Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Federal judge rejects teaching of "intelligent design"

From the Times:

A federal judge ruled today that a Pennsylvania school board's policy of teaching intelligent design in high school biology class is unconstitutional because intelligent design is clearly a religious idea that advances "a particular version of Christianity."

In the nation's first case to test the legal merits of intelligent design, Judge John E. Jones III dealt a stinging rebuke to advocates of teaching intelligent design as a scientific alternative to evolution in public schools.

The judge found that intelligent design is not science, and that the only way its proponents can claim it is, is by changing the very definition of science to include supernatural explanations.

Finally. It's taken a court case in Pennsylvania, but the truth has come out loud and clear: So-called "intelligent design" is nothing more than creationism in disguise. And it has absolutely no place in science classrooms. And, in my view, no place anywhere else -- is there a more hollow "theory" out there?

The Mighty Middle responds here and links to Althouse, who finds the decision "correct" and has lengthy excerpts from Judge Jones's "angry" opinion.

It's a must-read, but, in short: Judge Jones allows that "ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed," but "it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom".

More, and more to the point: "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 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 1980's; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community."

There you go. In this case, the law speaks the truth.

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Previous posts on "intelligent design":

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1 Comments:

  • finally, a judge, in America, with a brain. someone canonize that guy!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:26 PM  

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