Plaintiffs Win
There will be no teaching of Intelligent Design in PA science classrooms. A minor victory for the right-thinking in the epic battle against the Discovery Institute.
posted by Fishfrog at 8:01 AM
To Protect and Serve
posted by Fishfrog at 8:01 AM
3 Comments:
Hot damn. This is great. You can get the decision here, from the blog Dispatches from the Culture Wars. I've browsed about 20 pages of it, it looks like a smackdown.
What I find interesting about it is that the decision traces the origins of the ID arguments. At one point, it goes back to Aquinas' framing of the ID argument. Anyway, all that is to show that ID is a religious doctrine, not a scientific theory.
Further along those lines, the court points out that that retarded Pandas book originally had a boatload of references to "creationism" which were systematically replaced once SCOTUS put the brakes on creationism teaching. The court notes that they didn't really change much else about the arguments, just doing a standard find+replace on the document, which the court finds dispositive of ID's being a trojan horse. I find it dispositive of laffs, myself. I mean, that's just so naked.
Anyway, Dispatches notes that the Discovery Institute is now arguing that this decision is another example of judicial activism.
Which is funny, cos the judge was appointed by Bush. I can't believe I'm actually grateful for the wisdom of a Bush appointee, but I am.
You are right about this being a 'minor victory'. If you watch the post-ruling conference by the plaintiffs (its still up on msnbc.com, and probably on other news sites as well). Eugenie Scott (from the National Center for Science Education) said that people can expect more lawsuits in the future..the battle has just begun.
Behe's reaction on this was just hilarious...looks like he is contented with just having gotten this much attention!
if there's one think Behe does not deserve, its attention. Though the attention he's getting here is actually much deserved (i.e. people are seeing him for the fraud he is, his influential work in biochemistry notwithstanding). Some people on the right thinking side, I think, are getting too excited about this victory. This law suit is just the tip of the iceberg, and as long as 60% percent of the population believes in creationism, our work is not done. One district court opinion does not win the war. It's just our first strike. (Is that a Rambo movie? Chuck Norris?)
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