Down but Hardly Out: Intelligent Design and the Courts

Yesterday a federal judge in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, issued his long-awaited ruling in the intelligent design (ID) case. As I feared, he ruled against the Dover school system's inclusion of intelligent design in biology classes. While I am disappointed at the ruling, I am not disheartened, and you should not be either.

In his 139-page opinion, Judge John E. Jones concluded that "it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom." In reaching this decision, he found that intelligent design is not "science" because its ideas can't be either verified or falsified through normal scientific methods.

Jones also ruled that intelligent design "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents." He called the claimed secular purpose for including ID in the curriculum—improving science education—"a pretext for the Board's real purpose": to promote religion in the public school classroom. (The secular purpose test is decisive in these kinds of cases.) Now, I strongly disagree, but this tells us what has to be done in other cases if we are going to succeed.

Jones was particularly hard on school board members who, in his opinion, lied "time and again . . . to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy." His conclusions about the "real purpose behind the ID policy" were based on what happened outside school board meetings and not just inside them. He pointed to the history of the policy's adoption and statements made by the policy's supporters.

By way of anticipating the reaction to the ruling, Jones emphasized that "he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed . . . " And this is the key: In Kansas and other jurisdictions, the teaching is permitted, not mandated. Always seek an open forum, so all sides can be discussed, and science compared to science.

As a lawyer, this case reminds me of the old adage that bad cases make bad law. In this case, I fear, well-intentioned school-board members overplayed their hand: Given the current state of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, there was little chance of the policy, as written, withstanding a constitutional challenge.

The Discovery Institute understands this: In its statement on this case, Discovery opposes "efforts to get the government to require the teaching of intelligent design." It sees the divisiveness engendered by such policies as likely hindering "a fair and open discussion of the merits of intelligent design among scholars and within the scientific community . . . " What's more, Discovery doubts that most teachers know enough about ID to "teach about it accurately and objectively."

"How can I be an optimist," you ask, "in the face of yesterday's decision?" Because I know that if we equip ourselves and do our job, truth will out. We should not despair. Our case is compelling if we frame it carefully, ask the right questions, and expose the claims of Darwinists.

To do this, it means you and I need to equip ourselves. My suggestion to you is that you call us here at BreakPoint (1-877-322-5527) so we can tell you how to get your hands on material that will equip you well to make a case—a case that is strong and will withstand constitutional challenge.

In reaching this decision, he found that intelligent design is not "science" because its ideas can't be either verified or falsified through normal scientific methods.

Neither can Evolution. At least they can still teach Chemistry and Physics. Well, most physics anyway.

I wish Chuck Colson all the best, but he is naive. The root of the problem is that science is a client of big government, and so is education. But the government has a vested interest in preventing the raising of a moral self-sufficient generation, -- because a moral self-sufficient generation will easily discard 90% of the government as innecessary waste. The government (not any particular adnministration, but the government as a system) correctly identifies that Intelligent Design is vaguely connected to a religious outlook, and that is sufficient to anathemize ID in public schools. The science will always provide the government with the necessary "scientific" argumentation. To think that the scientific community en masse will gather under the banner of "science compared to science" is to expect a pig to walk away from the trough, althouigh individual scientists perhaps might, to a great detriment to their careers.

Annalex,

Outstanding! Alas, someone on a blog-site is making a deeper connection in regard to this issue. I would only add this: there is a triumverate of interests at play here, not merely a duality.

Big Business, Big Government, and Big Science are an unholy Trinity, joined together and mutually feeding off of one another, wittingly or not, "cloning the same low-quality man" (as the novelist Musil once put it in his novel about the decline of the Austro-Hungarian empire and its replacement by consumerist society).

Big Science limits the scope of human knowledge to that which can be conceived on analogy to human factum, orienting all human intellectual resources to the goal of technological mastery, assimilating man himself to the machines that he creates. Big Business and Big Government provide all the resources that they can muster to keep this state of affairs alive. For Big Business, there is money to be made (an endless array of new consumer goods produced, creating needs and desires where none existed before). For Big Government, there is power to be garnered(by, as you recognize, the abolition of the free individual and responsible moral agent, so that all will be enslaved to Moloch of the State).

ID points to a type of knowledge that is not essentially utilitarian and so cannot be manipulated for the accrual of money and power. That makes it quite threatening indeed...

someone on a blog-site is making a deeper connection in regard to this issue

I don't understand what you are referring to.

For Big Business, there is money to be made

That is true. The overregulated, litiguous business environment that passes for capitalism today makes true individualistic entrepreneurialism difficult to the point of impossibility, and favors big business catering to the mass market. It is easier to sell 1,000 hamburgers than a single gourmet meal. So, the big business becomes dependent on the miseducated masses, and the third leg of the triumvirate is formed.

"By way of anticipating the reaction to the ruling, Jones emphasized that "he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed . . . " And this is the key: In Kansas and other jurisdictions, the teaching is permitted, not mandated. Always seek an open forum, so all sides can be discussed, and science compared to science."

This is a typical creationist citing/lying technique.
First if you put something between quotation marks you have to cite and identify your alterations.

The correct statement is:
"Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."
(p. 137, Case No. 04cv2688 "Memorandum Opinion")

or finally
"NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED THAT:

1. A declaratory judgment is hereby issued in favor of Plaintiffs pursuant...

2. Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 65, Defendants are permanently enjoined from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District.

3. Because Plaintiffs..."
(p. 139, Case No. 04cv2688 "Memorandum Opinion")

The key of the judgment is ID is not scientific therefore keep it out of science classes.

The key of the judgment is ID is not scientific therefore keep it out of science classes.

Lacking specific legislation to inform it, what standing does the law have to define science? The same standing that it has to define school curriculum: none. The school board was within its rights; the judge was not.

Fascists and statists both left and right like to use the courts to create law rather than interpret it. Don't like ID? Pass a law against it. That's what the legislature is for.

"Lacking specific legislation to inform it, what standing does the law have to define science? The same standing that it has to define school curriculum: none. The school board was within its rights; the judge was not."

A school board is not above the law. No school board can decide whether it's legal to punish students with a cane or not. Sometimes you need a judge to stop nonsense taught like rain is teardrops of angels.

A school curriculum is limited to some topics. You can't teach quantum electrodynamics at school level.

Students won't even read that correct.

ID is at the moment only a philosophy without some scientific merits. You can't put every new or old idea in a school science curriculum. You can't teach every controversy at school especially there is non in the scientific world.

If you read the 1st amendment, you will see that our Founding Fathers did not want an established religion - that's it!

Our Founders would be shocked that a little curriculum change, like reading a one minute statement, would be considered an established religion.

Bill of Rights

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

A school board is not above the law...

Of course it isn't and nobody says that it is. The key to the argument is this: "Lacking legislation or established case law to inform it, the court has ZERO jurisdiction to establish curriculum". Can you point to a Pennsylvania law that says that "ID may not be taught in public schools" or "Only evolution may be taught in biology classes"?

You can't, of course. School boards are given tremendous leeway to set curriculum within the general standards established by the state. The "above the law" strawman is starting to rot a bit.

Don't like ID? Pass a law against it, if you can.

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