Judge Rules Against 'Intelligent Design'

[Edan]

"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.

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

[Seeker]

Well, this stuff is part of a political movement, so it's always win-win for them...now they can complain about big bad liberal atheist judges now...

...or just go beat up some more biology profs (Mirecki)...

[Arrian]

"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.

...

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."

Battle won, I guess, but how goes the war?

-Arrian

[Edan]

Originally posted by Seeker
Well, this stuff is part of a political movement, so it's always win-win for them...now they can complain about big bad liberal atheist judges now...

From what I understand, the judge was appointed by Bush.

[Dinner]

For once lies are exposed as the lies they are. No doubt we will hear more sniviling about how evil judges are for making religious nonsense stay in Churches instead of schools.

[Arrian]

But, but, but it's not a religious theory! It's just, you know, questioning... those damned Darwinists are just scared of debate!



-Arrian

[ixnay]

Intelligent design is completely smacked down:

H. Conclusion

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. 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 citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. 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.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. 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.

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. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, § 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID. We will also issue a declaratory judgment that Plaintiffs’ rights under the Constitutions of the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have been violated by Defendants’ actions. Defendants’ actions in violation of Plaintiffs’ civil rights as guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 subject Defendants to liability with respect to injunctive and declaratory relief, but also for nominal damages and the reasonable value of Plaintiffs’ attorneys’ services and costs incurred in vindicating Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by ixnay
Intelligent design is completely smacked down:

I like that judge

[Richelieu]

It's not enough!!!

WASHINGTON, DC—In a sudden and unexpected blow to the Americans working to protect the holiday, liberal U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt ruled the private celebration of Christmas unconstitutional Monday.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Darwin Wins One

Surprised there's no thread yet:

Judge Rules Against Pa. 'Intelligent Design' Policy

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; 5:12 PM



A federal judge in Pennsylvania today struck down a school board's policy on including "intelligent design" in high school biology classes as an alternative to evolution, ruling that the requirement illegally promoted religion in public schools.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, issuing his decision in a case that was heard in the fall, ruled that the school board in Dover, Pa., violated the Constitution when it ordered high school biology teachers to read to students a short statement that cast doubt on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and offered intelligent design as an alternative theory on the origin and development of life. School administrators began reading the statement to students in January after teachers refused to do so.

In his 139-page ruling, Jones wrote that intelligent design was essentially biblical creationism. He also harshly denounced the Dover Area School Board for its decision to promote intelligent design and said board members repeatedly lied in court about their motives.

"The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial," wrote Jones, who heard the case in Harrisburg, about 25 miles north of Dover. "The students, parents and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

The Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which describes itself as the nation's leading think tank on intelligent design, accused Jones of being "an activist judge" and said he "totally misrepresents intelligent design and the motivations of the scientists who research it."

The case produced one of the biggest courtroom battles over evolution since the landmark "Scopes Monkey Trial" in 1925, and it was closely watched in other jurisdictions that have seen heated debates on Darwin's groundbreaking 19th-century theory.

After the Dover school board issued the requirement last year, 11 parents filed a lawsuit in federal court to block it on grounds that intelligent design was actually a thinly veiled version of creationism, which the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled cannot be taught in public schools.

In the meantime, all eight of the school board incumbents who favored teaching intelligent design were defeated in an election in November by candidates who opposed including it in the curriculum.

The controversy over the issue escalated when televangelist Pat Robertson reacted to the school board members' election defeat by warning "the good citizens of Dover" on his television show that they should not ask for divine help in the event of a disaster because "you just voted God out of your city."

In his ruling today, Jones sided squarely with the plaintiffs in the case, saying evidence at the trial showed that intelligent design "is nothing less than the progeny of creationism." He noted that promoters of the theory began replacing references to creationism with the term "intelligent design" shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public schools.

He also said several members of the Dover Area School Board repeatedly lied during the trial to cover their motives for promoting intelligent design even as they professed religious beliefs. He described as "a sham" their claims that they acted "for the secular purposes of improving science education and encouraging students to exercise critical thinking."

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

Jones said advocates of intelligent design "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors," adding that he did not believe the concept should not be studied and discussed. But he concluded that "it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."

Specifically, Jones said the school board's policy on intelligent design violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from establishing a religion.

In defending the board's policy, witnesses in a six-week trial last fall argued that intelligent design is a scientific theory and stressed that including it in the curriculum advanced secular goals of opening students' minds to another possible explanation for the origin of life.

But Jones wrote in his opinion 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."

Jones sharply criticized some of the school board members, writing, "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."

Jones anticipated in his opinion that he would be called "an activist judge" by those who disagreed with him. He rejected the label, saying that the case resulted from "the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID."

In a statement, John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, said, "The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate, and it won't work." He said Jones reached "well beyond the immediate legal questions before him" and instead "got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion and evolution."

Jones "makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design," West said. "This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur."

The case stemmed from the school board's decision last year to require ninth-grade biology teachers to read four paragraphs to students regarding intelligent design at the start of lessons on evolution.

"Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered," the statement said. "The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence."

The required statement went on to say, "Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view." It referred students to the book "Of Pandas and People" if they were "interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves."

During the trial, Michael J. Behe, a Lehigh University biochemistry professor and one of the intellectual founding fathers of intelligent design, testified that "the appearance of design in aspects of biology is overwhelming" and that "intelligent design is based on observed, empirical, physical evidence from nature."

He acknowledged under questioning that he is a Roman Catholic and believes the intelligent designer is God. But he said intelligent design must succeed or fail as a scientific theory.

A lawyer for the parents, Witold Walczak of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, called intelligent design a "clever tactical repackaging of creationism" that cannot be science "unless science is redefined to include the supernatural."

One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Bryan Rehm, a parent who also taught physics at Dover High School, testified that school board members exerted continual pressure not to "teach monkeys-to-man evolution" and talked openly of teaching creationism alongside evolution.

In a statement, the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way hailed the judge's ruling today as "a victory for the First Amendment's requirement of government neutrality toward religion."

The group's president, Ralph G. Neas, said: "The court recognized that 'intelligent design' is nothing more than religious creationism in disguise, and that, as such, it may not be taught as science in public schools. This decision is a resounding victory for science education, for public school students, and for the Constitution."

The ruling was also saluted by Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, who called it "a resounding victory for science education." He said in a statement, "Religious concepts like intelligent design and creationism have no place in taxpayer-funded public schools."

The Dover case is among several that have brought the teaching of evolution into courtrooms recently. In Georgia earlier this month, a federal appeals court heard arguments on whether it was constitutional to place stickers challenging evolution in a school system's biology textbooks.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122000532.html

First Dover turns our the creationists in last month's school board election, now this; it's almost enough to restore my faith in American democray.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Now if only American democracy didn't work so slowly...

Oh, and http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=145874

[Dis]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=145874

[Urban Ranger]

It's funny how the DI (Discovery Institute) kept spinning it as their victory throughout the trial. If you want to know more the Panda's Thumb has extensive coverage.

[Dinner]

The best part is this "liberal activist judge" is a die hard conservative appointed by... George W Bush!

[Lonestar]

This is super.