Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Because ecological, biochemical, genetic, and paleontological finds have failed to provide support for any competing theory; and because current alternative theories are fundamentally not scientific, it would be irresponsible and disingenuous to teach any theory other than Darwinian evolution in science courses in our nation's public schools.

timber wrote-

Quote:

spendi - ineed - however could we have gotten on sans Balderdash, Pablum, and Trivial Pursuit?

You have never needed to. They are self evidently endemic.

But then again-if irresponsibilty and disingenuousness are eradicated do you have schools at all? You would have no teachers surely. Or are teachers expected to be non-human?

I dont find spendi humorous at all. Hes pitiable.I feel that hes contrived a keyboard personality that drips with pomposity "for no apparent reason". Hes certainly not a lone voice fighting for intellectual honesty. He just seems to enjoy the sport of negating almost everything anyone says, whether he understands the issues or not. Hes a definate misogynistic misanthrope, hes most often poorly informed,he rarely brings anything to the debate, his opinions are frequently pointless, hes often sunk to lying his way out of a debate corner, and his self proclaimed wit falls flat. Other than that ...

Judge in Dover case still fighting
(By Amy Worden, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 5, 2006)

HARRISBURG - U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III could have taken the safe route and retreated to the privacy of the courthouse after issuing his landmark ruling in December against intelligent design. Most judges are loath to go public about their cases at all, let alone respond to their critics.

But Jones - angered by accusations that he had betrayed the conservative cause with his ruling, and disturbed by the growing number of politically motivated attacks on judges in general - came out from his chambers swinging.

"I didn't check my First Amendment rights at the door when I became a judge," Jones said in a recent interview.

While keeping his normal caseload, Jones has embarked on a low-key crusade to educate the public about the importance of judicial independence. He has been flooded with more invitations than he can accept to speak to organizations and schools about issues that arose from the Dover, Pa., case on intelligent design and other emotionally charged cases.

Edward Madeira, a senior partner with Pepper Hamilton L.L.P., which represented Dover plaintiffs, described Jones as the perfect ambassador for a more visible judiciary.

"God bless him," said Madeira, who serves with Jones on a state panel on judicial independence. "He came out of the case with a real concern about the lack of understanding of the role of the judiciary and has become a person who spends time very effectively talking about it."

So far, Jones has delivered his message on at least 10 occasions, speaking to high schools and colleges, mostly in Pennsylvania. In February, he addressed the national conference of the Anti-Defamation League in Florida.

Jones had anticipated he would be targeted by hard-line conservatives after concluding that teaching intelligent design in public schools as an alternative to evolution was unconstitutional.

But he was surprised by how ignorant some of his critics were, in his view, about the Constitution and the separation of powers among the three branches of government.

Jones said he had no agenda regarding intelligent design but, rather, was taking advantage of the worldwide interest in the case to talk about constitutional issues important to him.

"I've found a message that resonates," he said. "It's a bit of a civics lesson, but it's a point that needs to be made: that judges don't act according to bias or political agenda."

One particularly strident commentary piece by conservative columnist Phyllis Schlafly, published a week after the ruling, really set Jones off.

Schlafly wrote that Jones, a career Republican appointed to the federal bench by President Bush in 2002, wouldn't be a judge if not for the "millions of evangelical Christians" who supported Bush in 2000. His ruling, she wrote, "stuck the knife in the backs of those who brought him to the dance in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District."

"The implication was that I should throw one for the home team," Jones said. "There were people who said during trial they could not accept, and did not anticipate, that a Republican judge appointed by a Republican president could do anything other than rule in the favor of the defendants."

Jones, 50, who is based in Williamsport, Pa., was finishing his second year on the court when he was assigned the Dover case.

Looking beyond that trial now, Jones said he was concerned about the growing number of politically motivated threats against judges, including himself, that demonstrate "a lack of respect and a lack of understanding of what we do."

He rattled off a string of incidents that occurred last year: The murder of a Chicago judge's husband and mother by a disgruntled litigant. The oral attacks - led by congressional Republicans - against a Florida judge who ruled that Terri Schiavo could be removed from her feeding tube. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter's suggestion that U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should be given "rat poison" for voting to uphold Roe v. Wade. (Coulter later added it was only a joke.)

And an e-mail death threat that Jones received shortly after the Dover ruling caused him to seek U.S. Marshal's Service protection for the first time.

"Judges are really unnerved by this," Jones said. "My wife couldn't walk the dog without a marshal walking beside her in the days after case was decided."

He wants to remind audiences, he said, that the judicial branch was not designed to react to public opinion as the executive and legislative branches were.

"If a poll shows a majority of Americans think we should teach creationism in schools, we should just go with the flow?" he asked. "There's this messy thing called the Constitution we have to deal with."

The emergence of a group of conservatives opposed to "intelligent design" seems more evidence that one cannot label politically conservative people as mindless, lock-step adherents to a political agenda cobbled together to appeal to fringe groups.

Jones said he had no agenda regarding intelligent design but, rather, was taking advantage of the worldwide interest in the case to talk about constitutional issues important to him.

"I've found a message that resonates," he said. "It's a bit of a civics lesson, but it's a point that needs to be made: that judges don't act according to bias or political agenda."