Re: Fwd: Judge Jones sided with the Discovery Institute and ruled against the Dove...

I agree with your intepretation if by narrow issue you refer to the
following

"That, nevertheless, is the balance that is struck by Rules of Evidence
designed not for the exhaustive search for cosmic understanding but for
the particularized resolution of legal disputes."

Even the Judge in the Dover case explictly states that ID may very well
be true and that the court is not resolving a 'cosmic understanding'
here but merely is resolving an issue of legal dispute namely the claim
that ID is science. That the legal dispute is also one of a 'broad'
public debate seems only incidental to this.

Nothing the Judge has ruled prevents the public debate from continuing.
Nothing prevents the ID proponents from developing a scientific theory,
nothing prevents ID proponents from continuing to argue their case in
the public. All the ruling does is prevent ID from being taught in high
schools since it, (at this moment), does not meet the standards of science.
 
I am thus not sure what first amendment problem you seem to be referring
to here.

David Opderbeck wrote:

> I don't think anyone disputes that some of the criteria courts look to
> under /Daubert/ could be generally useful criteria, at least in a
> limited "first cut" sense, for evaluating scientific claims. What you
> haven't addressed, though, are the broader policy questions I raised
> about the proper role of courts -- the very questions that prompted
> the Supreme Court in /Daubert/ to caution that its opinion in that
> case should not be used for any purpose other than the narrow question
> it was addressing under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Your view of
> /Daubert/ contradicts what /Daubert/ says about itself. Why should
> the Federal Rules of Evidence govern broad public debates about big
> questions? Do you see the first amendment problem there?
Received on Mon Jan 2 13:39:36 2006