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

*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.
*
But what the ruling was *supposed* to do was ask whether ID
unconstitutionally promotes religion, not whether ID meets the standards of
science. Hence the first amendment problem.

On 1/2/06, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 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 14:51:25 2006