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Federal Judge Rules Against Intelligent Design
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Tue Dec 20, 2005 12:46 PM
from the well-at-least-there's-an-ounce-of-sanity-out-there dept.
from the well-at-least-there's-an-ounce-of-sanity-out-there dept.
evil agent writes "CNN is reporting that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III has ruled that Intelligent Design cannot be discussed in Dover, Pennsylvania biology classes. Dover Area School Board members had previously mandated that Intelligent Design be included in the biology curriculum. According to the judge, 'our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.'" Update: 12/20 23:40 GMT by J : eSkeptic has a look back at the trial and what led to it. And the Discovery Institute has issued a press release.
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Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well good (Score:5, Funny)
The Dover school board need just introduce a new course "Mysticism, Superstition and Things That Go Bump in the Night". Then they could teach ID.
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Informative)
Evolution is a Theory in the Scientific Sense, "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."
This is why it counts as "Science"
Intelligent Design is a theory in the colloquial sense, which is what most of the definitions that include "Idle speculation" are referring to. There is no Scientific Backing for Intelligent Design, which is why, if it's taught in a classroom, it should be a theology class, not a Science Class.
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if these same philosophers look down at their Bridge hand (13 cards) and conclude that the odds of them being dealt that particular hand are less than 1 in 6 billion, so they couldn't possibly have been dealt that hand by chance. The dealer must have given them a seemingly random crappy hand on purpose.
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I knew whom to give credit to for this quotation:
"If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby."
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally, it boils down to finding examples of complicated structures or systems in biology, and saying "see, this is complex enough that I don't think it could arise by evolution." It is a strawman---no biologist says that evolution has to result in structures that obviously arose from simpler precursors.
It is one step above young Earth creationists, who seek "geological evidence" to "support" their preconceived interpretation of the Genesis chronology. ID proponents are almost all seeking "flaws" in evolution to avoid threatening their preconceived notion that God played a crucial role in biological development.
Pardon me if I don't have much sympathy or respect for people who choose to support such stupidity.
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
Their is a conundrum here when ID proponents say these supposedly "enormously" complex structures couldn't possibly have spontaneously sprung in to existence on their own.
The entire framework of their philosophy is that God, the most complex entity imaginable, somehow spontaneously sprang in to existence from nothingness.
Randomly throwing together organic molecules over the course of billions of years to produce the basic building blocks and mechanics of life seems trivial by comparison to spontaneous creation of an all powerful, omnipotent being.
My inclination is that if it was impossible to for a bacteria to spring in to existence from pools of organic molecules over the course of billions of years, its even more unlikely that an omnipotent being could likewise spring in to existence from nothing.
Parent
Religious studies (Score:5, Insightful)
The other places that would be suitable for teaching this is bible school, church or even private Christian schools.
BTW Don't forget that even the Catholic Church recently came out and declared their support for evolution.
Parent
Re:Religious studies (Score:5, Informative)
This is because any sensible religious person realises that there is no contradiction between evolution and ID. Evolution explains a mechanism, nothing more. It doesn't tell you why things happen, just how. Whether evolution is driven by random actions, or the FSM is the realm of philosophy, not science. Assuming the existence of an intelligent designer[1], science can tell us whether it's more likely that they said 'let there be stuff,' or if they created a simple system containing all of the necessary components to develop into a more complex one. Proponents of Intelligent-Design-as-an-alternative-to-evolution are worried that there is a God, and her final objective might not actually be them.
[1] A philosophical postulate, not a scientific one.
Parent
No, it's PARENTING! (Score:5, Interesting)
We both permit and support the education our children receive in our area's public school system. IMHO, they're doing a pretty fair job.
We both teach our children what we believe. Our children know that we're speaking about our beliefs, even when we speak of them as facts.
We made sure our kids were capable of critical thought, judgement and self-determination in the area of beliefs. They have their own (for the record, two have ended up Catholic, one agnostic, one athiest - the jury's still out on the youngest two, but they're leaning toward agnostic and Jewish).
If I believe a thing to be true, wouldn't not sharing that with my children be abuse?
Parent
Re:No, it's PARENTING! (Score:5, Insightful)
Which mitigates it enormously. Many people don't.
They have their own (for the record, two have ended up Catholic, one agnostic, one athiest - the jury's still out on the youngest two, but they're leaning toward agnostic and Jewish).
Yes, but can you honestly say you think they had an equal choice between all possibilities? I doubt it given you have two catholics but noone going for another religion that neither of you have.
If I believe a thing to be true, wouldn't not sharing that with my children be abuse?
No. We believe that freedom of thought and belief is a fundamental human right. Beliefs are a matter for the individual, like, say, sexual preference. Regardless of what you believe, it's not your place to tell anyone else what they should, but especially someone who isn't old enough to make their own decision.
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
The desktop computer I have today has evolved over the last 30+ years. Heck, we could go back decades or even centuries beyond that depending upon what you call a "computer". What one might consider a computer 100 years ago most certainly bears no resembelence to what we have today. This process of evolving was more or less self-contained.
Now, I could go either way in the argument from here that Charles Babbage didn't create the computer knowing that things would evolve and change and grow, and didn't write a big elaborate story explaining how things would change and grow, but at the same time those evolutions required intelligent design.
I believe the point that the gp was trying to make was that we're teaching science, or rather the fact that things HAVE changed, discuss why they have changed, and perhaps even what dictated those changes. When we tech computer science, we may go into a brief history lesson, but we generally wouldn't dwell on the life and times of Charles Babbage. We also wouldn't start rambling on about how Mr. Babbage is still watching today and shaping the computer industry. A seperation of church and state here is appropriate. That still doesn't mean that intelligent design and evolution are mutually exclusive, but rather it's the wrong material in the wrong classroom.
Oh, and Mr. Troll, indoctrination is not so. Once you hit 18, you should begin to think for yourself. Long before that in fact. The fact that society as a whole tends to be one large flock of sheep that is herded around as such does not mean that your or I should be so. Sure, I was raised christian. I strayed away. I learned to think for myself, had the very foundations of what I believed torn apart due to the fact that science contradicts the story-book biblical teaching of my childhood.
I came back to it as a personal choice and a matter of faith. If you are insinuating that we as adults are not capable of making choices beyond what we have force-fed to us as children, well I would suggest you're posting on the wrong boards.
Or maybe not, this IS slashdot after all.
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Interesting)
The desktop computer I have today has evolved over the last 30+ years.
You mean designed, right? Or did you really mean that some pdp-11s had sex and gave birth to a pdp-12?
What one might consider a computer 100 years ago most certainly bears no resembelence to what we have today.
That's right. 100 years ago, computer was a job title.
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still bitter about the whole Santa Claus thing...
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Religion and Theism (Score:5, Interesting)
What makes someone religious is their blind acceptance of some dogma. Faith defines religion - belief without or even contrary to evidence or reason. Many Buddhists are atheists and yet still religious people because they follow the doctrine of their religion without question.
What makes someone atheist is not believing in God(s). As it happens this is the default position of someone who is not religious, as without observed evidence of logical proof, it is irrational to believe in God(s). I myself held this position for the majority of my life. But it's possible to be a non-religious theist, if you've got a sound argument for the existence of God.
Myself, I find that speaking of God makes perfect sense if you see it as speaking of the universe anthropomorphically. My beliefs are not fundamentally different from an atheist's, but suddenly I can understand theists statements about God in a way which not only means something, but quite often produces true statements on the theists parts. Seen in this way, a proof of God's existence is just a proof of the universe's existence, which is trivial as the universe is "all that which exists".
Parent
Re:Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
Come back and say that when Christianity has a monopoly on absurd creation stories.
No, schools should teach reality, that same reality which is the case in America, China and Mars. The phenomena of genetic mutation and speciation don't cease to exist because you stick your fingers in your ears and burble loudly.
"Liberal groups"? Who are these anonymous, ever-present, conspiratorial "liberal groups" that are hell-bent on destroying your fun^W^W^Wteaching science in science classrooms?
I don't have to, any more than I have to prove to you there is no tooth fairy, no Grim Reaper, that Buffy isn't real and that Cthulhu isn't really dead but dreaming deep under the ocean. You assert that something exists, you come up with the proof.
Cos, you know, science progresses. That's what it does; that's what it's meant to do. I'd be extremely troubled if scientists today knew less than 100 years ago.
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Re: Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think ID has enough substance to rate being treated as a philosophy.
Better would be a class on critical thinking vs. pseudoscience.
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Re:And evolution is? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_0 11_01.html [pbs.org]
Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.
In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species.
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Every change had to confer a survival advantage (Score:5, Insightful)
Every change had to confer a survival advantage
Why?
All that needs to happen is for a change not to cause the organism to die before it can pass its genes on. If there is a mutation, even a harmless or slightly detrimental one, so long as the organism still successfully reproduces, then it passed its genes on. Its unmutated counterparts may still reproduce at a better rate, causing its own numbers to diminish relatively.
But if that disadvantage then mutates again to something that is then a great advantage, then this organism can regain its losses and procreate even faster than its nonmutated counterparts.
Sometimes to reach a gloablly optimal path, you have to take a locally suboptimal path. So long as one mutation doesn't completely destroy an organism, the mutation, even if immediately unhelpful, can serve as a stepping stone to future, more helpful mutations or advantages in changing environments.
Imagine it like this. Suppose a mutation makes a human very nerdy looking. Girls don't like that. Their chances of reproduction drop sharply. The occasional nerd of the opposite sex may come along allowing this breed to trickle on. Then computers are invented and these nerds have anew environment in which to flourish. Their nerdy traits make them very successful, which in turns attracts a large number of mates, allowing what was a negative mutation to carry on in greater numbers!
OK, that one was a stretch :)
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Re:And evolution is? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And evolution is? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh please. There are examples of intermediary steps in eye development throughout the animal kingdom, from simple eye spots all the way to mammalian eyes. Each step is fully functional and does what the organism possessing it requires it to do.
Here's a couple of questions for you:
If the eye is in fact designed, why does it suffer from the imperfection of the blind spot? Nerves in the mammalian eye actually lie on top of the retina, and where they gather together and plunge through the back of the eye to form the optic nerve, no light can be sensed. This is a design flaw any fallible human engineer would catch and correct...so what does this say about the superhuman Designer of ID fame? (And before you maintain that the eye needs to be designed in this manner, consider the eye of the octopus and squid, which is actually designed correctly (nerves lie under the retina, avoiding the problem of the blind spot).
Cats have eyes that can see clearly in what we perceive to be total darkness. Some squid have twelve different types of color sensing cells (as opposed to our three). Eagles have acuity of vision undreamt of by man. Bees and some birds can see into the ultraviolet. Pit vipers can see into the infrared by virtue of their pits (infrared-sensitive eye pits). Before you ask 'what good is half an eye, consider what good your eyes are to you, deficient as they are.
Parent
Re:And evolution is? (Score:5, Insightful)
Classic mistake.... the 'I don't know how so it is impossible without devine intervention' excuse.
Science has already demonstrated that you need only a few modifications to allow normal brain tissue to become light sensitive.
And an eye with a few components still can give you an advantage over others that don't have it:
-Take out the muscles that move it around, you would have to turn your head to look at different things, but it would still be usefull.
-Take out the focussing stuff, you would only see a few things really clear, but when a large blob comes at you at high speed you might step aside while someone without this less usefull eye would get hit/eaten.
-Take out color, black and white tigers still look dangerous enough without the yellow.
-Take out the transparent stuff and place a thing layer of skin in its place, you would get even worse focusing but one could still see blobs moving around.
-Remove the fluid stuff and place the retina close to the skin, you could still detect sudden changes in the lighting.
Do them all and you are very close to the simple lightsensitive braincell.
I am not saying that is the way it happened, but I could think a possible path up in a few seconds without the need to drag some higher being into the picture.
The whole 'irreducibly complex' stuff is a joke, the being that is supposed to do that sort of stuff would need to be even more complex...
I don't disbelieve evolution but neither do I blindly believe everything the scientists tell me is fact That's rather the basis of science.
As an aside: did you consider that God could, by definition he's omnipotent afterall, have forged the fossil record? I think most Christians believe he's not like that and so didn't.
Don't try to use logic and omnipotent gods in the same sentence, its to easy to logically disprove an omnipotent god....
Besides the world was created last week including evidence, such as your memories, of the past.
Jeroen
Parent
Re:And evolution is? (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it much easier to believe in evolution than to believe that God went through this elaborate lie to trick us. I mean faking a fossil record is one thing but creating the universe with light already in transit so the stars would look like they're been there for billions of years?? Or creating the image of a supernova such that we would think that it exploded billions of years ago but didn't really?
Come on. Get a grip. I believe in God but I cant believe he's a coniving trickster that the fundamentalists seem to think he must be.
Parent
Of course there are intermediate forms of the eye! (Score:5, Insightful)
By the eye, what do you mean? A device to detect light? Or a device with an iris, cornea and retina? Light-sensitive cells exist in many simple forms and have evolved to more and more efficient versions of vision. There exist forms of life with simple and complex vision today. See this article about a PBS show on the subject [pbs.org]. "The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch."
Here is more at this press release about the evolution of the human eye [embl.org]. '"It is not surprising that cells of human eyes come from the brain. We still have light-sensitive cells in our brains today which detect light and influence our daily rhythms of activity," explains Wittbrodt. "Quite possibly, the human eye has originated from light-sensitive cells in the brain. Only later in evolution would such brain cells have relocated into an eye and gained the potential to confer vision."'
And lots more links here [austarnet.com.au]. so please let's stop using the eye as an example. What next, bacterial flagella? That one is explained too [ku.edu]. Next question?
Is it all figured out? No, but in science when we don't know it all we say that we are still looking, we don't say things we don't know must be explained by supernatural means, which is what ID does. It cops out with, "it must be something intelligent that designed it" instead of trying to understand the real reasons. Science may never find all the answers, it doesn't promise that it will but at least it doesn't have the answers BEFORE it has the QUESTIONS.
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Re:And evolution is? (Score:5, Informative)
This has been observed, e.g. several new mosquito species have evolved in the London subway.
see here [talkorigins.org] for more info.
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Re:This is an attack on Free Speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should someones belief in a supernatural being be included in a science class? If they mention God (a Christion god) why not mention Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, etc? Science isn't about beliefs, it's about testing the natural world.
People have believed in Christ for over 2000 years.
And the Earth has been in existence for what, 4.5 billion years? Besides, what does Christ have to do with it? Christ isn't God (at least not from what I remember of my catechism classes).
Many people believe God created everything, and as people, we're doing our best to describe and measure what he created.
Whoa! Hold on thar pardner. You just made a huge leap of false logic. First you say that many people believe that God created everything yet provide no evidence for this belief. Then you suggest that we are trying to measure what he created. If you haven't provided any evidence to further the claim that God exists how can you say that God created everything?
Also, who says God is a he? Why not a she? Why not an it? A supernatural being able to create matter from nothing most likely doesn't have a gender.
Many people believe in lots of things. Some people even believe they are Jesus. That doesn't mean they are correct.
Parent
Re:This is an attack on Free Speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed it is.
There are no facts when it comes to how the universe was created.
Well, we're talking about evolution here, not cosmology; even if that weren't the case, while we obviously don't know how the universe started, empirical observations which can give us insight into the beginning of the universe, such as the cosmic background radiation, are facts.
Why can't a teacher tell his students that many people believe God created the universe?
Because it isn't a scientific belief. This isn't a matter of teaching about how people believed in geocentrism, or phlogiston, or the ether; it is a non-falsifiable claim.
This is not like telling students some new theory that someone thought up 5 minutes ago. People have believed in Christ for over 2000 years. It seems like it should be mentioned in the biology class.
You're right; it isn't some new theory. It isn't even a theory at all; it's an untestable model.
Many people believe God created everything, and as people, we're doing our best to describe and measure what he created. I'm not advocating replacing science text books with the bible. But to leave out something that a majority of people in the USA believe is wrong.
What people believe is a subject for an anthropology class, not a science class.
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Re: Well good (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, no. We're rabidly against Intelligent Design (notice the capitals) because it's a blatant political attempt to wedge pseudoscience into the public school classrooms to provide cover for creationist voters who don't want their children to learn about evolution.
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It *poses* no questions, more to the point (Score:5, Insightful)
The gist of the problem is, ID is unscientific more because it *poses* no questions than because it answers none.
The M.O. of Intelligent Design's advocates forever now has been to go to the edges of what science knows and identify something out there that hasn't been fully explained yet. They then claim the as-yet-unexplained area is evidence of things being so complicated there can be no explanation except a godlike "designer." When science figures out the supposedly irreducible complexity of whatever the example was, the IDers just move the goalposts to whatever's on the edge now.
Michael Behe -- author of "Darwin's Black Box" -- for example, started out talking about fossil whales. Why weren't there intermediary whale forms between mesonychids and true whales? Oops -- over the next 20 years many, many steps in between turned up. "Black Box" is the same watch-watchmaker argument, only about subcellular structures like cilia. The logic's flawed in the same way, and his book is out-of-date in several of its claims. Don't worry, ID types will move the terms of the debate out somewhere else. We're never going to be omniscient, so they'll always have something to seize on.
The trick is, if the ID vision of the universe being so complex it can't be explained by anything but a God was accepted, nobody would ever have asked *any* questions about how things work. In these people's minds, every- every- everything is so infinitely complex that the only possible response to the world is to worship its creator. They've been making this argument since well before Darwin was around, it's not specific to evolution.
It's not just that their idea doesn't answer any questions. No questions would even get asked , if these people ran the world, or your school system.
(And of course that would suit them just fine, because their religious views are about preserving their authority, not about explaining the world or helping anyone lead a moral life.)
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Deciding what is science (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well (Score:5, Funny)
Links to more information: (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of additional coverage on this decision is available at The National Center for Science Education [ncseweb.org] and The Panda's Thumb [pandasthumb.org], and the full text of the decision can be found here [uscourts.gov] (PDF warning).
From the decision: Damn...what a smackdown.
Re:Links to more information: (Score:5, Funny)
Seems Pat wanted to see a smackdown of a different sort.
Parent
Re:Links to more information: (Score:5, Insightful)
Also:
"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."
Parent
Re:Links to more information: (Score:5, Informative)
More:And the coup-de-gras against the evolution equals atheism cranks:And for some in-your-face irony for anyone who attempts to attack the judge as some sort of leftwing atheist liberal pinko commie demonic-Democrat, the official US Court system website has Judge John E. Jones' biography [uscourts.gov] which begins:For once George Dubbya actually appointed someone competent to the job! Three cheers for President Bush! Hip-hip-Hooray!
Ummm... well ok... only one cheer for Bush
-
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An important part of the ruling (Score:5, Informative)
From a Bloomberg article: [bloomberg.com] In his opinion, Jones said the key issue is ``whether Intelligent Design is science,'' and said, ``we have concluded that it is not.''
Re:An important part of the ruling (Score:5, Funny)
Intelligent Design is as scientific an explanation for the evolution of man, as Angels Bowling is as an explanation for thunder. Both are possible, but neither is science.
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This is a defeat for pasta (Score:5, Funny)
Let the games begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not, not going to assume that the fight is over. Keep in mind that it was a loss in the Scopes Monkey Trial that galvanized scientists to fight ever harder for strong science (read no religion) in the biology classroom, and the school as a whole.
While I as a scientist am thrilled by this I also know that the people who oppose science are right now doing 2 things: 1) pasting this decision into a circular or 2 along with the choice words "activist judge" to raise more money/attention/support for their 'cause', and 2) digging in for another, longer fight.
I will celebrate this, and keep vigilant at the same time.
Some Points to Consider (Score:5, Informative)
2. It's unlikely that the current Dover school board will appeal the decision, making it unlikely that this particular case will ever get to the Supreme Court.
3. That leaves the "sticker" case in Georgia, with it's more narrowly expressed disapproval of evolution as the case most likely to get to the Supremes. At last report, it appeared the appeals court might be inclined to overturn the Federal court decision against the stickers (http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/12/16/evolutio
4. Some ID proponents advised against the former Dover school board pressing this case, as they felt it didn't have a good chance. Other school boards, however, will now simply become more careful about how they attempt to introduce ID into the classroom.
While Dover was a slam dunk for science, this particular fight is far from over.
Re:Don't go jumping up and down just yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop spinning things by taking it out of context, and be honest for once.
Parent
Re:Don't go jumping up and down just yet (Score:5, Informative)
(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.
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Re:Don't go jumping up and down just yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh there won't be an appeal - the parents are happy with the decision, and the NEW SCHOOL BOARD is too - the legal counsel for the school board cannot appeal without their client's consent and who their client is changed - 8 of 9 members were up for reelection last month, they all got canned and replaced with people who said ID doesn't belong in science class (but it's fine in comparative religion)
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Re:Article didn't mention HOW it's unconstitutiona (Score:5, Informative)
"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he wrote in his 139-page opinion.
The link [nytimes.com] to the NY Times article
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Re:Teach all (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:So what will happen if it reaches SCOTUS? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nor, for that matter, would the main ID advocates want this case appealed. The Discovery Institute pulled its support early on, for instance. Sophisticated ID advocacy requires that the public face of the movement be very quiet about its religious motivations, for fear of exactly what happened in Kitzmiller. The old Dover school board was unsophisticated, and much too blatant about its purely religious motivations.
ID advocates have seen Kitzmiller as a disastrous airing of their dirty laundry from fairly early on; the only thing surprising about this ruling is its refreshing breadth, depth, and clarity.
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Re:Touched by his noodly appendage... (Score:5, Funny)
From the book of Noodle Ch. 3 verse 17-19 So said FSM, so it shall be DONE.
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Re: Affect In Kansas? (Score:5, Informative)
Not legally, since it's in a different federal district.
If Kansas goes to court the judge may or may not look to the Dover case for precedent. Fairly often we get conflicting rulings on an issue in different districts, and no one knows where things stand until the supreme court takes a side on it.
OTOH, I'm sure this will "affect" Kansas to the extent of having the creationists on the state board of education call a strategy meeting...
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Re:Intelligent Design is not Hocus Pocus (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing as long as you don't try to disguise it as science. Scientific theories can be tested. Intelligent design can't.
I might as well tell you that elephants can fly. The fact you can't prove me wrong doesn't make my "theory" science.
Remember, "science" is not a synonim of "truth". In fact, no-one is saying ID can't be true. Simply that it's not science.
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