Re: Judge Jones' decision

Cornelius,

Interesting that you would read it this way in light of:

"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."

I know that you disagree with the first two claims, but to say that
the judge's ruling represents the warfare thesis in light of the
third claim is just to hear what you want to hear.

TG

On Dec 20, 2005, at 2:22 PM, Cornelius Hunter wrote:

> Well you've got your work cut out for you. This decision is over
> reaching and committed to fallacious claims. One could spend quite
> some time dissecting it. This is not the first time that the legal
> process has so degraded. I think the service you could do Ted would
> be to show how easily a legal decision can go off the deep end. The
> warfare thesis now has the legal stamp of approval.
>
>
>
>> Judge Jones' decision in the Dover case is available here:
>> http://www.pepperlaw.com/pepper/pdfs/DoverOpinion.pdf
>>
>> I am finishing an essay about it for the magazine, Religion in the
>> News.
>> The following is my summary response. It goes without saying,
>> this is only
>> my opinion and reasonable people might reasonably differ with me!
>> Because
>> of my crazy schedule this week, I regret that I probably won't be
>> able to
>> respond to any comments sent my way, but I will be sure to read
>> them at some
>> point; they will not be ignored.
>>
>> ted
>>
>>
>> "The judge's decision is very understandable. Given the situation in
>> Dover, he really had no choice but to rule that the school board
>> tried to
>> inject a reference to intelligent design for religious reasons,
>> that they
>> had no clear secular purpose for doing so. ID is not creationism,
>> but in
>> this situation it was just too hard to tell. "The evidence at trial
>> demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of
>> creationism," the
>> Judge wrote, and I can't blame him. The judge ruled that "it is
>> unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a
>> public
>> school science classroom." Perhaps this leaves open the
>> possibility that
>> a science teacher might still be allowed to discuss aspects of
>> ID. If not,
>> this would be unfortunate, because the decision overlooks the fact
>> that
>> there is a small but growing refereed professional literature about
>> intelligent design in the philosophy of science. Pennsylvania
>> science
>> standards call for teachers to discuss the nature of science,
>> which is a
>> reference to philosophy of science. The line between philosophy
>> of science
>> and science itself is not sharp, and historically traffic has
>> flowed in both
>> directions. A science teacher could in my opinion have a
>> legitimate secular
>> purpose in discussing various philosophical objections to aspects of
>> evolution that have been raised by scientists in the 146 years since
>> Darwin's book was published: the general education of a science
>> student is
>> well served when such topics are introduced. I cannot criticize
>> the judge
>> for overlooking this, however, since the defense did not make this
>> argument.
>> They kept insisting that ID is science, not philosophy of science,
>> despite
>> the paucity of scientific literature favoring ID."
>

________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D.
Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
(o) 970-491-7003 (f) 970-491-1801
Received on Tue Dec 20 17:07:43 2005