Seth Cooper and Joe Manzari’s article, “ACLU Demands and Dover Designs,” raised fresh questions about the potential for a dismissal of the Kitzmiller case based upon mootness, potentially allowing the Dover Area School Board to avoid a large attorneys’ fees judgment against them by rescinding their intelligent design (ID) policy before Judge Jones issued his decision. Opponents of intelligent design responded harshly to the AEI article (and my own reporting) by questioning the legal reasoning about mootness. One critic stated that the AEI article, and my commentary, “appear to be utterly ignorant of the voluntary cessation doctrine” and “there was virtually no chance that the case would be mooted.” Yet several Supreme Court cases dealing …
Legal commentary mentioning the Kitzmiller decision is now starting to appear in legal journals. In the Spring, 2006 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, one of the most widely circulated law journals, the lead article addresses intelligent design, Kitzmiller, and the establishment clause. Cristi L. Bowman’s article, “Seeing Government Purpose Through the Objective Observer’s Eyes: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Debates,” is available here. Most of the article is about establishment clause jurisprudence, and an argument against part of McCreary County v. ACLU. Bowman argues that the government purpose prong of the Lemon test should return to focusing on “actual intent,” rather than trying to evaluate government purpose with …
In the most recent news about the controversy about intelligent design in Kentucky, the Lexington Herald-Ledger‘s Political Notebook reports on the nomination of Kentucky’s State Board of Education candidates. Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher took heat for speaking favorably about teaching intelligent design just before Judge Jones’ Kitzmiller decision was issued. The Governor had mentioned intelligent design in his State of the Commonwealth address in January, 2006 and then in February sent a letter about teaching intelligent design to the Kentucky Academy of Sciences. (The letter was in response to the Academy’s December vote to reject any teaching about intelligent design.)After the Kitzmiller decision struck down the Dover Area School Board’s …
The taxpayers in Dover Pennsylvania may have been fleeced by the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUSCS) for a shocking $1 million dollar bill. Joe Manzari and Seth Cooper’s article today in The American Enterprise Institute Online brings this dirty little secret into the public light. A few months ago when the ACLU announced that they “generously” would only demand $1 million in attorneys fees for the Kitzmiller case, the casual observer probably thought nothing of it. However, once the facts are examined, as Manzari and Cooper nicely lay out, the attorneys fees collected by the ACLU are not merely the cost of losing a lawsuit, but rather look much more like a fat taxpayer funded gift to the ACLU & AUSCS. Manzari & …
The April, 2006 edition of Crisis Magazine features a critical review of the Darwin exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. George S. Johnson’s article, “An Evening with Darwin in New York,” is a thoughtful analysis of the museum content mixed with general criticism of the Darwinian orthodoxy. The article walks through the museum in broad brush strokes while taking note of the stories about Darwinian evolution not told by the exhibit. The review starts with the exhibits treatment of fossils, and features extended notes from Niles Eldredge, and many paleontologists who find the fossil record somewhat lacking as evidence for Darwin. Not surprisingly, the criticisms of these paleontologists, all mainstream secular scientists, were left out of the …
Many news sources have picked up the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent interview with The Guardian newspaper reporting a couple of minor comments he made about teaching creationism in schools. (For examples, see the Associated Press story or the New York Times story or the Reuters article in the Washington Post.) With headlines like, “Archbishop Opposed to Teaching Creationism” (Associated Press) “Anglican Leader Says the Schools Shouldn’t Teach Creationism” (NY Times) or “Anglican leader opposes creationism in schools” (Reuters) one would think that the comments about creationism were central to the interview. Moreover, given that all of the articles discussed intelligent design, one would think that ID was relevant to the …
In the April, 2006 issue of First Things, Villanova Law professor Robert T. Miller offers an opinion on “Darwin in Dover, PA.” (available online next month) that brings up several points worth highlighting. Regarding Kitzmiller, Miller only half agrees with Judge Jones, agreeing that ID is not science as he defines it (which I will comment on more later), but disagreeing that ID is religion. To make his case, Miller’s opinion offers two different “senses” of science, one of which ID satisfies, the other of which he claims ID does not satisfy. Overall, the article focuses on the philosophy and nature of science, and devotes only a scant few paragraphs to the legal issues presented in Kitzmiller. The Legal Analysis: Only Half Right Regarding the …
The critical response to Judge Jones's decision in the Kitzmiller case continues to build. Renowned philosopher Alvin Plantinga has recently written a short article analyzing part of Judge Jones’s reasoning. Having Plantinga’s analytic expertise and philosophic understanding come down against the Kitzmiller decision does not bode well for the intellectual vitality Judge Jones may have hoped his opinion would achieve.
In Jack Krebs’ post at Pandasthumb, he takes Casey Luskin up on a challenge to show that the Kansas Science Education Standards somehow “sanction the teaching” of intelligent design. (Luskin has now responded as well.) According to Krebs, “the standards do say to teach ID” (emphasis his). Unfortunately for Krebs, his reading of the Kansas standards is an exercise in torturing a text to say what one desires, instead of respecting the plain meaning of the text. To make his case Krebs relies on a flawed chain of inferences which, at best, would establish that the standards merely permit teaching about some intelligent design ideas. Krebs makes two big errors. First, he completely fails to explain why the standards include unambiguous language which say …
The Darwinist opponents of teaching fully about evolution in Ohio may be engaging in a form of religious discrimination. By lobbying for a repeal of the Ohio State Board of Education standards, not only are Ohio students presented with a dumbed-down version of evolution, but religious supporters of teaching the best science are subject to discrimination. By focusing on the personal religious views of some supporters, the opponents have engaged in conduct that looks a lot like discrimination against a public official because of his or her religion. Such religious discrimination could be a violation of the often ignored Article VI, No Religious Test clause of the U.S. Constitution, or the parallel Ohio State Constitutional provision. Article VI No Religious Test Clause Article …
It’s no secret that critics of intelligent design desperately want to link design theory with religion. The critics know how guilt-by-association will make it much easier to simply ignore and marginalize the actual arguments. A recent AP article in the Hawk Eye about the treatment of Guillermo Gonzalez at Iowa State University highlights two common variants of this guilt-by-religion fallacy. Gonzalez is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and co-author of book, The Privileged Planet. The AP article highlighted how Gonzalez has been treated with hostility by fellow Iowa State University professors since he became involved with intelligent design. The article presents a good example of the fallacy of characterizing intelligent design as merely religious. Fallacy #1 …
It appears that evolution is not as popular as many would expect in Darwin’s home country. The BBC reports, Britons unconvinced on evolution. Less than half responded that evolution best described their view on the origin of life. Furthermore, more than 40 percent believe that intelligent design should be included in science lessons. While not directly relevant to the debate over intelligent design in the United States, the results are interesting, and came as a surprise to many scientists in Briton, including the President of the Royal Society. The survey included two different questions. First, people were asked which view best described their view of the origin of life: 22% chose creationism17% opted for intelligent design48% selected evolution theoryand the rest …
Notorious legal decisions often develop a common-man meaning. The public perception of the Kitzmiller decision is that Judge Jones supposedly settled the issue: intelligent design is not science. As a law student, I have been amazed that this most important of Kitzmiller holdings is unsupported by any legal reasoning. The news coverage of Kitzmiller has encouraged this misperception. CNN.com simplified the entire decision as being about defining science: “U.S. District Judge John Jones concluded in a 139-page decision that intelligent design is not science.” This is absurd to anyone who respects the law. Judges should only be deciding matters of law, not declaring as authoritative his opinion on matters of politics, or philosophy, or science. Get yours today: the …
Bob Murphy at LewRockwell.com, a prominent libertarian website, examines many of the common objections to ID and finds them unpersuasive in Typical Objections to Intelligent Design. Murphy takes the role of argument analyzer and examines the common objections of credibility, lack of peer-reviewed publications, ID as not scientific, and accusations that ID is an argument from ignorance. After analyzing these common arguments, Murphy finds that “the ID people are on to something, while the proponents of Darwinian evolution are missing the point.” Credibility Murphy tackles the oft-repeated argument that during the Dover trial Michael Behe “was forced to admit on the stand that Intelligent Design had the same scientific validity as astrology.” He …