Citing the United States courts as an authority on what is and is not science is an appeal to false authority fallacy, and basing your entire argument on two sentences written by a man whose career was dedicated to furthering evolutionary theory (one particular evolutionary theory, err, fact, at that) is begging the question. To say that current evolutionary theory is true because Steven Jay Gould says it is true is to say that evolutionary theory is true because it is. Believe it or not, everyone who frequents this website is more than capable of reading Steven Jay Gould's work themselves. You have a Ph.D, and you're not addressing an audience of gradeschool children — don't be afraid to proffer an actual argument of your own construction rather than a series of false logical appeals. Many people of both persuasions have done so at this very website. What you have here is simply a regurgitation of what has already been stated and already been argued — we can find that readily by reading archives and original source material.

Comment by Patrick Mulligan | October 8, 2008

This article is standard fare from the sychophants of Darwinism: a cascade of lies, contradictions, and, as Mr. Mulligan points out, logical fallacies.

First the author erroneously equates I.D. with Creationism (a purely religious explanation of origins) then defends Darwinism by citing support of it by religious authorities! Who exactly is injecting religion into this scientific debate?

Then he claims I.D. is not science because, unlike Darwinism, it retains one possible explanation for origins, that is, Design -while his preferred theory does not allow for that possibility? Arbitrarily removing one possible explanation from consideration in advance is more scientifically valid than leaving all possible explanations in? He believes Darwinism is more scientifically valid because it arbitrarily removes Design from the equation in favor of randomness - a completely anti-scientific explaination - and an utterly unprovable hypothesis.

The scientific method (developed by Christians) involves a theory which is formed after observation and is then subjected to controlled experimentation leading to a predictable outcome which either proves the theory or not.

Explain to me how the concept that a single cell sponaneously sprang to life and randomly became more complex over the course of billions of years can be reproduced in a controlled labrotory enviornment. It cannot, thus Darwinism is not science, it is metaphysics - a philosophical explanation for origins which cannot possibly be proven under the scientific method.

Comment by Jeff Osonitsch | October 8, 2008

Dr. Cravatts

While I agree with you that ID should not be taught alongside evolution in public school science classes, I think you damage your argument by quoting Stephen Jay Gould. Since Gould, like Dawkins, and Hitchens, is an avowed atheist, he starts with the same conclusion based argument you accuse the ID proponents of having. Maybe it would be helpful if schools taught Hopper’s rule of falsiafiablilty. Then we would not have to read your “they contend that evolution is merely a theory, not scientific fact” and each student would understand the difference between theory and fact. Or is it your position that Darwinism is a fact and we cannot allow anything past the doors of a school that would suggest otherwise? I’m always amazed how arguments like yours can take the either/or tact and suggest that belief in evolution and a greater power cannot, and should not be, held simultaneously in the human mind.

Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | October 8, 2008

But Jeff — “Intelligent design is acknowledged by many observers to be the latest spin on … ‘creationism’.” These are presumably the same people that Suzanne Gentling from previous posts referred to when she based her arguments on what “some say”.

As compelling as it is to look at what many observers and some people say about Creationism when the subject is Intelligent Design, bolstered by a Supreme Court interpretation about the U.S. Constitution, like you I tend to want a bit more substance to the discussion. That is, unless under an Obama Administration many observers and what some say becomes the new standard for analysis, and the Supreme Court is the arbiter of all things science.

It could save a lot of money, though. Why build a replacement for the Hubble telescope when 5 Supreme Court Justices can simply decide whether the dark matter really exists or not.

Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 8, 2008

Yes, Phil, it looks like the "consensus" mongers are at it again. Whether its Darwinism, man-made global warming, or the contention that I.D. = creationism, mob rule has officially replaced fact and reason - and for purely political purposes.

Comment by Jeff Osonitsch | October 8, 2008

Wow, this topic got a quick response! I saw no comments, but by the time I hit send there were two. Though I agree with Patrick and Jeff, I have just one clarification. Jeff writes “…proves the theory or not.”
My understanding of a theory is that it remains unproven until all possible counter arguments have been exhausted and then it becomes a fact. Evolution is obviously a theory and not a fact, being so complex that a complete explanation will never be found. Even certain facts such as Newton’s laws can return to the class of theory when confronted by Quantum mechanics. That is not to say that theories, specifically, or in general are not good. They are, but idea that saying “It’s just a Theory!” makes a concept invalid, although held by much of the public, is just incorrect. A theory need not be proven or disproven to advance the status of humans.

Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | October 8, 2008

Waiting for Raymond Ingles and PaulBurnett…

Comment by Mountain Man | October 8, 2008

Hmm… does this allow HTML Hyperlinks, bold, and/or italics for comments? Or does it use that wretched [b]BBCode[/b]?

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

So, with that bit of trivia out of the way, let's go to the easiest matter: the nature of a Theory as the term is used in science. From the recently adopted Florida Science Standards (available at FloridaStandards.org):

Benchmark SC.3.N.3.1: Recognize that words in science can have different or more specific meanings than their use in everyday language; for example, energy, cell, heat/cold, and evidence.
Benchmark SC.6.N.3.1: Recognize and explain that a scientific theory is a well-supported and widely accepted explanation of nature and is not simply a claim posed by an individual. Thus, the use of the term theory in science is very different than how it is used in everyday life.
Benchmark SC.912.N.3.1: Explain that a scientific theory is the culmination of many scientific investigations drawing together all the current evidence concerning a substantial range of phenomena; thus, a scientific theory represents the most powerful explanation scientists have to offer.

The colloquial use of the word theory is closer to par with the scientific use of "hypothesis". Evolution is a Theory under the formal scientific usage of the word.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

I guess that the author thinks that opening with a lie will have a some great influence anybody that isn't already in the choir.

Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D said:
"Because across the country school boards and legislatures have mounted aggressive efforts to introduce intelligent design as a co-equal, alternate theory to evolution in public school science classes."

No, that's a bogus lie, or at the very least, it is conveniently misleading.

But thanks for playing… lol

Comment by island | October 8, 2008

While the courts are not themselves authorities on science, they are experts in evaluation of conflicting claims, and have listened to the evidence presented by experts on both sides. Ultimately, the references to court cases is not to the authority of the court, but the evidence presented in the cases.

In particular, the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case established via the "cdesign proponentsists" transitional form that intelligent design was clearly creationism under a new name.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

Science refers to the process of gathering evidence, forming conjectures about the evidence, developing a formal hypothesis which indicates how the current evidence may be described under the conjecture, competitive testing of all candidate hypotheses under a formal criterion for probable correctness, plus the body of hypotheses testing best thereby and which thereafter are referred to as "Theories".

In the most formal sense, the criterion used for this is a more exacting expression of Occam's Razor, which has been proven in the absolute mathematical sense in the paper "Minimum Description Length Induction, Bayesianism and Kolmogorov Complexity", by Paul M. B. Vitanyi and Ming Li [PostScript file here]. This shows that the most "concise" hypothesis is the one most likely to correctly describe the character of future data. Science thus becomes dependent (due to this paper) on the philosophical assumptions that propositional logic is valid for formal inference, that the Zermelo-Fraenkel Axioms of set theory (which serve as the modern foundation for all mathematics) are self-consistent (though they need not be complete), and that Reality is relatable to Evidence.

Note that the root of the word "prove" is from the Latin probare, "to test". Thus, hypotheses that become theories may be said to have been "proven" in the sense that Science uses the word. This is distinct from the mathematical sense, in that the usual use of "proof" in mathematics indicates a rigorous derivation from axioms; however, the sense that science uses is similar to the sense that a person might seek to "prove" that their brain is not a piece of cauliflower.

Intelligent Design advocates are thus, at best, supporters of a conjecture with roots established in religion, who do not test under the Minimum Description Length Induction criterion, and who do not gather evidence directly from reality. As such, whatever it may be that they are doing, it is not science.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

As to removing the question of design from consideration, Technological design is itself an evolutionary process of competitive selection of variations; see historian George Basalla's book "The Evolution of Technology" for elucidation. The fundamental difference between blind evolution and deliberate design is the latter has a specific element of purpose (or "agency" in philosophy jargon). ID does not have any explicit evidence to support a claim of purpose, or even at present explicit purpose to claim.

As such, parsimony (in the form of Minimum Description Length Induction) removes "design" as a possibility until evidence is presented to support the claim of purpose.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

The problem of experimental reproducibility ties back to the classical question of Heraclitus as to whether you can step in the same river twice. The experimental method does not require full reproduction; a forensic investigation of a murder does not usually involve taking a live person to the scene of the crime and shooting them with the putative murder weapon.

Rather, experimentation is concerned with attempting to gather evidence similar enough to evidence already available to facilitate Minimum Description. Ultimately, science serves as a tool for inferring from the evidence we have, to matters where we do not have evidence.

Thus, full experimental reproduction of circa four billion years of prevolutionary and evolutionary development is unnecessary for Evolution's proof.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

As presently formulated, the results Evolution describes are independent of how the Last Universal Common cellular Ancestor arose. This area of research is of interest to biologists and biochemists; however, the question of how "a single cell sprang to life" is technically NOT part of the scope of the current theory of Evolution. It is a separate question, usually referred to as "Abiogenesis", sometimes as the "biogenic transition".

For a relatively recent overview of the present state of the art accessible to the lay audience, see "Minimal self-replicating systems", Robertson et alia (Chem. Soc. Rev., 2000, 29, 141 - 152, DOI: 10.1039/a803602k), which indicates the arising of life may be viewed in part as a form of autocatalytic reaction. For a more recent paper with a mathematical analysis of the biogenic transition process, see "Prevolutionary dynamics and the origin of evolution", Martin A. Nowak and Hisashi Ohtsuki (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi:10.1073/pnas.0806714105). (Abstract only for the latter; subscription or dead-tree journal required for full paper. Sorry.)

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

Oh, and while I'm at it, I suppose I'll try to preclude the appearance of the usual strawman about how evolution "violates" the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The 2nd Law's restriction of nonincreasing order only applies to a single, isolated closed system. If you have two or more sub-systems connected by mass-energy flows (such as a glass of water and a bucket of frozen CO2), it is possible for one system to increase in order (EG: the water, crystalizing to ice) as long as the order decreases at least as much in the connected sub-system (EG: the CO2 sublimating), resulting in a combined system with nondecreasing entropy.

Furthermore, it has been shown that once you use the form of the equations to address such mass energy flows, the Second Law of Thermodynamics mathematically implies the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection will result. For full details, see "Natural selection for least action", By Ville R. I. Kaila and Arto Annila (Proceedings of the Royal Society A, doi:10.1098/rspa.2008.0178).

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

[…] When Alternate Theories Don’t Make For A Good Curriculum […]

Pingback by Darwiniana » Curriculum under seige | October 8, 2008

abb3w: I agree with you that ID is not "science" the way chemistry and physics are science. http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/06/08/the-politics-of-science-and-religion/

Rather, ID is a theory about the intelligence (vs. randomness) behind life that does employ some scientific methodology (such as mathematics). Roy Varghese discusses this in "The Wonder of the World", as one example.

The debate here and in previous posts is whether ID is the same thing as creationism (it isn't), whether the courts should define what is "science" and what is not (vs. what is permissible to be taught in schools under the US Constitution), and whether it's appropriate to allow an alternative theory to the random creation of life to be discussed in school (though not necessarily in a science classroom).

I believe in both human evolution and ID. Believing that God exists, and that life has a purpose to it we can't, as mortals, always understand, doesn't make one automatically reject science or promote the biblical view of creation. My position is no different from Einstein's, who saw the purposefulness of God in the mathematics of the universe.

The debate here usally degenerates into "you can't prove God exists" and/or "the Courts have ruled that ID is creationism so it must be". Rarely do we ever get someone who moves beyond these simplistic, dismissive statements to discuss whether there is a legitimate place in the education system to discuss alternative theories to life arising from and developing for purely random reasons.

Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 8, 2008

Science gets to describe what science is, and therefore exclude anything that is not "science." a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'd like to know what scientific experiment has been conducted that demonstrates that simpler life forms have evolved over millions of years into more complex life forms. My guess that such an experiment, if it has begun, will yield us a testable result in what, a few hundred thousand years?

Comment by Mountain Man | October 8, 2008

Imagine the horror of students graduating from high school knowing this!

Theory of Intelligent Design (Version 3.7)
Gary S. Gaulin, 2008

The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause _ mechanism where predictability of subatomic particle/energy behavior produces emergent atoms which produces emergent molecules which produces emergent cells which produces emergent multicellular organisms like us. Forces (bonding, polar) self-assemble cell membranes and crystalline designs where molecular behavior produces simple snowflakes to the highly complex genome catalyzed ATP synthase and flagellum motors. Simple starter mechanisms include short wave UV sunlight powering clay/dust/mineral semiconductor crystals to take part in the Reverse Krebs Cycle assembly line that takes the Carbon atom from CO2 gas giving off O2 to build a series of molecules one carbon atom at a time then when as large as can be it breaks in half forming two identical molecules where both could go around again to become four then eight on up in this molecular replication that forms the core metabolic cycle of a cell that produces the starting molecules needed to self-assemble cellular components for a self-organizing genome with RNA/DNA based memory with environment sensitive trial and error self-learning producing two main types of intelligence either the moment to moment cellular intelligence of the cell itself (stem cell migration then differentiation, somatic hypermutation) or the genetic intelligence where successful responses remain in memory in the population keep going the billions year old cycle of life that through continual reproduction of previous state of genetic memory with modification one step at a time builds upon a previous morphological design as is evidenced by the fossil record where never once was there not a predecessor of like morphological design present for the descendant design to have come from.

New designs at the multicellular level are in part guided by what the organism itself intelligently finds desirable in the variety available to select as a mate. Examples include the peacocks where females selecting the largest most attractive tail design, led to males with brilliant displays, even though this makes it more difficult to fly from predators. In humans the looks of "sex symbols" sometimes computer enhanced to represent the conscious ideals not yet common in our morphology.

Occasionally, chromosome complexity increases when two entire chromosomes fuse at opposite ends to become one. This has made humans unique among its kind where such a fusion makes a total of 46 chromosomes, instead of the 48 of all great apes. Here, a parent passed to offspring a fused copy in one of the two parental gametes, to birth a being with 47 chromosomes. That fusion then passed into the population where the fusion would then on occasion have the fusion in both gametes to make the first 46 chromosome beings. From a man and woman both with 46 (fusion in both gametes) could only come 46 chromosome offspring, us.

http://scientific-design-theory.blogspot.com/

Goodby Richard!

Comment by Gary Gaulin | October 8, 2008

Mountain man: wrong for the first part; the demarcation of science is a question of Philosophy of Science, a branch of (obviously) philosophy. This is why I noted in post 12 about "the philosophical assumptions" involved.

As the for the second part… go check post #14 about "experimental reproducibility".

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

Am I to understand that holocaust deniers and evolutionary scientism deniers are on a par? Isn't the religion of scientism exclusively taught in government schools a violation of the second Law of the universe, 'separation of church and state'? Why is it illegal to even mention any of the significant problems with macro-evolutionary theory? Could I see just one transitional form? If the priests of scientism are going to keep tramping around in the philosophy department, could they at least clean up the muddy Birkenstock tracks? And why does anyone pay the slightest attention to accidentally animated pieces of meat that emerged from chaos for no reason other than blind chance, and whose mental gymnastics are as unordered as their fantasy universe?

Comment by Michael Kilpatrick | October 8, 2008

Phillip Ellis Jackson: first, if you're talking about science, you should be clear as to which sense of the word "theory" you are using to avoid a Fallacy of Equivocation. ID is a mere conjecture.

While ID does employ some of the concepts of science, it does so incorrectly. The most egregious is their abuse of the mathematics of probability, when the average shmuck is unable to grasp the Monty Hall problem or even why it's dumb to draw to an inside straight. (See also my post number 13 about Basalla.) Furthermore, the evidence of the history of the movement clearly shows - sufficient for proof in court of law - that Intelligent Design is a variation on creationism. With that clearly established, the balance of proof shifts to it's proponents to show that what they are doing constitutes science. Since they use neither Minimum Description Length Induction nor even the Experimental Method as the basis of testing their conjectures (which is the essence of science; "everything else is bookkeeping"), they are unable to do so.

Certainly, there is a place in the education system for introducing alternatives about how life and humanity arose. However, such alternatives fall into two categories: subtle variations on the idea of evolution (EG: relative import of allopatric versus sympatric speciation) where the distinctions are beyond the (current) high-school level, and religious concepts. While the latter are unsuitable for Science classes due to the disestablishmentarian requirement of the First Amendment, they fit well within a Social Studies program, as long as balanced treatment is given without favor to any one creed.

It's also unlikely that need for balance, combined with the time constraints of the rest of the curriculum, will give advocates of alternatives enough time to deeply indoctrinate the ideas. This is unlikely to cause the whackjob faction entirely opposed to teaching evolution to become any happier.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

Michael Kilpatrick: In the field of religious studies, the normal demarcation criteria require inclusion of moral precepts, sacred scriptural material (chants, books, whatnot), and formal rituals. Unless you can show these for Science, your assertion that it is a religion is bogus. Bizarrely, Star Trek qualifies comparatively easily.

You also show signs of not understanding the difference between "microevolution" and "macroevolution". Microevolution refers to mutations which are able to diffuse within a population. When (either due to genetic or environmental changes) a barrier arises precluding such diffusion, the population "speciates". Thereafter, new mutations in one sub-population are unable to diffuse to the other; what is "microevolutionary" to the former becomes "macroevolutionary" to the latter. Your alleged "significant problem", isn't.

You also seem to misunderstand the nature of transitionals; I suggest a visit to Wikipedia for background and the most notable recent find. There's also genetic evidence of such transitions in every human's DNA.

As for the equation of intelligent design to holocaust denial… both factions are objecting to teaching what the evidence indicates based on a worldview they hold by constitutional right, but which they are constitutionally prohibited from imposing on others in the schools. They're not equal, but they do share an unacceptable degree of similarity.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

abb3W: I'm not a mathematician, but I do know a couple of things about how public policy (including Supreme Court decisions) are made.

A court judgment that ID is just another form of creationism is meaningless to a discussion of whether the content of each is indistinguishable. Not only do the value-laden assumptions of the Court influence decisions (strict constructionist vs. the liberal notion of “fairness”), the whole idea of a legal body determining what is or isn’t science is absurd.

What SCOTUS does is rule on the supposed merits of a case as it understands and interprets Constitutional provisions regarding that issue. The Court doesn’t establish the inherent truth of an issue; it simply rules on whether the issue, as seen through a Constitutional prism, is in supposed violation of or compliance with the Constitution. As the composition of the Court changes, so does its judgments. What is acceptable today may not be in later years, and vice versa. This has nothing to do with the ultimate true nature of the subject under discussion, only it’s contemporary legal status.

To use a simpler analogy, a trial does not establish the innocence of the accused; it determines whether enough evidence is present (and admissible under current court rules) to assess a guilty verdict. The court, ultimately, is not concerned with whether a person “did it” or not. They concern is whether guilt can be “proven” under the constraints of what evidence is admissible. Justice is equally served by letting a murder go free if there is insufficient or tainted evidence to convict, as it is with putting a guilty person in jail. Justice is not served by locking up an obviously guilty man without sufficient evidence. And administering justice — not determining the reality of innocence or guilt — is the only true object of the Court’s concern.

And so it is with cases like ID/creationism. The lower courts (and it makes a difference whether it’s the 5th Circuit or the 3rd Circuit) can rule differently on the same issue because of the makeup of the court. [This is why people court-shop as much as practical]. When the appeal reaches SCOTUS, they are as much concerned with whether there are procedural issues at play as they are with the ruling itself. Frequently, SCOTUS will not address the merits of a case, but instead focus only on procedural matters (think Miranda). When it addresses merits, it often relates them to previous settled law. Thus the Court chips away at Roe v. Wade rather than overturns it all together.

Reversing a court ruling (which means reversing a court interpretation/philosophy) is rare, but can happen as with “separate but equal” rulings. These are generational issues, though, and not analogous to ruling on whether there is enough religion-based commonality between ID and creationism to trigger Court action. All of which leads to the straightforward conclusion that a Court decision does not reveal content (i.e. ID is “religion”, period), only whether enough elements exist that mirror activity which previous court rulings have circumscribed.

I personally believe, like Einstein, that the notion of purposefulness (God) is not incompatible with science. It only becomes untenable when one uses “Religion” and “God” synonymously. This is why I subscribe to allowing ID to be discussed in the classroom, but not the science classroom. Darwin and ID ask and answer different questions as I raised in my earlier essay [Comment 18]. Both are legitimate topics of conversation in their own right.

What I can’t understand is the near hysteria of some Darwinists who will not tolerate any challenge of their theory. If ID wants to stake its claim on a scientific proof, it will fail. If it invokes other elements of thought, it can mount a defense; just as Darwinists fail when they deny the possibility of purposeful evolution because man can’t test/see the mechanism. They may be right, but this narrow view of science may also be wrong. Fighting any effort to allow ID into schools under any venue makes me wonder just how solid their theory is.

Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 8, 2008

The question is not the court judgment; rather, I linked to the evidence presented verbally in the transcript. It was grossly unsubtle enough to flip a sympathetic Republican appointed judge.

The most prominent piece of evidence was (and remains) the drafts of the "Of Pandas and People" book. Initial drafts used the word "creationists". Later drafts used the term "design proponents", with no other changes in wording. Amusingly, there was also a transitional form in between, where an inept search-and-replace resulted in the use of "cdesign proponentsists". Again: it is not the ruling, but the evidence presented during the case which shows ID is clearly religious based, and does not yet meet the standards of science as demarcated by Philosophy of Science. Unless you wish to allow the Flying Spaghetti Monster equal access, creationism and ID in public schools must be limited to study as societal phenomena in social studies class.

The vehemence of objection that those who support evolution make to those who challenge it results from the necessary means of such challenges. To step back to the broader arena of philosophy, consider syllogisms.

All borogoves are mimsy.
All things which are mimsy have fnords.
Therefore, all borogoves have fnords.

To challenge the result, one must show an error in the evidentiary premises, the use of the rule, or the implicit premise of the Rule Of Syllogisms.

Within the constraints of the philosophical assumptions of science, the opponents of evolution are unable to overcome the weight of evidence within the criterion of science. They thus have no alternative but to attack the methodology itself, despite having allowed more clear and successful predictions ("I'll talk to you this evening on the cell, shnuggums") than all other religions combined.

The theory is solid…. but opponents do not attack the theory. Instead, they attack the foundations of science itself by which hypotheses are measured… and those foundations are not merely solid, they are a pythagorean mathematical solid.

The implicit premises of science make it the product of formal logic, foundational mathematics, and the potential to infer Reality from Evidence. A formal methodology of science (via the Vitanyi-Li papers I mentioned) may be trivially shown to be the MOST ACCURATE POSSIBLE way to judge reality. Furthermore, most of the opponents don't even understand how these premises imply what they do, and refuse to make the effort. The frustration resulting from someone who is provably wrong (to the point of asserting P AND NOT P) is understandable.

Would you call an airplane pilot "hysterical" if he reacted to a chimpanzee who didn't like the colors pulling off panels and yanking at the flight wiring? Attacking science is safer, but not much. Technological civilization is the airplane keeping humanity from a population crash, and good science is the main thing that enables flying at this level.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

abb3w: I've avoided making pronouncements about the scientific merits of Darwinism because I have only a layman's understanding of the subject. However, I do know quite a bit about policy making and the operation of the Courts, both as an academic, Capitol Hill lobbyist, and expert witness in a Federalcase.

You don't seem to understand how SCOTUS functions. So while you’ve given us all an in-depth lesson on the scientific method, let me do the same for you on what it means to issue a Supreme Court decision. If you ignore this and simply rely on your reading of court testimony to understand the dynamics of this process, you’re guilty of the same shallowness you’ve accused ID’ers of in promoting their views.

Here’s something from an earlier piece I wrote for IC that leads up to the Supreme Court decision about religion in the classroom, which is the basis for the decision you erroneously cite as evidence that the Court was actually addressing the inherent content of the issue rather than applying a ruling based on an interpretation of the Constitution.

***
With this in mind, I want to focus on the God-based moral foundation provided by the Declaration of Independence that eventually led to the creation of the U.S. Constitution. What is important for now is the fact that the Founding Fathers credited God with bestowing inalienable rights in all man, and these rights in turn justified rebellion against established authority.

In creating policy or passing laws from this Constitutional basis, the debate isn’t whether to have a God-based morality insert itself into our law-making process. It’s already there. The question is how to do this so that one specific religion does not gain an unfair institutional advantage over other religions. And, furthermore, how to recognize the appropriate limits of this God-based morality when making our laws.

Limiting the practical application of a God-based morality in political life is not the same thing as denying any role for it in political decisions. This confusion arises because of the relativistic justifications all sides of this debate have brought into the political arena. Atheists want to deny a role for a God-based morality at any point in the law-making process, while Christian activists want to insert God (or more specifically, their concept of religion and the tenets of their faith) into our public institutions.

Moral Relativists are like the French at the United Nations. They’ll trot out the name of God to sell a Yugo or oppose a policy they don’t like. But otherwise, they’re perfectly fine having God remain an ethereal being that each individual seeks guidance from according to their personal preferences. However, should any of this personal communication from God spill over into the public arena, like the ACLU defending the Constitution, moral Relativists would rather see an immoral law passed legally than a moral law imposed on the people unlawfully.

The initially confusing thing about this last statement is that these relativists are indeed right about not imposing a private morality on the public no matter how odious the issue. This even applies to situations where this private morality and universal moral code are identical (such as abortion), but the law allows this immoral activity to continue. Morality — even the “right” morality — cannot be imposed in a constitutional republic. It must be willingly embraced by the country through its institutions and practices, or the unintended consequences may far outweigh any short-term good. Efforts to promote prayer in public schools, regardless of how pure the motives of its advocates may have been, led directly to the success of moral Relativists in establishing abortion on demand as a national “right.”

The best way to illustrate this point is to go back 150 years or so in U.S. history. The shorthand way of describing the American Civil War was to “free the slaves.” That was indeed an outcome of the war, and for many Northern citizens it was a strongly motivating factor in prosecuting the war. But despite John Brown’s raids and the growing moral outcry over this despicable practice, it wasn’t the issue of slavery that prompted the war. It was the issue of “States Rights” in relation to the authority of the Federal government. War broke out because of actions of State governments that refused to recognize the legitimate authority of the national government. Therefore, the Civil War was fought over a legally-oriented, Constitutionally-based issue; not a moral or philosophical question as embodied in the Declaration of Independence.

Why is this important?

The U.S. Constitution provides the direct, legal-political framework for all laws made within the United States. Even though it was fought with the use of competing armies, the Civil War was actually a legal-political battle, not a moral one. Clausewitz defines war as “politics by other means.” And it was through politics (war) that the practice of slavery in America was ended, just as politics had legalized it in the U.S. Constitution (the Three-Fifths Compromise), and an amendment to that same Constitution eliminated slavery as a legal concept (the 13th Amendment).
Because the real battle over slavery took place in a legal-political arena, the culture of the nation was changed. Today, the debate is no longer over how to count slaves for the purpose of representation in Congress, but whether one piece of legislation or another has gone too far, or not far enough, in support of the principle of equal justice and civil liberties.

This “lesson” in ending American slavery has important implications for the focus of this essay, terrorism and abortion. It illustrates the important role that morality plays in defining the legal-political basis for action, as well as the proper arena in which to apply morality to public and private life. Without a universally recognized and accepted moral foundation to end slavery, neither John Brown’s raids nor all the vocal opposition to slavery in the world would have made a difference in shaping the post-Civil War era. The rebellious states would have been brought back into the Union, and life would have gone on as before despite the Emancipation Proclamation. Rather than expressing an enduring principle of morality, it would have been little more than a war-time tactic that could have easily been pulled back or modified dramatically in Reconstruction America. With no intrinsic right to liberty, a right recognized as coming directly from God, freeing the slaves would have been just another bargaining chip to do with as politicians pleased.

But it was not the Declaration of Independence that gave Lincoln the power to prosecute the war, or issue his Emancipation Proclamation. It was the U.S. Constitution, which drew its moral justification from the Declaration of Independence. Had slavery been ended by executive fiat, or vigilante justice (no matter how well intentioned), the culture would not have changed. Culture is reflected in the laws of the land. And these laws had not been changed.

Had the South attempted to force its system on the North, or otherwise threatened physical harm to neighboring non-slave states, war would have been justified on moral as well as legal-political grounds. And when it was over, the culture would have been changed through violence, but it would have been violence of a different nature. Rather than return wayward politicians and citizens to the fold, the focus would have been on eliminating the threat. The carnage that we already know from five years of civil war could conceivably have been even higher. Cultural change would have been brought about through the elimination of a threat and the substitution of a new culture in its place, much like the challenge the Western world faces today in its fight against Islamo-fascism.

The moral seeds of slavery’s own destruction were sewn at the very creation of the U.S. Constitution when southern landowners acknowledged the limited humanity of their slaves through the Three-Fifths compromise. The same human being who had no Constitutional rights was counted as three-fifths of a person for taxation and representation purposes. It took almost a hundred years for those seeds to blossom, but that intervening time was used to clarify the moral bankruptcy of slavery and prepare the country for eventual change. If the Civil War had not been fought, enough new states would have joined the Union to legally abolish this abominable practice. With each passing year the rationalizations for allowing slavery were slowly being pealed away to expose the moral ground below it, until nothing but naked, venal self-interest remained to justify the practice of owning another human being.

Both terrorism and elective abortion rationalize their behavior in much the same way that southern plantation owners did during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
They exist by denying basic human rights, but take this denial to the next level. The logic of terrorism and abortion requires that the perpetrator completely deny the humanity of the thing being killed. In neither case is a human life being taken, because in both cases terrorists and abortionists have rationalized away its human qualities, and therefore its basic rights. This is why Islamo-fascists teach that Jews are no better than animals, and believe that Infidels are not “innocent” human beings. And it explains why a woman aborting her child must look at her baby as an “undifferentiated tissue mass” or a “Right to Choose,” instead of as a developing human being. In both cases arbitrary criteria is used to deny a person’s humanity, and because of this the seeds of their own destruction have been sewn as well. Terrorism cannot survive without fear; and eventually fear is conquered. Abortion cannot survive without ignorance; and eventually ignorance is replaced with knowledge.

What allows both terrorism and abortion to exist today is a deliberate effort to ignore, pervert, or rationalize-away our common moral code in the name of expediency and self-interest. We look at world consensus to justify our actions, ignoring the fact this consensus is made up of personal self-interests and is not based on a common moral value. We seek a legal justification for action or inaction through the United Nations, without first asking whether a core moral issue is at stake. There is nothing inherently wrong with either consensus or global cooperation. But unlike our system of laws and government – which was built on the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence — world opinion and world government has no such similar base.

Mouthing a concern for human rights is not the same thing as recognizing that those rights derive from God, not man. The fact that a country has the word “Republic” or “Democratic” in its name does not therefore make it truly democratic, or insure that it will operate as a republic. It is only when we move beyond mere words and begin to look at actions and intentions that we discover the truth of a matter.

What has allowed elective abortion to supplant slavery as a national indignation is a combination of the factors I addressed above — self-interest, rationalization, hidden agendas — but something else too. Those who took the “moral high ground” in sparking this debate had their own set of vested interests and hidden agendas. Beginning with prayer in public schools and other public institutions, they took key provisions of the Declaration of Independence and substituted their own religious preferences for “God” so that paying homage to “Jesus,” not following a God-given moral code, became the focus of their efforts.

Because of this approach, moral Relativists were able to seize the debate and frame their core issues in a deceitful way. Since Religion A claims to speak for God, and the Constitution forbids the state to establish an official religion, then both Religion A and the God it speaks for must be completely removed from the secular world. This logic prevailed because the Constitution is not the Declaration of Independence, and drawing inspiration and support from God is not the same thing as making laws that reflect God’s rules as expressed by a particular religion. It didn’t matter if what Christians believed perfectly matched 95% of the beliefs of every other religion. The Constitution, though inspired by God-given rights, was still man’s law. And man’s law did not permit the establishment of an official state religion.
By hijacking God and linking Him to a battle to promote their values, not only did the Christian community lose their fight, it allowed the notion of “God” — the basis for their claim — to be wiped out with it. This then led to an even more determined fight to infuse “politics with religion.” Relativists became even more relative to prevent their opponent’s success, and as the Relativists carried the fight to its relativistic extreme, atrocities like abortion on demand became the law of the land.

***

I've gone through this to show you the legal and intellectual foundation of the Court in deciding whether something violates the Constitutional provision against the establishment of religion (erroneously referred to as the "separation of Church and State"), and from this to see how and why the Court has acted in regard to the matters of creationism and ID.

Your casual dismissal of court dynamics by referring to a "Republican judge" is a cartoon version of reality that reflect absolutely none of the sophistication needed to properly assess this issue. If your entire position depends on having the Court determine the inherent nature of ID and creationism, as opposed to acting for the reasons I stated, then your position is not supportable.

Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 8, 2008

I'm sorry abb3w, just because you make a bare assertion and refer me back to your previous bare assertion does not make me wrong.

Your definition of science from post 12 is not. It could just as easily apply to solving a crime or researching the purchase of a 67 Camaro.

I'm beginning to think that you think that using yourself as a reference is all the proof you think you need. I expect the next step for you is to dismiss everyone who disagrees with "SCIENCE" to be ignorant, close-minded, and ant-science.

Comment by Mountain Man | October 8, 2008

abb3w:
I am certainly not well educated in science, so my questions will probably seem pretty stupid, but, isn't at least considering the hypothesis of ID a worthy venture for science? If anything, figuring out a way of constructing a study in whether or not there exists a kind of pattern in our purported evolution indicating a lack of "randomness" in it could help further either theories, or ideas, whatever the hell you call them. It seems to me the major difference between the two (evolution and ID) as they are played out is randomness and exactness. One says were are merely here by chance, and the other, because a strict set of laws governing physics and biology etc governed over a specific set beginning of the universe so that in that sense everything was predetermined. Shouldn't science give time and effort into exploring that idea? Can't effort be thrown into evaluating evolution from a skeptical point of view, and still scientific?

It seem perhaps initially there exists a sort of cynical skepticism in the very person who thinks from a more "scientific" view point, that from that skepticism and then Darwin came a fostering of bias towards any hypothesis relating to any degree or sort of intelligent design? It seems to me there is a bias within the scientific community that has indefinitely accepted evolution, just understands that they haven't been "yet" able to fully prove it so it is irrefutable to the masses. I mean, like i said, I know very little about science, but has there been equal time given to other hypothesis, or can it be said that historically it happened that evolution just clicked and as evidence mounted it made the scientific community just work harder to explore,and further prove evolution, as if the community knew it was the answer and that the evidence was out there, man just needed to find it?

Ultimately I think why so many people want ID given serious consideration, is so evolution, which by our common language is a theory, doesn't become assumed absolute truth and people give up entirely on God, not to mention that since neither can be objectively tested, with only that argument it is somewhat contradicting to say one answer can be taught in school and the other can not. I've had to debate so many times with people who've just recently come out of the public education system where evolution was presented uncontested, like fact, and you start in on God and they make conjectures about the origin of religion and God and rattle off something they learned about the dinosaurs and something they "learned" while watching Zeitgeist. And of course I hear "The bible was all made up" or "you cant prove it," of course they can't prove macro-evolution either but that doesn't stop them from believing whole-heartedly in evolution. I know I sound like a bigot, but while you would argue good science is whats keeps humanity flying, I ask what about morals? I believe the Theory of Evolution has huge implications about morality, and while with good science the plane may fly, with out morals, it might not have any sense of direction, or even a destination. I would just like more careful evaluation from the scientific community into the totality of what evolution really means for man kind, instead of elitist answers, stubborn considerations, and all the arrogance and pomp that gets relayed especially on this issue.

Thanks

Comment by N.Jacobs | October 8, 2008

PEJ: sorry, I consider your abortion-based argument poor. Yes, abortion is a terrible thing. However, sometimes (as with war) alternative choices are worse and more costly. Morality is relative, in that some evils are worse than others. (Illustrate with atrocity versus triviality of your choice.) The present school of moral relativism is flawed, in that they have rejected a hypothesis without providing a better alternative. To date no-one (in any school) has been able to express the idea of "good" save by reference to "god", blind self-gratification, or circular word games.

Your discussion of rights and morality ignores the biological and evolutionary process by which societies form. Namely, dispute mechanisms other than "Ultima Ratio Regnum" are more "efficient" overall for species, and thus an evolutionary advantage. So far as I can tell, Rights such as in the Bill of Rights, are merely a recognition that a Government trying to impose certain kinds of resolutions to disputes almost invariably leads to various recognized kinds of disaster (EG: war) in short order.

The UN is simply a very primitive form of government, akin to the level used by hunter-gatherer tribes with membership similarly under 300 or so. The "individuals" it represents are at present too diverse in world view to have much common ground for agreement that "doing this will mean war; that's bad". If you can figure out how to convince diverse cultures that doing this and not doing that will be better for humanity in the long run, more power too you.

My dismissal via "Republican Judge" is hardly casual. Rather, I'm pointing out that even someone deemed a likely supporter adjudged it the evidence to support the assertion overwhelming on examination. The verdict is a symptom of the evidence. I see no basis by which one may dispute that ID was a variation on Creationism. The evidence traced the movement by persons, publications, and speeches. The (heh) evolutionary links are all but indisputable. What may be disputed are the implications of this historical fact: evidentiary, legal, moral, and societal.

From the evidentiary point of view, one may debate whether or not ID has moved beyond its religious origin to something philosophically broader. Since it is no longer directly associated with moral precepts or formal rituals, a case can be made. At the doctrinal level, it also also cut free from particular sacred materials; however, at the organizational level, too many of its proponents are vocal advocates of religious accounts for given complete credence to claims of separatism. That some of its proponents continue mocking the panspermia alternative (itself, arguably in the category of ID) as incredible would suggest speciation is not yet complete.

From the legal point of view, one may either argue under current case law, or argue that the decisions of current case law are incorrect. (However, one should make clear which you wish to argue.) As the question widens, so does the debate. EG: legality of public school inclusion. Can students raise questions? Absolutely; however, the question should be answered within the disestablishmentarian requirement indicated by present case law. Can ID be argued for inclusion in social studies? Certainly; it's become a notable piece in the history of the interaction of Government and Religion as a result of Kitzmiller, just as the landmark Scopes case was. Has it diverged far enough to be science? I noted earlier, the practice of ID does not conform to the demarcation criteria of science (as usually defined by the philosophy of science). Could it be included deliberately? Doing so as part of teaching science (ibid) without requiring teachers to showing why it currently is "wrong" from the standpoint of science (ibid) would appear an false sanction of particular religious interpretations unconstitutional under present case law. Deliberately including it as a "bad example" would appear (current case law) to be a similarly unconstitutional attack on the religions which favor it. Lacking clear secular purpose, inclusion seems unjustified… but there may be more to it. Feel free to point to present case law.

Furthr in the legal realm and as you note, the view of the constitutional import of this has changed over time. If you wish to advocate a legal basis why the current case law should change in such a fashion to allow it, go ahead. (I'm not a lawyer, so I haven't a clue as to the best line on this. Presumably, circuit cases with other leaning as potential precedent.) Similarly, the Constitution itself can be Amended. If you have a suggestion for one, and why it should and would pass, that's an acceptable line.

This ties to the moral standpoint, and broader social questions: what should we be teaching our children? What kind of a society should we shape with our laws? Morality is particularly difficult due to the fundamental disagreement between people as to the nature of "moral", so argument should be more cautious about careless implicit assumptions. Still, humans share enough basic moral ideas that it's not unimaginable.

Pick whichever framework you wish to argue from… but please try and make clear which framework you're arguing from.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

MM, it's not mere "bare assertion". I work with philosophers of science (though just as the computer tech); several have agreed with my definition. It's fairly standard stuff: experiment, testing, occam's razor, theory. It's not that different from what was covered repeatedly in my high school days.

To facilitate discussion, I'll note it can be broken into five parts.
1) Gathering evidence
2) Forming Conjectures
3) Using conjectures to explain the inter-relations of Evidence as a hypothesis
4) Testing of hypotheses
5) The present best hypotheses

The last is only included for completeness, as this is the obvious "science" that everyone realizes is part of school curricula. However, teaching science hasn't been only rote memorization for a long while (though there's still a lot; I hated chemistry). Also note I accept "delivery via seraphim choir" as a means for conjecture formation, although you may have co-authorship obligations result if you publish. =)

If you have a problem with the definition I'm using, indicate which part or parts and why, preferably with an example of something usually recognized as part of science that doesn't fit. Looking at the Wikipedia entry on Science might help with that.

Your Camaro research analogy is incorrect, in that the criterion of decision is substantially different. As for solving crime… ever heard of "forensic science"? There, however, the threshold probability of proof (for court conviction, anyway) is different than science. Criminal courts demand "proof beyond reasonable doubt"; science is willing to settle for "most probable under current evidence" (although if there are other candidates of relative probability within one sigma, they are likely to be noted as competitive).

These similarities is one reason why teaching the methodology of science is viewed as educationally important.

Comment by abb3w | October 8, 2008

abb3w,

You clearly missed the point of Philip Jackson's argument entirely. I'll try and simplify it for him: the court's job is not to decide what is true or false, fact or fiction. The court's only job is to decide how a case fits into the current legal framework established by the constitution (in the case of the SCOTUS) or case law (in the case of the lower courts). The court did not rule on the morality or correctness of slavery, for instance, they merely ruled on its status as defined by our constitution and case law. Slavery was no more "right" or morally correct before 1865 than it was after 1865 when the 13th amendnment to the constitution was ratified. Slavery didn't change - the legal framework did. Similarly, a court is incapable of deciding "intelligent design is the same as religious creationism". They were not asked to rule on that matter. They were asked to rule on whether or not intelligent design was acceptable to be taught in public schools. There are many things not acceptable to be taught in public schools under our current legal framework that are nevertheless scientifically, culturally, and intellectually significant.

Here's an interesting thought experiment: why do self-described proponents of science delve into arguments as to the nature of semantics, philosophy, morality, legality and religion when defending Darwinism or evolutionary theory, yet when they are confronted by, say, the Flat Earth Society, they simply point to tangible, physical, observable facts, like our space program, and satellite TV?

Comment by Patrick Mulligan | October 8, 2008

Perhaps the debate on this issue should move towards a debate concerning whether or not the state should even have bearing on the teaching of evolution or ID. If you can concede that both evolution and ID have religious implications, then government acceptance of evolution is in a way inadvertently, without declaring a religious establishment, maintaining one. That is of course Something the Constitution forbids the government to do. As someone pointed out the Supreme Court seems determined to rid all things public of the word God because it implies the state has supported the notion of a deity or higher being, which is I guess "establishing" a religion. (Even though the first was meant to keep from having a national denomination or church) Much of that line of thinking is welcomed by atheists who feel offended to be subject under any body that invokes the notion of GOD. But then likewise, I am offended by them. Taking out the pledge of allegiance because it has the word God in it is offensive to me and many others. Evolution as a random process, having no pre-set design or designer, can greatly imply there is no God, which is atheism, which is relative to religion. By only publicly allowing the teaching of evolution, the state is supporting atheism.

Comment by N.Jacobs | October 9, 2008

Well, this is instructive.

The person who lectures us on understanding what Science is before making any judgments about Darwinian evolution, and expressly rejects the notion of using simple common sense to understand evolution or “scientific theory”, now expressly rejects the need to actually know what he’s talking about when he discusses High Court rulings.

For those of you familiar with the American political system (which includes most everyone at IC), both Justice Souter and Justice Scalia are “Republican Judges”. The party affiliation of the president appointing them, or even the Justice him/herself, is not always a predictor of their decisions or associated reasoning. This is a foolish, simplistic way to view the Court.

To further assert that a Court ruling addresses the inherent substance of an issue is, in a word, stupid. Court cases are often about procedure, and decisions are based on precedent, which involves specific interpretations of constitutionality. I went through this at great length in Comment 25, and then again tracing the genesis of the latest Court rulings on religion in schools, relating it to the DOE and the slavery paradox. abb3W has no understanding of Court history or procedures, and applies only his common sense intuition to his analysis. This is both ahistorical and foolishly simplistic reasoning — the kind he allegedly rails against from those who oppose Darwinian evolution.

Once again, as even a first years political science major knows, Court rulings are not designed to find the ultimate truth of a matter. They are designed to adjudicate an issue within the context of present law, as it has been interpreted by previous decisions. And these interpretations are historical, not metaphysical, as Brown and other cases have shown whose foundations were later overturned.

What surprises me is that it’s a minor point (relative to the larger issue) that abb3w refuses to concede. He can still make his case without relying on the Courts to define the intrinsic content of ID and Creationism. The fact that he won’t (a) apply his own standards of not coming to a conclusion about an issue unless one has a clear understanding of that issue, and (b) insists on tying everything he says about science into the Courts backing him up, shows me two things.

First, he is selective in his reasoning, which appears to be agenda-driven rather than thoughtful. And second, if he makes definitive pronouncements about a subject he clearly has no basic understanding of (other than a layman’s appreciation), his pronouncements in his own area of expertise should be immediately suspect. [Patrick's synopsis of the legal-moral issue, by the way, are right on the mark, and relate to the crux of the issue I raised, not the cartoon version of reality an armchair analyst comes up with.]

I thought maybe we’d actually have an engaging discussion on this matter. But if the only real standard in supporting our position is what we feel or surmise through a layman’s understanding of the issue (not what we actually know), then there’s no reason to automatically assume either side is correct. Once again we get a counter argument about ID that’s based on agenda-driven feelings and armchair understandings of the political-legal process.

Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 9, 2008

Patrick: Here's a better thought experiment. Assume the Republicans return to power in 4 years and control the Senate. President Palin appoints two or three additional conservative justices to the Supreme Court. The court reviews the ID/creationism debate again, and this time rules that ID is not creationism, and should be taught in a science classroom.

Would abb3W now argue that ID is not creationism, and support teaching it along side Darwinian evolution, because SCOTUS said it was ok?

Somehow, I don't think abb3W would argue that the debate is now settles, and welcome ID or creationism into the science classroom.

This is what happens when one doesn't understand the nature of the legal-political system, and simply cherry picks a ruling they like as support for their substantive position.

Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 9, 2008

Uh… PEJ? Kitzmiller v. Dover isn't a "high court ruling". This makes Souter and Scalia irrelevant. It's a district court; Judge John E. Jones III presided.

Second, you also don't seem to recognize that the US Courts act in two distinct functions: as arbitrators of Fact, and arbitrators of the Law.

Finally, I repeat: I do not point to the ruling as definitive. I point to the ruling as symptomatic of the definitive nature of the evidence, and the case itself as a convenient place to find information as presented by experts on both sides.

If you want to re-argue the nature of the evidence presented at KvD, I'm happy to oblige.

Comment by abb3w | October 9, 2008

Phil,

abb3w is another closed mind arguing minutae. We're at post 35. Let's stop now before we're up to 100.

Comment by Mountain Man | October 9, 2008

Oh let's go for 100. Seems to me that most of this discussion centers on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The difficulty with science curriculums in K-12 and College is that they treat theories as fact. Once upon a time theories were taught as just that theories. Then the teacher/professor/discussion leader dealt with those things the theory could not explain which led to new theories and proofs explaining the previously unexplainable.

Hmmm what can Darwin's theory NOT explain? Why must we hide the flaws in the theory?

Comment by Mickey G | October 9, 2008

abb3W: Once again you have no understanding of the American judicial system.

The lower court rulings are based on High Court rulings (I spoke about both, and used the SCOTUS example of justices because few people know the names of lower court judges.) The points are the same. No court, from SCOTUS down to the County District Court, decides ultimate truth as you posited.

When courts at as arbiters of fact, they do so only in the context of what the law allows as permissible evidence, not what all-objective-evidence-that-presently-exists allows! Kitzmiller was argued within the context of previous SCOTUS rulings that established the parameters of how to decide what is “religious”, as interpreted through previous SCOTUS rulings. Again, I went to great lengths to show you how the present hyper-technical definition of religion came into being. That doesn’t make it an intrinsically correct or intrinsically incorrect decision, merely a legally binding one. Had Kitzmiller been argued in 1940, the Court would likely have ruled it did not violate the prohibition against state established religions. And if it’s argued again thirty years from now under a different court composition, the hyper-technical definition used today may very well be changed. The “facts” remain unchanged — only the Constitutional interpretation changes, which is the point I keep making and the point you keep missing.

Moreover, not every objective “fact” can be presented in a Court. A court-decided “fact” isn’t like a science experiment. Some issues are excluded procedurally that, in an ultimate sense, have a material bearing on the case. But they fall outside procedures, and are therefore excluded.

Once again you take a layman’s knowledge of the word “fact”, and apply it to a cartoon version of a judicial system, and come up with the convoluted notion that the Courts decide the ultimate truth of a matter. You do exactly the same thing you rail against non-scientists for doing when they speak about Darwinism. The irony is not lost on any of us.

Your understanding of the courts is completely wrong, and you still won’t admit it. But everyone here knows it, since after all we are a political website, and most contributors have at least a basic understanding of the American political system.

As to your statement “I do not point to the ruling as definitive. I point to the ruling as symptomatic of the definitive nature of the evidence, and the case itself as a convenient place to find information as presented by experts on both sides,” let’s have a look at your Comment 11: “While the courts are not themselves authorities on science, they are experts in evaluation of conflicting claims, and have listened to the evidence presented by experts on both sides. Ultimately, the references to court cases is not to the authority of the court, but the evidence presented in the cases. In particular, the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case established via the "cdesign proponentsists" transitional form that intelligent design was clearly creationism under a new name”

You specifically spoke about the “evidence” showing that ID was “clearly creationism under a new name”. This again is a bogus, cartoon version of reality. What the Court ruled is that ID and creationism have sufficient religious elements that they trigger the present-day constitutional prohibitions I noted above. This is a legal-historic judgment, not a “clear” case that both ID and creationism are the same.

In fact, if you look at the actual Kitzmiller transcript, you see how this connection is made. Here’s the supporting reasoning for believing that ID and creationism are supposedly identical.

Q. Do you have an opinion about whether intelligent design is religious in nature?
A. Yes.
Q. And what is that opinion?
A. That it is essentially religious.
Q. On what do you base your opinion that intelligent design is a form of creationism?
A. On the statements by the movement's own leaders, they have at times referred to it that way.
Q. Anything else?
A. Yes. Their rejection of evolution in favor of a supernatural intervention in the process of nature and in favor of special creation of life forms.
So, some religious leaders “at times” have invoked religious imagery (like, assuming there is a God?) when speaking about ID, and have — horror upon horrors — stated “Their rejection of evolution in favor of a supernatural intervention in the process of nature and in favor of special creation of life forms.” In other words, they dared to say that life isn’t a random creation, but like Einstein believed it was the result of purposeful action.
Well, this simply cannot be tolerated, and therefore ID must be identical to the literal belief in the book of Genesis.
Once again, if you bother to read what I wrote in bold in Comment 27, you’d understand why the lower courts had no choice but to accept this “reasoning” as law. It isn’t “fact”, it’s opinion (in fact, it’s stated that way in the transcript). But it is an opinion that conforms to current High Court standards, and thus ID cannot legally be taught in schools. Change the standards — as we did with Slavery a century ago — and you change the court decision. The “facts” remain the same; only its constitutional permissibility differs.

Nothing in Kitzmiller settles the issue of whether ID is actually a disguised form of creationism as you falsely assert. If you read it in the context of what the courts actually do, and how they operate, you’d understand what the ruling is, and why it was made.

If you want to debate in a political website, know what you are talking about or be prepared to be embarrassed.

Note to MM: I agree there's no need in discussing the issue further with someone who can't see the irony in railing against ignorance when he practices it himself.

Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 9, 2008

abb3w, you've misunderstood another legal construct in your definition of "point of fact" being in any way related to the court itself being an arbiter of such. The court merely reviews evidence based on a standard of evidenciary proof to decide whether it can be demonstrated that a statement or fact in a legal case is actually true. Point of fact fits into the broader legal framework of deciding how a case should be ruled based on our legal standards. That the court found a piece of evidence sufficient under our prevailing legal standards to show that John Doe fired the gun that killed the sheriff does not mean that John Doe actually did shoot the sheriff, or that the case is closed and the court sends John Doe to jail. It simply means that the evidence was sufficient based on legal standards to be admissible as "true" in the adjudication of the case. It means that the prosecutor did not outrightly conjur up the case against John Doe. It is not a value judgment.

Also, just out of interest, PEJ wasn't addressing Kitzmiller v. Dover in his post, nor was it in any way relevant to his reference to Justices Scalia and Kennedy being "Republican" judges. Are you actually incapable of comprehending what you read, or just unwilling?

You are the one who tore off on a tangent about the United States courts and the nature of scientific "fact" and "theory" and "philosophy" and "law" and the very definition of "science" and the "scientific method" itself. If you were more interested in the evidence presented in the case instead of the ruling made in the case, you could have simply gone to the evidence directly. Of course, since the evidence and arguments presented in the case were designed by both sides for the legal particulars and legal context of the case, it may not be the best source of evidence for a "scientific" or value-based inquiry into the matter.

Not that it would matter much. Just as the original author, you are doing nothing but regurgitating the exact same arguments that have been made at this very website literally dozens of times before. We might as well just copy and paste the discussion section from the last 5 articles written on this subject - no new facts, no new arguments, no new analyses, not even any new philosophical or logical angles have been explored here. In the future, this debate can be summarized as follows:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3862339595444502353

Comment by Patrick Mulligan | October 9, 2008

It should be noted that I was responding to post 34 in my last post, and the others were added while I was typing.

Comment by Patrick Mulligan | October 9, 2008

I agree, Mickey G.

"What can Darwin's theory not explain" is a good question, by the way. The macro evolutionary model is unassailable, since it simply transforms itself in the light of new discoveries.

The only other construct I know of that has such capability is the faith of a religionist. Evolutionists have a diety, a sacrament, a dogma, and the blind willingness to attack and demonize every dissenter in the name of maintaining the purity of the faith.

Comment by Mountain Man | October 9, 2008

Three things strike me immediately regarding this article:

1) the author, Dr. Cravatts, expertise is in education, real estate, and banking rather than science. This makes him little more than an observer no different than any rank amateur and his doctoral standing of little account.

2) He has not bothered to educate himself as to the specifics of Intelligent Design Theory, which refutes neither creationism or evolution. In fact, ID is an attempt to reconcile the two.

3) Saying "alternate theories don't make for a good [science class] curriculum" is the most absurdly unscientific remark Dr. Cravatts could have made. Science is about enquiry, and good science does not rule out any theory without good reason. Universities used to be hotbeds of contending scientific theories, and it was out of the ferment of this argument much of our modern world was built.

Comment by Bob Stapler | October 9, 2008

>ID is an attempt to reconcile creationism with evolution. Bingo!

There is nothing inherently incompatible between believing in a purposeful God, and believing that a purposeful God works through evolution.

There is a problem, in my opinion, with substituting a specific religion’s view of God and that religion’s beliefs about creation for the notion of an Intelligent Creator. That issue, however, is a separate debate. Disbelieving the Jewish, Christian or Hindu, etc. version of creation is not the same thing as dismissing the notion of a purposeful God, and requiring us to believe in a completely accidental, random evolution.

Maybe one day we’ll actually get a change to debate this issue, instead of all the folderol we’re normally subjected to by those who desperately want to link ID with a specific religion so they can discredit any counter-notion to a purposeless existence.

Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 9, 2008

An excellent definition of theory from Wiktionary is "A coherent statement or set of statements that attempts to explain observed phenomena. A theory does not need to be fact. But once a theory proves to be incoherent it is a failed theory.

The Discovery Institute could not explain a "mechanism" Judge Jones needed to see. Arguing that they saw a problem in another theory only changed the subject. In the end it was found that ID is not science.

Since it is possible that a theory (coherently explaining mechanism) will in time be accepted there is afterward nothing a court can do to stop it. Judge Jones would read what I have in comment #20 and think it's great that the schools are now able to connect so much science together to make sense. Any court action would then be formality. Dover or other town in Pennsylvania wanting to benefit from (this time) good publicity can make it official that the "Theory of Intelligent Design (Version 3.7 and above)" is teachable.

Attempting the theory has helped me understand what they are. It now begins with the Discovery Institute's description with a "_" character to mark where the science begins. This demonstrates what went wrong in Dover. The Discovery Institute went to court with no theory. Only had a description of one. Creationists can now see what was missing. And the 48-47-46 couple the theory ends describing is in my opinion Adam and Eve but that's for those who believe in Genesis to decide. It also explains the fossil record as "design" and what is important to know about the origin of life. Current research such as in the self-replication papers fits right into it. Evolutionary Theory would still be valid but of limited use and somewhat redundant to science. All of the things ID Theory was to do is this way accomplished.

A theory is just a statement that coherently explains a phenomena. Although what I presented needs the thoughts better sorted out and grammar improved it's still a valid theory. Am more concerned in it being logically accurate to prevent misinterpretation.

There should already be teachers using ideas or the whole theory in their classroom. Can Google "Living Systems Theory" for something similar to show just how far along the science always was.

ID is now science. But the Discovery Institute doesn't have it. Serious scientists left them. The theory to end the controversy with the ID movement winning, had to come from another entity. :D

Comment by Gary Gaulin | October 9, 2008

Patrick Mulligan: I'll try and simplify it for him: the court's job is not to decide what is true or false, fact or fiction. The court's only job is to decide how a case fits into the current legal framework established by the constitution (in the case of the SCOTUS) or case law (in the case of the lower courts).

As I noted, to the best of my understanding as a non-Lawyer, this untrue from a legal standpoint. The role of the courts of "trier of fact" is noted in the Seventh Amendment. In a jury trial, this function is reserved to the jury, with the judge serving merely as the arbiter of law. However, in a trial before a judge alone, the judge serves as arbiter of both. Sometimes, the findings of Fact and of Law are issued as separate parts, which serves to highlight this role. The best-known instance of this would be U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's issued "Findings of Fact" in the Microsoft anti-trust case, easily found on-line.

Of course, that example also highlights that while the judiciary act in these roles, this DOES NOT mean the role is done perfectly. Jackson's findings of Fact were vacated in short order, due to evidence of his acting improperly. Thus, if those assembling here wish to revisit the evidence presented in KvD, and dispute the proposition "Intelligent Design was derived from Creationism", I'm willing to go along for the ride. However, if you wish to challenge this conclusion, you should indicate you wish to do so, and indicate why you feel the evidence presented to the court is insufficient to prove that assertion. If you would prefer accept that specific assertion, and argue the implications of it (such as whether or not that proposition implies "Teaching Intelligent Design Is Unconstitutional" or "Intelligent Design Should Not Be Taught In Public Schools"), it would seem helpful to try and make that intent clear.

If someone would care to identify themselves as a member of a state Bar, they should feel free to correct my misunderstandings as to the role of the courts. Otherwise, it seems to be just us chickens.

Morality, I would agree, is a matter separate from Law and Fact. I understand it's occasionally touched on when the judiciary acts as a court of Equity, but that's somewhat uncommon, and as far as I can see, irrelevant at the matter at hand… especially unless courts do better with Equity than Fact. However, before we argue the morality implications, we should first come to agreement as to the premises underlying the moral inferences. EG: what manner of entity ID is.

Patrick Mulligan: Similarly, a court is incapable of deciding "intelligent design is the same as religious creationism". They were not asked to rule on that matter.

Technically correct. It was, however, asked to rule whether it was science.

From the ruling in question: After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, 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. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.

Patrick Mulligan: Here's an interesting thought experiment: why do self-described proponents of science delve into arguments as to the nature of semantics, philosophy, morality, legality and religion when defending Darwinism or evolutionary theory, yet when they are confronted by, say, the Flat Earth Society, they simply point to tangible, physical, observable facts, like our space program, and satellite TV?

Because the debate is extended to these areas, the nature of what constitutes "observable facts" is a philosophical question, and the drawing of inferences from premises such as facts is intrinsically a philosophical exercise. Science is simply a particular branch of philosophy which requires and restricts the nature of allowed inference. If there is no agreement to the fundamental premises (including the rules of inference themselves), inference is impossible. Based on the similarity of this dialogue to my past experience, I begin to suspect to find mutually acceptable premises, we will need to head to some very fundamental ideas of philosophy… presuming there's enough patience all around for it.

Comment by abb3w | October 9, 2008

Phillip Ellis Jackson: The person who lectures us on understanding what Science is before making any judgments about Darwinian evolution, and expressly rejects the notion of using simple common sense to understand evolution or "scientific theory"

It's a by-product of a background in mathematics. Bona's Observation notes "The Axiom of Choice is obviously true, the Well-Ordering Principle obviously false, and who can tell about Zorn's Lemma?" To explain the joke in this, all three are assertions of "common sense"; however, it has been proven that the Axiom, Principle, and Lemma all say the same thing. A closely related violation of common sense is the Banach-Tarski sphere dissection.

Phillip Ellis Jackson: To further assert that a Court ruling addresses the inherent substance of an issue is, in a word, stupid. Court cases are often about procedure, and decisions are based on precedent, which involves specific interpretations of constitutionality.

To assert that it necessarily does so as a universal rule is, I agree, stupid. However, court cases do sometimes address matters of fact (such as "did the butler do it?"). If you care to highlight why you feel the particular case of KvD was dominated by procedure and precedent when declaring ID to not be science, or that the evidence presented was misinterpreted, please indicate so and put forth premises to support the specific instance.

Phillip Ellis Jackson: Here's a better thought experiment. Assume the Republicans return to power in 4 years and control the Senate. President Palin appoints two or three additional conservative justices to the Supreme Court. The court reviews the ID/creationism debate again, and this time rules that ID is not creationism, and should be taught in a science classroom. Would abb3W now argue that ID is not creationism, and support teaching it along side Darwinian evolution, because SCOTUS said it was ok?

An excellent example.

No… however, in order to dispute this, I would be obligated to show that in the specific ruling was (a) "about procedure, based on precedent involving specific interpretations of constitutionality", and not about the proposition currently under discussion, or alternatively that (b) the balance of evidence better supports an alternative proposition, and show this from mutually agreed on premises.

Feel free to take either approach to dispute.

Mickey G: The difficulty with science curriculums in K-12 and College is that they treat theories as fact. Once upon a time theories were taught as just that theories.

When you get to philosophical formalities, the difference between "theory" and "fact" is much fuzzier than you think.

Mickey G: Hmmm what can Darwin's theory NOT explain?

First, referring to "Darwin's theory" is likely to lead to equivocation as to whether it is the original 19th century formulation or the "modern synthesis" version that is under discussion. Second, the modern synthesis is not very good at determining the what limits the spread and development of new species. Global catastrophes like major asteroid impacts are part of the answer, but I suspect only part.

Mickey G: Why must we hide the flaws in the theory?

To answer an loaded question with an oversimplification, because the resolution is unintuitive. It's the same reason we don't try teaching kindergardeners Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory and Godel's theorem, despite the former being the rigorous fundamental basis of arithmetic, and the latter being (arguably) a flaw.

Comment by abb3w | October 9, 2008

Phillip Ellis Jackson: No court, from SCOTUS down to the County District Court, decides ultimate truth as you posited.

This is a strawman argument, because I only referred to determination of fact in the colloquial sense; "ultimate" truth is a different matter entirely. To an ultimate standard, no human can prove that we aren't living in the Matrix (nor that their brain is not a piece of cauliflower). This brings us to the verge of some classic questions of philosophy.

Phillip Ellis Jackson: When courts at as arbiters of fact, they do so only in the context of what the law allows as permissible evidence, not what all-objective-evidence-that-presently-exists allows!

You are correct; courts limit the permissible evidence that they weigh. However, they do weigh at least some of the evidence. If you feel there is additional evidence that was excluded from consideration in KvD, then it would be fully appropriate for you to indicate this additional evidence is available, and show how this alters the balance of evidence to favor an alternative proposition.

I'm primarily pointing to KvD as a convenient place where much of the evidence is accumulated.

Phillip Ellis Jackson: Kitzmiller was argued within the context of previous SCOTUS rulings that established the parameters of how to decide what is "religious", as interpreted through previous SCOTUS rulings. Again, I went to great lengths to show you how the present hyper-technical definition of religion came into being. That doesn't make it an intrinsically correct or intrinsically incorrect decision, merely a legally binding one. Had Kitzmiller been argued in 1940, the Court would likely have ruled it did not violate the prohibition against state established religions.

This, however, is a separate question from whether ID originated as a variant form of creationism. If you wish to dispute this, start there. If you wish to dispute the validity of the implication from this premise, please make it clear which premises you accept and which exact step you are disputing.

Phillip Ellis Jackson: You specifically spoke about the "evidence" showing that ID was "clearly creationism under a new name". This again is a bogus, cartoon version of reality. What the Court ruled is that ID and creationism have sufficient religious elements that they trigger the present-day constitutional prohibitions I noted above. This is a legal-historic judgment, not a "clear" case that both ID and creationism are the same. In fact, if you look at the actual Kitzmiller transcript, you see how this connection is made. Here's the supporting reasoning for believing that ID and creationism are supposedly identical.

That's only one piece of the evidence. There are others. EG, the section of transcript I linked to:

Q. Matt, could you go back to the timeline? And could you place Biology and Creation, Biology and Origins, and the two Pandas drafts on the timeline? Thank you. Did you compare the drafts of Pandas to the published versions?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And did your review of the drafts of Pandas indicate whether it had originally been written as a creationist book?
A. Yes, my review of the draft shows that it was written as a creationist book.
Q. And what caused you to come to that conclusion?
A. Well, the earlier drafts are all stated in the language of creationism. The word is used in various cognates as that term are used throughout.

Repeating the earlier quote from the ruling:

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, 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. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.

Please indicate whether you are disputing the evidence underlying the ruling that "ID is not Science", the inference from evidence made by the ruling, or the implications of this inference.

Phillip Ellis Jackson: Change the standards - as we did with Slavery a century ago - and you change the court decision. The "facts" remain the same; only its constitutional permissibility differs.

So, it seems that (not unreasonably) you do not to accept the judgement of evidence by a court as a standard for "truth". I don't have a major problem with this. However, in consequence the discussion then must move back one philosophical remove, so that we may determine what standard of "truth" we all accept.

Comment by abb3w | October 9, 2008

Patrick Mulligan: abb3w, you've misunderstood another legal construct in your definition of "point of fact" being in any way related to the court itself being an arbiter of such. The court merely reviews evidence based on a standard of evidenciary proof to decide whether it can be demonstrated that a statement or fact in a legal case is actually true.

Thus far, agreed, although I'd throw in a modifier to make that "legally acceptable evidenciary proof".

Patrick Mulligan: Point of fact fits into the broader legal framework of deciding how a case should be ruled based on our legal standards. That the court found a piece of evidence sufficient under our prevailing legal standards to show that John Doe fired the gun that killed the sheriff does not mean that John Doe actually did shoot the sheriff, or that the case is closed and the court sends John Doe to jail. It simply means that the evidence was sufficient based on legal standards to be admissible as "true" in the adjudication of the case.

This, again, involves the distinction between an ultimate standard of truth, and a practical standard.

Patrick Mulligan: It is not a value judgment.

It is not a judgment of morals. It does form a value judgment, in that it is an assessment as to which proposition has a higher probability value given the evidence considered admissible.

Patrick Mulligan: Also, just out of interest, PEJ wasn't addressing Kitzmiller v. Dover in his post, nor was it in any way relevant to his reference to Justices Scalia and Kennedy being "Republican" judges. Are you actually incapable of comprehending what you read, or just unwilling?

Back at you. The first reference to "Republican" was by me, to the judge in KvD. PEJ was responding; as such, Kitzmiller v. Dover is inherently relevant.

I'll concede not all judges appointed by Republicans are conservative. However, more Republican appointees are conservative; and thus, this is suggestive. I'll also note I understand the judge in question ran for office as a Republican, which is further suggestive (although, since he ran in PA, perhaps less so than elsewhere). If you'd like to supply evidence from his other rulings to show how he is atypical for a conservative, and that the suggestion I infer from his appointment is in error, please do.

Patrick Mulligan: You are the one who tore off on a tangent about the United States courts and the nature of scientific "fact" and "theory" and "philosophy" and "law" and the very definition of "science" and the "scientific method" itself.

The primary question implied by the title of the article is "What makes for a good curriculum"?

I presume "teaching science" to be a partial answer. Others may dispute that, based on their own criteria for "good curriculum".

This presumption implicitly assumes a shared understanding of the criteria indicating what science is. If there isn't such a shared understanding, that issue also becomes a valid point of dispute.

The demarcation of Science is a question of Philosophy of Science. Philosophy would seem to be the broadest possible realm.

My point here is that these relationships indicate these questions are not tangential, but foundational. It's impossible to address the upper questions without agreement on the lower. Such agreement does not appear to be abundant.

Patrick Mulligan: If you were more interested in the evidence presented in the case instead of the ruling made in the case, you could have simply gone to the evidence directly.

I thought the balance of the evidence was made clear in the verdict, that posters at a website called "Intellectual Conservative" would be reasonably familiar with the evidence presented in the case, and that respondents would make clear the framework they were using to dispute this. My apologies if this is overly presumptuous.

Patrick Mulligan: Of course, since the evidence and arguments presented in the case were designed by both sides for the legal particulars and legal context of the case, it may not be the best source of evidence for a "scientific" or value-based inquiry into the matter.

It is, however, a convenient starting place with at least some of the evidence gathered together. If you want to bring in further evidence, you should do so by all means, and indicate whether you wish to apply the evidence to the implications of the court's conclusion, to alter the evidentiary balance to reach a new conclusion, or to challenge the rules of inference to reach that conclusion.

Comment by abb3w | October 9, 2008

Mountain Man: "What can Darwin's theory not explain" is a good question, by the way. The macro evolutionary model is unassailable, since it simply transforms itself in the light of new discoveries.

Not "simply", but yes, the models science uses change. This is because new evidence can alter the balance of probability. (I can illustrate this with examples outside science if anyone cares.)

There's also a difference between the theory of evolution, and how the data is described by it. For example, early evidence suggested that fungi were more closely related to bacteria than to animals. More recent findings suggest that fungi are more closely related to animals than to to bacteria. This does not change the overall theory regarding competitive selection of variations; it merely indicates that an inference of this theory was incorrect, and that another inference now appears more likely from the evidence.

New evidence may also inspire someone to come up with a new way of describing data. This may be a close variation, as special relativity resembles newtonian mechanics, or it may be something profoundly new.

Mountain Man: The only other construct I know of that has such capability is the faith of a religionist.

Both provide changing interpretations of the world, based on evidence. The difference is what the invariant tenets of faith are. Evolution is not, however, itself the invariant tenet of faith, but merely an especially resilient inference of the underlying tenets. Sufficient evidence could potentially change the balance of probability about it.

Gary Gaulin: Since it is possible that a theory (coherently explaining mechanism) will in time be accepted there is afterward nothing a court can do to stop it.

Absolutely. It is also possible the interpretation of the courts regarding the permissible interactions of government and religion may change, or that the Constitution would be amended to facilitate this. However, until such time, attempts to include ID in the curriculum would appear to be premature. One might certainly discuss whether the benefit of including ID in the curriculum is sufficient to try and make efforts to expedite this; however, discussion should include considering the other likely effects (good or bad) of such action.

Gary Gaulin: A theory is just a statement that coherently explains a phenomena.

That oversimplifies to the point of gross error.

Comment by abb3w | October 9, 2008

abbW3 You don't know anything about how the courts operate, or what a court decision means. That's the only issue I've put on the table.

I wrote both about abstractly and concretely about the issue. I instructed you about how Courts actually approach an issue, and analyzed the foundational reasoning of Kitzmiller citing from your own source. Yet you still pretend that it's an open issue.

I don't debate emotions or "feelings" with someone who can't seem to recognize the limits of their own understanding of an issue, yet lectures others on their deficiencies when they make pronouncements about science. You condemn people for making direct and absolute statements about Darwinism without a proper understanding of science, yet you persist in a foolish discussion of the courts based on a layman's questions about precise issues I and others have already addressed.

You're not serious, and continuing to restate things you are unwilling, or unable to comprehend is a meaningless exercise. Your discussion of the courts is shallow and fraudulant, and causes people to wonder whether you have an agenda when you speak from your supposed area of expertise.

Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 9, 2008

"Evolution is not, however, itself the invariant tenet of faith, but merely an especially resilient inference of the underlying tenents."

Bingo. Game, set, and match.

Comment by Mountain Man | October 9