Guess I'll still be a monkey's uncle!

I was just gone for an hour, but that was time enough for half of my friendslist to go nuts with jubilation. The Dover Intelligent Design case is over... and the judge has boiled ID with its own pudding and buried it with a stake of holly through its heart in no uncertain terms, calling the case 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. (That link leads to the second page, where the quote is. There's good stuff on page 1 too.)

The entire 139 (!) page decision is online. Skimming it brings up some great stuff - the judge wasn't just discussing the unConstitutionality of the Dover anti-evolution announcement, he takes on the intellectual bankruptcy of ID's star "scientists." ( For instantance, on page 74... quotes not in the news articles below cut. )

My favorite quote is on page 121, and is suitable for calligraphy and framing, or putting on T-shirts: One unfortunate theme in this case is the striking ignorance concerning the concept of ID amongst Board members. Conspicuously, Board members who voted for the curriculum change testified at trial that they had utterly no grasp of ID.

And under fast-breaking news, I'm seeing reports spread across Google news that Representative John Conyers (D-MI) is calling for the censure of Bush over the wiretapping issue and calling for an investigative committee to see if Bush has committed impeachable offenses.

And here it is on the Library of Congress page: H.RES.635
Title: Creating a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.

ETA: The link keeps blinking in and out: I'm using http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d109:13:./temp/~bdCwgo::|/bss/d109query.html| If that doesn't work, go to the Thomas Main Page at http://thomas.loc.gov/ pick Conyers out of the list of Representatives, click "Go" and scroll down to item 13. While you're there, check out #s 636 and 637 too.

Monkey's Uncle Pt II - Discovery Institute Strikes Back

The Discovery Institute, which is dedicated to the scientific study of creationism Intelligent Design, has posted their response to the Dover ruling today.

I present a dialog, with some side comments. Bold is Discovery Institute, with all quotes coming from their response page. Italic are quotes from the legal ruling [page numbers will be in brackets]

The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea... This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur.

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. [137] (According to what I've seen online, this judge was appointed by George W Bush in 2002.)

He has conflated Discovery Institute’s position with that of the Dover school board

The Court has taken under consideration the following... (2) Revised Brief of Amicus Curiae, the Discovery Institute [7] Dramatic evidence of ID's religious natiure and aspirations is found in what is referred to as the "Wedge Document." The Wedge Document, developed by the Discovery Institute's Center for Renewal of Science and Culture represents from an institutional standpoint the [Intelligent Design Movement]'s goals and objectives. [28] The Discovery Institute... acknowledges as "Governing Goals" to "defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies" [68, with cited reference noted] Page 100 begins an entire section entitled Early 2004 - Buckingham's Contacts with the Discovery Institute. And so on; in this section, searching for the term "Discovery Institute" becomes tedious as it is cited every other sentence.

He totally misrepresents intelligent design and the motivations of the scientists who research it

He totally quotes Behe and Discovery Institute material, with citations.

Judge Jones found that the Dover board violated the Establishment Clause because it acted from religious motives. That should have been the end to the case," said West. "Instead, Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution.

Behe testified, as did the Discovery Institute in filing Amicus Curie documents. The judge has every right to rule on the evidence presented to him.

Americans don't like to be told there is some idea that they aren't permitted to learn about... Banning intelligent design in Dover will likely only fan interest in the theory

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 controvery 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 classroom [137]
*emphasis original


this decision will be of minor significance

I doubt it, but time will tell. The precedent has been set, especially as Discovery Institute also admits: The plans of the lawyers on both sides of this case to turn this into a landmark ruling.

Discovery Institute continues to oppose efforts to mandate teaching about the theory of intelligent design in public schools

Smart, considering what a wipeout this landmark case was.

We also think students should learn about both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwin's theory of evolution... The scientific theory of intelligent design proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection

We find that while ID arguments may be true, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is not science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980s; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific communition, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research. [64, starting long section]

Say goodnight, Gracie. The party's over.