stoush.net beat me to it but Judge Jones has handed down his decision in the Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District case. Judge Jones has ruled that Intelligent Design is a religious idea and is not to be taught in science class. Science wins again. Full text of Judge Jones decision is here.
While science should not be decided in the courtroom, the ID proponents failed miserably in presenting any actual science during their testimony. Michael Behe and Scott Minich spoke at length on ID during the trial yet admist much handwaving failed to produce any actual evidence for ID. It was akin to bringing a spoon to a gunfight.
What really killed for the defense was the deceitful behaviour of the professed Christian members of the school board. As Judge Jones noted:
It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy
In a not so unexpected move for ID watchers, The Discovery Institute had branded the Bush appointed Jones as a ‘judicial activist.’ The prescience of Jones is in his final paragraph and a sharp reminder of why the ID proponents failed to win:
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.
The Panda’s Thumb has extensive coverage and commentary on the decision.
I think one of the scariest parts of all this has been the comment by a local pastor that ‘We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture’. There are two elements at work here, the first being that there is a significant and vocal body of citizens who believe that they are under active assault, and the other that they identify as uneducated and unintelligent. At least they’re honest, although I think they only mean to distinguish themselves primarily as persons of faith rather than science, not as stupid.
Nevertheless, they represent a kind of ignorance and have sufficient numbers to appall anyone who lives according to reason, regardless of how they then supplement their lives with religion, as many do, so their fears of being marginalised, which they experience as ‘attacks’, come out in many areas affecting society overall, whether it’s the annual debates over Christmas or more extreme ‘return fire’ incidents, such as the murder of Bernard Slepian or the Atlanta Olympics bombings. Frankly, that’s a lot more frightening to me, especially as the part of society with which I identify actually is under attack, rather than just being asked to keep their religion to themselves.
It’s just as well there are judges like Jones around to keep things honest.
Think of it as a case that Evolution included common sense in its design while the Intelligent Designer omitted it.
Greg,
There is the curious case of Paul Mirecki who claims to have been beaten by 2 attackers because he criticised christian fundamentalists and ID. Some on the conservative side are claiming he set the whole thing up. The story is now an argy bargy of claims and counterclaims amd the whole story has become murky and what actually happened quite difficult to determine.
I think the idea of christianity (and in the States this means a narrow, sectarian vewi of christianity) being under attack is simply to perpetuate an “us v them” attitude and strengthen the group bonds. If US Christians really want to know what it is like to attacked for their religious views send ‘em to the countries where your religious beliefs will get you killed.
Woot! A great day for science, education and justice.