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

I think we've beaten this dead horse to a bloody pulp. As we've been over
several times before, it doesn't matter what the board argued. The court
doesn't have to address every specious argument a party makes (or even every
good one). As to running in circles, if that's what I'm doing, it's only
because I have to keep chasing you around. I've outlined the relevant law,
given quotes from the cases, and provided several hypothetical examples
(including the "evolution as religion" example that you try to raise below
yet again) showing why my understanding of the case law works and yours
doesn't, and given my perspective as a seasoned litigator. I don't want to
spend any more time or bandwidth on this.

On 1/6/06, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> David Opderbeck wrote:
>
> > Pim -- right, but the court didn't have to decide whether ID is in
> > fact "science" to decide whether the Board's purpose was a "sham."
> > The record as to the Board's motives was clear -- they intended to use
> > ID as a way of sneaking their own religious views into the classroom.
>
>
> You miss the point David. The board argued that they have a valid
> secular purpose namely that ID is science.
>
> > After that, whether ID qualified as "science" in any broader sense was
> > irrelevant. And, in fact, Judge Jones' discussion of "science" didn't
> > relate to the Lemon "purpose" prong. It related to the "endorsement"
> > test, which makes this discussion of "purpose" interesting but not
> > relevant to Kitzmiller.
> >
> Again you are missing the point. Purpose AND effect are part of the
> endorsement test. You keep running in circles here. The claimed secular
> purpose was that ID is science, like in Edwards, the court had to
> determine if ID (creation science) had a valid secular purpose. It was
> inevitable that the court would rule on ID being science. It was
> prominently raised as a defense why the court should reject an
> establishment clause violation.
>
> Given your reasoning the court would have found that a similar board
> requiring the teaching of evolution would have violated the
> establishment clause irregardless of whether evolution qualitied as
> science.
>
Received on Fri Jan 6 13:10:04 2006