Journal pudge's Journal: That Stupid Case Today About Intelligent Design 19
The judge's ruling today was so muddled and wrong-headed and illegal, it boggles the mind.
The most obvious problem is that he ruled on whether or not ID is science. But there is no law justifying him making such a ruling, that defines what science is, let alone gives him the authority to apply any such definition. Whether something is science has not one thing to do with the law, and is the purview only of philosophers and scientists, not lawyers and judges.
Frankly, this part of the ruling alone should cause scientists and educators who oppose ID to fear, not rejoice.
And this error pervades much of the rest of the ruling. For example, he notes, "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."
So may it then be taught in a philosophy classroom? What law gives him the authority to make such a distinction, that something may be taught in some classes, but not in others? And further, what law gives him the authority to say whether something may be taught "as an alternative" to anything else?
The judge has authority to conclude only one thing: whether or not the specific curriculm in question constitutes a promotion of religion, in such a way that it is unconstitutional. The rest is simply beyond his legal authority, and he violates the Constitution and more by going beyond that authority. He says he is not an activist judge; methinks the robed figure doth protest too much. But call it what you will, what's clear is that he ruled on matters he is not allowed to rule on.
And he doesn't even define ID properly, which calls into question his already dubious conclusions. He writes, "We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents." Again, he has no authority to conclude it is not science. But he also has no authority to say whether ID can uncouple itself from one philosophy or another.
And further, the conclusion is obviously erroneous anyway, for the simple reason that ID itself predates modern Creationism by many centuries, and therefore Creationism cannot be an antecedent to ID. But more importantly, not all prominent ID proponents hold to Creationism. Indeed, one of the founders of the Discovery Institute, Stephen Meyer, is no Creationist. He has stated, for example: "We're not absolutists, we're not fundamentalists in the sense that we want to commit to a certain story and we're not young Earth creationists. We're fairly minimalist. What we want to say is that however life arose, design is certainly detectable from the things we see." In other contexts Meyer has expressed a belief in, or acceptance of, most of what I'd call evolutionary science.
The two are not mutually exclusive, and never have been. What are mutually exclusive are the views that God designed the universe, and that God -- if he exists -- did not design the universe. As most scientists make no scientific attempt to claim the latter, there's no quarrel.
A lawyer on NewsHour tonight attempted to use this fact to bolster his case against ID, saying, "There's really -- there's no controversy in the scientific community. There's a controversy that has been created in the public arena by the intelligent design movement itself. But science isn't debating evolution versus intelligent design." Right, but the reason for that is that they are not actually opposed!
He further attempted to impugn a belief in God as evidence that a proposition related to such a belief is automatically tainted, saying, "Their lead expert, Dr. Behe, testified that intelligent design is more believable the more you believe in God. And I don't know of any other scientific proposition that fits that description."
He only doesn't know of any such proposition because he's not very thoughtful or knowledgable. An obvious example is the Big Bang: believing in God makes a belief that the universe had a single point of origin, in time and space, far more believable.
There are others, too, though. It's easy to make the case that my belief in God makes it easier for me to believe in quantum theory, for example, or just generally in the order of the universe: gravity, planets, galaxies, and so on.
The bottom line is that if this ruling had just said, "this curriculum as presented amounts to promotion of religion, and is therefore prohibited," there would be some quarrel with it, but very little. But this ruling went far beyond what is reasonable jurisprudence.
Philosophy (Score:2)
YES! Because ID, with its dependency on the supernatural, depends on philosophy that is beyond the scope of science, which must be based solely on natural phenomena.
If the proponents of ID had not been so ham-handed (e.g. with the Wedge Document [antievolution.org]) they might not have been smacked down quite as hard as the Cowboys were Sunday. But they would have been smacked down nonetheless, because they (like you) were trying to redefine science to include the unscie
Re:Philosophy (Score:2)
YES!
Fine, but your response is irrelevant to my point, which is that there is no legal justification for such a distinction. I am here in this post talking about law, so I won't address the rest of your post, as it
Re:Philosophy (Score:2)
Re:Philosophy (Score:2)
No, you are missing the point. Whether ID is science has absolutely nothing to do with whether its mention is a violation of the Establishment Clause.
Let's stipulate for the sake of argument that ID *is* science, that unfalsifiable religious beliefs can be science, and that this is one
Re:Philosophy (Score:2)
I don't mean to take the discussion off of what Pudge was saying about the law, but I do have a question. Personally, I am not convinced of the feasibility of macrobiological evolution explaining life that we have on Earth today, so I admit my bias. But I'm curious as to why people continuously insist that ID absolutely cannot be in the realm of science?
First off, the only stipulation I've heard from ID is that there are biological constructs that could not have come about from random genetic mutation c
Re:Philosophy (Score:2)
the only stipulation I've heard from ID is that there are biological constructs that could not have come about from random genetic mutation combined with natural selection.
Prove it. Show a counterexample: something that was provably created by a Supreme Being or whatever. If you can't, this claim that XYZ could not have come from natural selection has no scientific basis, and goodbye ID.
"Stipulating" that something "could not" have evolved, with no proof or scientific evidence, is not
Re:Philosophy (Score:2)
Like I said, then how does one go about proving that the pyramids were made by the Egyptians?
It sounds like you are saying that to make the claim that anything was created by an intelligent being and couldn't have happened naturally simply becomes non-science. I guess we can say goodbye to the fields I mentioned in my original post.
Re:Philosophy (Score:2)
No, that's the wrong response. Science is not about what is true. Science is about conducting experiments. The proper response is: how do you even construct an experiment to determine whether something could not possibly have been the result of natural selection and random mutations?
My answer is: I don't know that you can.
Which is why I think evolution is not falsifiable.
And thus, according to the court, not science.
Moo (Score:2)
Maybe he's using the Supreme Court's declaration that the tomato is a vegetable [wikipedia.org] as a precedent for issuing a decision outside his realm of expertise. Judges do tend to regard precedent as the alpha and omega of truth, after all. :-P
Re:Moo (Score:2)
I know you're only kidding, but in that case, there was a specific legal question to be answered: does the law mean botanical vegetables, or nutritional vegetables?
Here, however, there is no law at issue that has anything to do with the question of whether ID is science. There's
Re:Moo (Score:2)
Re:Moo (Score:2)
And he has NO AUTHORITY to make that determination. He can only say it can be taught in public schools, or not. He cannot say which classes it may be taught in. No federal law gives him that authority, in any way.
The judge heard hours of testimony about science, the concepts that are part of science, the scientific method and so forth.
Re:Moo (Score:2)
It's religion, Pudge, not science. Making a mandatory (MANDATORY) religious statement in front of a classroom does flirt with the establishment clause. I don't know why this doesn't chill you. Maybe because, it is in line with your beliefs already (I don't know).
I can only guess whether you would defend this so vociferously if the teachers were forced (FORCED... after protest, the school's administrative staff took over the duty) to read a statement about the controversy between God or Vishnu as the sc
Re:Moo (Score:2)
I did not, at any point in this discussion, criticize the judge's statement that this was a violation of the Establishment Clause. I could do that, but I did not.
This is not about the result, that ID cannot be mentioned. This is about his rational
the Reply screen needs the original journal too (Score:2)
Now about the case.
Whether ID is science became a matter for the law when the ACLU and the parents of 11 children brou
Re:the Reply screen needs the original journal too (Score:2)
No, it didn't.
Analyzing the separation between church and state is part of the responsibilities of the courts.
That has nothing to do with whether ID is science.
It was up to the defense to explain ID and why it was science.
No, no, a thousand times no. The questions of whether something is a promotion of religion and thus prohibited under the current interpretation of the First Amendme
With judges like that... (Score:1)
I chose to homeschool my kids because of judges like this, who cannot control themselves when making "decisions". They have their opinions, and that's fine, but when they base decisions on their personal beliefs (whatever they are) instead of Law, I want nothing of it.
My kids will know about Creation, of course. They will also be taught that some people believe in "evolution". My kids will be able to arrive at an intelligent decision on their own, because they will know both sides.
Science and education (Score:2)
Whether something is science has not one thing to do with the law, and is the purview only of philosophers and scientists, not lawyers and judges.
What is or is not science ought not to be determined by elected officials or by appointees of elected officials, because neither truth nor science are subject to a majority vote. For this reason, it seems to me that anyone who truly cares about their children receiving an education in science would refuse to allow their children to receive that education at t
Re:Science and education (Score:2)
That conclusion is based on a big false assumption: that you will disagree significantly w