teach ID as THEORY. It is evolution (and man made global warming and genetic origins for homosexuality) that is taught as established fact.

115 posted on 02/24/2007 11:15:01 PM PST by weegee (No third term. Hillary Clinton's 2008 election run presents a Constitutional Crisis.)
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