Judge rules against "Intelligent Design."

[Annie]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051220/ap_on_re_us/evolution_debate

Judge Rules Against Pa. Biology Curriculum

By MARTHA RAFFAELE, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago

"Intelligent design" cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said. Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said.

The school board policy, adopted in October 2004, was believed to have been the first of its kind in the nation.

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy," Jones wrote.

The board's attorneys had said members were seeking to improve science education by exposing students to alternatives to Charles Darwin's theory that evolution develops through natural selection. Intelligent-design proponents argue that the theory cannot fully explain the existence of complex life forms.

The plaintiffs challenging the policy argued that intelligent design amounts to a secular repackaging of creationism, which the courts have already ruled cannot be taught in public schools. The judge agreed.

"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he wrote in his 139-page opinion.

The Dover policy required students to hear a statement about intelligent design before ninth-grade biology lessons on evolution. The statement said Charles Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps." It refers students to an intelligent-design textbook, "Of Pandas and People," for more information.

Jones wrote that he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed, saying its advocates "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors."

But, he wrote, "our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."

The controversy divided the community and galvanized voters to oust eight incumbent school board members who supported the policy in the Nov. 8 school board election.

Said the judge: "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

The board members were replaced by a slate of eight opponents who pledged to remove intelligent design from the science curriculum.

Eric Rothschild, the lead attorney for the families who challenged the policy, called the ruling "a real vindication for the parents who had the courage to stand up and say there was something wrong in their school district."

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which represented the school board, did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.

The dispute is the latest chapter in a long-running debate over the teaching of evolution dating back to the famous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, in which Tennessee biology teacher John T. Scopes was fined $100 for violating a state law that forbade teaching evolution. The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed his conviction on a technicality, and the law was repealed in 1967.

Jones heard arguments in the fall during a six-week trial in which expert witnesses for each side debated intelligent design's scientific merits. Other witnesses, including current and former school board members, disagreed over whether creationism was discussed in board meetings months before the curriculum change was adopted.

The case is among at least a handful that have focused new attention on the teaching of evolution in the nation's schools.

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court in Georgia heard arguments over whether evolution disclaimer stickers placed in a school system's biology textbooks were unconstitutional. A federal judge in January ordered Cobb County school officials to immediately remove the stickers, which called evolution a theory, not a fact.

In November, state education officials in Kansas adopted new classroom science standards that call the theory of evolution into question.

 

[Nienna]

Mnay proponents of ID are evolutionists. They espouse the theory of the Big Bang as well as Macroevolution. This is very different from Creation Science, which holds that the universe was formed exactly as outlined in Genesis.

 

[Mariner]

From today's New York Times. Note that the judge who ruled against I.D. as science is a Republican, and was appointed by President Bush.


December 21, 2005
Judge Rejects Teaching Intelligent Design

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
HARRISBURG, Pa., Dec. 20 - A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that it was unconstitutional for a Pennsylvania school district to present intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in high school biology courses because it is a religious viewpoint that advances "a particular version of Christianity."

In the nation's first case to test the legal merits of intelligent design, the judge, John E. Jones III, issued a broad, stinging rebuke to its advocates and provided strong support for scientists who have fought to bar intelligent design from the science curriculum.

Judge Jones also excoriated members of the Dover, Pa., school board, who he said lied to cover up their religious motives, made a decision of "breathtaking inanity" and "dragged" their community into "this legal maelstrom with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

Eleven parents in Dover, a growing suburb about 20 miles south of Harrisburg, sued their school board a year ago after it voted to have teachers read students a brief statement introducing intelligent design in ninth-grade biology class.

The statement said that there were "gaps in the theory" of evolution and that intelligent design was another explanation they should examine.

Judge Jones, a Republican appointed by President Bush, concluded that intelligent design was not science, and that in order to claim that it is, its proponents admit they must change the very definition of science to include supernatural explanations.

Judge Jones said that teaching intelligent design as science in public school violated the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits public officials from using their positions to impose or establish a particular religion.

"To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect," Judge Jones wrote. "However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions."

The six-week trial in Federal District Court in Harrisburg gave intelligent design the most thorough academic and legal airing since the movement's inception about 15 years ago, and was often likened to the momentous Scopes case that put evolution on trial 80 years earlier.

Intelligent design posits that biological life is so complex that it must have been designed by an intelligent source. Its adherents say that they refrain from identifying the designer, and that it could even be aliens or a time traveler.

But Judge Jones said the evidence in the trial proved that intelligent design was "creationism relabeled."

The Supreme Court has already ruled that creationism, which relies on the biblical account of the creation of life, cannot be taught as science in a public school.

* * *

Mariner.

 

[Annie]

3rd one on topic, merged.

 

[archangel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051220/ap_on_re_us/evolution_debate

you posted this what is your point other than just posting it?

 

[Mariner]

backwards. I.D. proponents accept so-called "microevolution."
The obvious scientific evidence forces them to accept that all species are constantly changing. They don't accept so-called "macro-evolution," i.e. the emergence of new species via this process of drift.

The problem for them is that their distinction between micro and macro evolution is meaningless. Take some microevolution, add some more microevolution to it, and pretty soon you have macroevolution.

A good analogy is languages. If two populations speaking the same language are separated for long enough, the constant processes of language drift will eventually create two distinct new languages, whose users can't understand one another fully. This process is clear in the evolutionary trees of all the world's languages. At what point did micro-language-evolution become macro? There's no clear dividing line, so the distinction means nothing.

The reason why I.D. isn't science, though, is that their reason for rejecting macroevolution is patently obvious--they don't want humans to have evolved as the other animals did. And their reason for that is patently obvious (and was clearly stated in a leaked document from the Discovery Institute earlier this year): the Christian Bible says that God made man in his image. That's why the judge concluded that I.D. is simply creationism dressed up a bit.

The major Christian denominations accepted evolution long, long ago--like a century ago. It is the revived fundamentalism in America that created I.D.

Personally, I think it is a majestic conception, that we extraordinarily ordered, self-replicating beings arose over 3 billion years along with millions of other equally extraordinary creatures on our planet. It makes me more awed by creation to accept evolution than to reject it. Importantly, the evolutionary perspective also makes our fragility far more obvious than the Christian one, which seems to suggest people will be around forever. Thus it encourages better stewardship of the earth, rather than the "dominion" proposed by the Bible.

By the way, what does it mean for us to be created in "God's image," if every one of us is different due to recombining the parental genes, and also due to the approximately 300 mutations that every baby is born with? Ther is no single human "image"--there's just a large and constantly drifting gene pool.

My personal reason for posting the story was the hope that some the I.D. defenders here would now accept the opinion of a Bush-appointed Republican judge, and stop calling I.D. science.

Mariner.

 

[dilloduck]

backwards. I.D. proponents accept so-called "microevolution."
The obvious scientific evidence forces them to accept that all species are constantly changing. They don't accept so-called "macro-evolution," i.e. the emergence of new species via this process of drift.

The problem for them is that their distinction between micro and macro evolution is meaningless. Take some microevolution, add some more microevolution to it, and pretty soon you have macroevolution.

A good analogy is languages. If two populations speaking the same language are separated for long enough, the constant processes of language drift will eventually create two distinct new languages, whose users can't understand one another fully. This process is clear in the evolutionary trees of all the world's languages. At what point did micro-language-evolution become macro? There's no clear dividing line, so the distinction means nothing.

The reason why I.D. isn't science, though, is that their reason for rejecting macroevolution is patently obvious--they don't want humans to have evolved as the other animals did. And their reason for that is patently obvious (and was clearly stated in a leaked document from the Discovery Institute earlier this year): the Christian Bible says that God made man in his image. That's why the judge concluded that I.D. is simply creationism dressed up a bit.

The major Christian denominations accepted evolution long, long ago--like a century ago. It is the revived fundamentalism in America that created I.D.

Personally, I think it is a majestic conception, that we extraordinarily ordered, self-replicating beings arose over 3 billion years along with millions of other equally extraordinary creatures on our planet. It makes me more awed by creation to accept evolution than to reject it. Importantly, the evolutionary perspective also makes our fragility far more obvious than the Christian one, which seems to suggest people will be around forever. Thus it encourages better stewardship of the earth, rather than the "dominion" proposed by the Bible.

By the way, what does it mean for us to be created in "God's image," if every one of us is different due to recombining the parental genes, and also due to the approximately 300 mutations that every baby is born with? Ther is no single human "image"--there's just a large and constantly drifting gene pool.

My personal reason for posting the story was the hope that some the I.D. defenders here would now accept the opinion of a Bush-appointed Republican judge, and stop calling I.D. science.

Mariner.

No problem---as long as they impress upon children that evolution is only a theory that cannot be fully proven.

 

[ThomasPaine]

in public education. Sure evolution has as many holes in it as swiss cheese but it's still the held scientific "theory". I think if most people were aware that the "proof" of higher forms directly evolving from lower forms is almost non-existent they would be shocked. Evolution has been taught as "law" even though it is "theory". It seems through the geologic record that lower forms "evolve" into higher forms but this is on the macrobiotic level only. In terms of specie specific changes that can be demonstrated by the fossil record there is very little evidence to support "evolution" in speciation. While ID is "belief only" evolution is still only a "theory".

 

[Mariner]

evidence for speciation, but it is mostly indirect, because speciation takes a long time. If we waited a million years, we'd see direct evidence of speciation.

So the evidence is inferential, but that is a normal part of science. At the moment, for example, we infer that most of the mass of the universe is "dark matter." We don't have the slightest idea what dark matter is, but its existence is required by the discrepancy between the observed gravitational field and the distribution and motions of visible galaxies.

Similarly, physicists infer the existence of exotic particles--and then go find them.

Evolutionary scientists are busy working out the details of the speciation history of every creature on earth now, as well as all that are in the fossil record. While they debate whether a certain species divergence occured 250 million versus 260 million years ago--working out the fine details--so many lay people are believing the whole thing they're doing is crazy. It's strange.

The biological classification system (kingdoms, phyla... genera, species) is the single greatest piece of evidence for speciation, when combined with knowledge of the distribution of different animals, and genetic science. Darwin's finches make a perfect example, as do the highly evolved marsupials of Australia. There are thousands of such examples, where individual creatures share varying degrees of genetic similarity in precise correlation with the idea that they spread geographically over time and speciated due to varying evolutionary pressures. This type of understanding explains for us why there are no penguins on the North Pole (they speciated around 100 million years ago and never had a cold pathway north during that time), why there are no kangaroos, koalas, or platypuses in America (an ancient Marsupial ancestor speciated into all of the Australian marsupials, etc. When you have fossil evidence fitting with genetic evidence, fitting with the enormous classification system of taxonomy, it is an easy inference that evolution makes sense. So easy that Darwin made it 150 years ago. Strange we're still arguing about it now, when his work itself convinced that vast majority of scientists at the time (almost all of whom, in the West, were Christian). These are three completely different types of evidence, applied to hundreds of thousands of examples, and fit together perfectly.

Calling evolution a "law" is just like calling gravity a "law." They're both officially theories, as is everything in science. But once well enough established, it's fair to call something a law, recognizing always that it can be overturned by new evidence.

Mariner.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051220/ap_on_re_us/evolution_debate

How is this health related?

 

[Annie]

How is this health related?

Point well taken, see there are firsts!

 

[Gunny]

The fact is, those labelled the "scientific community" decide what is accepted as science and what is not. This scientific community accepts only its own unsupported theories as science, regardless how far-fetched.

Pretty damned easy to get stuff thrown out of science class when you have everyone, to include those appointed to uphold the law buffaloed.

 

[MissileMan]

The fact is, those labelled the "scientific community" decide what is accepted as science and what is not. This scientific community accepts only its own unsupported theories as science, regardless how far-fetched.

Pretty damned easy to get stuff thrown out of science class when you have everyone, to include those appointed to uphold the law buffaloed.

I'd say the fact that Kansas had to REDEFINE science in order to include ID in the curriculum should be a very clear indication of exactly how "scientific" ID is.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

The fact is, those labelled the "scientific community" decide what is accepted as science and what is not. This scientific community accepts only its own unsupported theories as science, regardless how far-fetched.

Pretty damned easy to get stuff thrown out of science class when you have everyone, to include those appointed to uphold the law buffaloed.

This must be why science has made absolutely no progress in the past 500 years. Because its just a bunch of unsupported theories. Good thing all the theories of science which your computer is engineered on were developed in the dark ages when science was determined by popular opinion, the way it should be.

 

[Avatar4321]

Since when does a judge have authority to determine what students can or cannot be taught? Since when can a judge determine better than a science teacher what is science?

What is it with people? What the heck is wrong with alternative theories being taught? Are people that threatened by the idea that not everyone believes creation through evolution is fact? Let the facts speak for themselves. But don't prohibit other theories. People are smart enough to make up their own mind without a judge doing it.

 

[Avatar4321]

This must be why science has made absolutely no progress in the past 500 years. Because its just a bunch of unsupported theories. Good thing all the theories of science which your computer is engineered on were developed in the dark ages when science was determined by popular opinion, the way it should be.

Supported theories become scientific laws. Unsupported theories eventually die out for better theories which eventually become scientific laws.

Theories on what happens nowadays are much easier to test and become laws. Theories of what may have happened billions of years ago cannot be tested. To do so we must assume that conditions are the same now as they were back then. That assumption can never be verified.

Now can you tell me, what progress has the theory of creation by evolution given mankind?

You are right on one thing. Science is not determined by popular opinion. So just because a majority of scientists may or may not believe in evolution does not establish its truthfulness. I understand you may feel threatened by opposing theories because you might actually have to consider that there is a higher power. But that hardly gives you reason to deny other theories into the open debate of ideas.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

Since when does a judge have authority to determine what students can or cannot be taught? Since when can a judge determine better than a science teacher what is science?

Since when can a schoolboard member determine better than a science teacher or scientist what science is?

Judges have had the authority to determine that religion cannot be taught in public schools for a long, long, long time. Don't know where you've been. ID is a religious theory. You can't take creationism, replace the word "God" with "intelligent designer", and seriously expect people to think ID isn't religious.

What is it with people? What the heck is wrong with alternative theories being taught? Are people that threatened by the idea that not everyone believes creation through evolution is fact? Let the facts speak for themselves. But don't prohibit other theories. People are smart enough to make up their own mind without a judge doing it.

Nothing wrong with alternative scientific theories. ID is neither testable nor falsifiable - it fails to meet the criteria of being a scientific theory. And the judge, as well as 99.9% of the scientific community, realize this. Science isn't a democracy of non-scientists, sorry. Science class isn't a forum for discussion of any idea under the Sun - its a forum for the discussion of scientific theories, which are by definition testable and falsifiable.


What is and what is not science isn't determine by democracy. We don't get together and vote every year to determine what passes as science. This is determined by scientists. If you seriously think ID is a scientific idea, become a scientist, and promote it. I would say become a scientist and test its validity - but since its untestable, you'll have to skip that crucial step in the scientific method.,

 

[SpidermanTuba]

Supported theories become scientific laws. Unsupported theories eventually die out for better theories which eventually become scientific laws.

A scientific "law" is actually a misnomer, or a synonym perhaps. All of accepted science is theory. Go to dictionary.com and look up "theory".

Theories on what happens nowadays are much easier to test and become laws. Theories of what may have happened billions of years ago cannot be tested. To do so we must assume that conditions are the same now as they were back then. That assumption can never be verified.

The theory of evolution is quite testable. It predicts what sort of fossils we will find and what sort we will not. We have also been able to obvserve speciation occur in modern times amongst many plant species and a handful of simpler animal species.

Now can you tell me, what progress has the theory of creation by evolution given mankind?

All of modern biology is rooted in evolution.

You are right on one thing. Science is not determined by popular opinion. So just because a majority of scientists may or may not believe in evolution does not establish its truthfulness.

I meant that science is not determined by a vote of non-scientists. Science is determined by scientists developing hypotheses, testing them, and then if there hypotheses makes the test, publishing their results in rigorously peer reviewed journals. If you don't believe science should be determined by scientists, who do you think it should be determined by, you?

I understand you may feel threatened by opposing theories because you might actually have to consider that there is a higher power.

I already consider there is a higher power. Don't know what that has to do with anything. Science isn't threatened by ID because ID isn't science - science education is what is threatened by ID.

But that hardly gives you reason to deny other theories into the open debate of ideas.

Well - if they aren't scientific theories, then yes, there is a reason to keep them out of the science classroom.


Are you honestly suggesting that what is and isn't science should not be determined by scientists? If not the scientists, then who?

 

[Avatar4321]

Since when can a schoolboard member determine better than a science teacher or scientist what science is?

Judges have had the authority to determine that religion cannot be taught in public schools for a long, long, long time. Don't know where you've been. ID is a religious theory. You can't take creationism, replace the word "God" with "intelligent designer", and seriously expect people to think ID isn't religious.




Nothing wrong with alternative scientific theories. ID is neither testable nor falsifiable - it fails to meet the criteria of being a scientific theory. And the judge, as well as 99.9% of the scientific community, realize this. Science isn't a democracy of non-scientists, sorry. Science class isn't a forum for discussion of any idea under the Sun - its a forum for the discussion of scientific theories, which are by definition testable and falsifiable.


What is and what is not science isn't determine by democracy. We don't get together and vote every year to determine what passes as science. This is determined by scientists. If you seriously think ID is a scientific idea, become a scientist, and promote it. I would say become a scientist and test its validity - but since its untestable, you'll have to skip that crucial step in the scientific method.,

Scientists do promote it. But apparently because you dont seem to think enough scientists do it doesn't count.

Tell me why are you so threatened by alternative theories?

Also, people are free to teach religion in any public forum. Its in the first amendment. Simply because you liberals have been attacking religious freedom for nearly a century doesn't change that.

Since you have agreed that science is not decided by a popularity vote, then there is no reason to ban a theory because a majority doesn't like it. Let every theory be taught. Let people look at the facts and make up their own mind. If you think the theory has no scientific basis then what's the harm of letting people see it and put it up to scrutiny?

The fact is this has nothing to do with whether its science or not. It's about creating the illusion that science and faith are incompatible. The only way to do that is to force teachers to indoctrinate little kids with it. And the only way you can ensure that happens is by having a judge prohibit any other theories.

I am still curious what if you can identify any benefits we have from believing that life evolved from pond scum.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

Scientists do promote it. But apparently because you dont seem to think enough scientists do it doesn't count.

Every field has its quacks. Some physicists actually believe Einstein was wrong. A couple of them. You can't name more than one dozen legitimate biologists who believe ID is a testale and falsifiable scientific theory. The overwhelming majority of scientists recognize ID is not a science. Something doesn't become science simply because 3 or 4 scientists says its science while all the rest of them in world disagree.

Also, people are free to teach religion in any public forum. Its in the first amendment.

OK, that's fine. But a science class isn't a traditional public forum. You have no idea what the legal definition of "public forum" is, do you? A school is a limited public forum. Note the word "limited". Teachers do not have free speech while they are teaching. A teacher cannot, say, talk about football all during math class, or, say teach religion, in a science class.

Simply because you liberals have been attacking religious freedom for nearly a century doesn't change that.

Hey don't blame liberals for this one. The judge that made this ruling was a Republican appointed by President Bush.

Since you have agreed that science is not decided by a popularity vote, then there is no reason to ban a theory because a majority doesn't like it.

The point that seems to be completely flying over your head is that ID is not a scientific theory.

If you think the theory has no scientific basis then what's the harm of letting people see it and put it up to scrutiny?

Because at best its a waste of class time and at worse it might make the students think that real science consists of a collection of untestable unfalsifiable theories.

The fact is this has nothing to do with whether its science or not.

So whether or not it is taught in science class - has nothing to do with whether or not it is science or not? Sorry, you've lost me on that one.

It's about creating the illusion that science and faith are incompatible.

That's you that's doing that by suggesting that acceptance of science means a rejection of God.

The only way to do that is to force teachers to indoctrinate little kids with it. And the only way you can ensure that happens is by having a judge prohibit any other theories.

The judge is fine with scientific theories being taught. If you can think of any alternative scientific theory of origin - please, tell us all about it.

I am still curious what if you can identify any benefits we have from believing that life evolved from pond scum.

It explains the fossil record.











So once again, if the scientists don't get to determine what science is, who does?