#47267: — 11/05  at  01:13 PM
I find this excerpt interesting:

"Meyer, Dembski and Campbell were all willing to testify as expert witnesses. They simply requested that they have their own counsel present at their depositions in order to protect their rights. Yet Thomas More would not permit this. Mr. Thompson has been quoted in media accounts as stating that to permit independent counsel to assert the witnesses' rights would create a "conflict of interest"--a claim for which he can offer no legal justification. When the witnesses refused to proceed without legal counsel to protect them, Thomas More cancelled the deposition of Prof. Campbell and effectively fired all three expert witnesses. After dismissing its own witnesses, Thomas More made an 11th-hour offer to Dr. Meyer alone to allow him to have counsel after all. But Meyer declined the offer because the previous actions of Thomas More had undermined his confidence in their legal judgment."

Do we have any lawyers here who might have a perspective on this? Something sounds iffy here, but I can't tell if it's DI offering weak excuses, or Thompson acting strangely.

#47268: — 11/05  at  01:18 PM
From the DI's page:
"Mr. Thompson recently cited language from a legal guidebook written by Discovery Institute Fellows in 1999 suggesting that it somehow sanctioned Dover's policy on intelligent design. But Mr. Thompson cited the language of the guidebook out of context."

Creationists complaining about being quoted out of context by another creationist. The irony is delicious.

#47269: Quantum11 — 11/05  at  02:03 PM
I was a corporate healthcare attorney for 12 years, but never did much litigation. If the defendants(school district) would list them as expert witnesses, then the plaintiffs (parents) would depose them and ask nearly any questions they wished. The "standard" for relevancy is very low in depositions. They would try to misrepresent ID as a "secular" concept and not a religious shill for creationism.

It would be very uncommon for "expert witnesses" to have their own counsel at a deposition or even at trial. Their interests would be consistent with the party adducing them and presumably adverse to the opposing party.

If a witness would have interests he would need to protect, or if the witness where a high profile person, he may have his own attorney at a witness deposition. But that is not the case here.

What appears to be occuring here is that the tacitcal and idealogical interests of the Discovery Institute and Thomas More are in conflict. This is what most people have observed. The DR disinformationists are at least smart enough to know that ID must be escorted by a bodyguard of non-religious psudeo-scientific babble to have any chance of surviving judicial scrutiny. But for the Thomas More theocrats, this case is first and foremost about promoting religious inculcation in the science classroom.

#47270: — 11/05  at  02:04 PM
Gotta wonder what Dembski et al. were so worried about. As long as they weren't going to get up on the stand and tell outright lies, I can't see them needing council for much of anything.

Oh, wait......

#47273: — 11/05  at  03:51 PM
Does anyone know the identity of the 85 "scientists" whom the DI claims want to teach ID?

#47276: — 11/05  at  04:23 PM
Hey, you (US) have a Tavis Smiley and we (UK) have a Carol Smiley. Perhaps they could get together and do something (else) vacuously smiley.

#47277: — 11/05  at  04:37 PM
you have a silly beard

phyWRONGula FOREVER!!!!


~Connlann

#47278: Kristine Harley — 11/05  at  04:38 PM
This link examines the 85 "scientists:"
http://unfutz.blogspot.com/2005/10/kitzmiller-reading-signers.html
A quote:
"How partisan the list of signers of the amicus brief are can perhaps be gleaned in part by the fact that three of them are, surprise!, Fellows of the Discovery Insitute's Center for Science and Culture (one of them a Senior Fellow), and another is the Center's Program Director! -- and yet there's no indication of any kind that they are anything but 'professional scientists' trying to help a judge through a thorny matter. (However, it should be noted that one of the Discovery Insitute Fellows on the list is Dean H. Kenyon, the co-author of Of Pandas and People, the 'intelligent design' textbook at the center of the case, whose identity is certainly known to the judge. Forrest M. Mims and Jonathan Wells are the other Fellows -- Wells is the Senior Fellow -- and Stephen Meyer is the CSC Program Director.)"

Also, another tidbit:
"Kenneth A. Feucht (no affiliation given) appears on a list of scientists who doubt the connection between HIV and AIDS...")

#47281: Zeno — 11/05  at  05:09 PM
I want to see the ruling before I celebrate. Of course, the signs are quite encouraging. As Panda's Thumb reported, when the judge was told that the case had taken 40 days, an "auspicious number," he replied, "It was not by design."

#47282: protected static — 11/05  at  05:19 PM
At least one of the 85 scientists on that list has said publicly he doesn't belong there - he's a retired University of Washington professor who (IIRC - the article in the Seattle Times came out a while ago) supported the Discovery Institute on some other matter and is not an ID or Creationism proponent.

#47284: protected static — 11/05  at  05:24 PM
Found the article:

Bob Davidson is a scientist — a doctor, and for 28 years a nephrology professor at the University of Washington medical school.

He's also a devout Christian who believes we're here because of God. It was these twin devotions to science and religion that first attracted him to Seattle's Discovery Institute. That's the think tank that this summer has pushed "intelligent design" — a replacement theory for evolution — all the way to the lips of President Bush and into the national conversation.

Davidson says he was seeking a place where people "believe in a Creator and also believe in science.

"I thought it was refreshing," he says.

Not anymore. He's concluded the institute is an affront to both science and religion.

"When I joined I didn't think they were about bashing evolution. It's pseudo-science, at best ... What they're doing is instigating a conflict between science and religion."

I got Davidson's name off a list of 400 people with scientific degrees, provided by the Discovery Institute, who are said to doubt the "central tenets of Darwin's theory of evolution." Davidson, at 78 a UW professor emeritus, says he shouldn't be on the list because he believes "the scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming."

I see that it isn't the same list that I was thinking of...

#47287: bill Farrell — 11/05  at  05:34 PM
It's refreshing to see the creationist Discovery Institute sniping at the creationist Thomas More Legal Center over who's job it is to give "intelligent design" a bad name.

I think the rats are deserting the sinking ship because of all the loose cannons!

#47288: — 11/05  at  05:34 PM

What appears to be occuring here is that the tacitcal and idealogical interests of the Discovery Institute and Thomas More are in conflict. This is what most people have observed. The DR disinformationists are at least smart enough to know that ID must be escorted by a bodyguard of non-religious psudeo-scientific babble to have any chance of surviving judicial scrutiny. But for the Thomas More theocrats, this case is first and foremost about promoting religious inculcation in the science classroom.

Well, and that makes the most sense to me...yet reading the transcripts and the other reports it seems as though (thus far, anyway, I'm about through Day 6) Thompson and TMLC are trying to stick to the "ID is science, there's a conspiracy, evolution is really just as much a religion anyway" line. If that's so, then where's the conflict?

Oh, and, uh, just an aside. Thomas More seems a strange duck to use as a figurehead. Although I think I understand what Thompson was going for, this is the guy who despite various tolerant writings had several protestants burned at the stake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More

#47289: Kristine Harley — 11/05  at  05:44 PM
"I see that it isn't the same list that I was thinking of..."

No, but even more significant! More important than this hastily cobbled-together list of 85 for Dover was this founding list of 400 supporters for the Discovery Institute--one of whom, a true scientist and a Presbyterian, now says that he is "embarrassed" to be included! The article is full of delicious quotes:

"He was shocked, [Davidson] says, when he saw the Discovery Institute was calling evolution a 'theory in crisis.'
'It's laughable: There have been millions of experiments over more than a century that support evolution,' he says. 'There's always questions being asked about parts of the theory, as there are with any theory, but there's no real scientific controversy about it.'"

It's short but sweet.

#47290: protected static — 11/05  at  06:00 PM
rrt: and what makes you think that More's Protestant-burning proclivities weren't intended to be referenced?

Kristine Harley: Yeah, it's a good piece, isn't it? And I agree: any list of 'supporters' that the DI produces should be subjected to a lot of close scrutiny - or taken with an enormous dose of salt.

#47292: — 11/05  at  06:36 PM

rrt: and what makes you think that More's Protestant-burning proclivities weren't intended to be referenced?

Oh, I know. God help us, I know.

But aside from that, I think there's more to More (eeep) than just that little personality quirk. It's the dissonance between this man being lionized for taking a stand for principle, for defending his faith with his life, when his Protestant-burning proclivities were apparently in direct violation of his OWN faith. More is both the author of Utopia and the author of nasty attacks against protestantism in defense of catholicism. And furthermore, to be arguing an intolerant, anti-relativist, anti-humanist position while using a man known for his humanist and tolerant views, and for his seeming contradictions.

#47293: — 11/05  at  06:36 PM
This link examines the 85 "scientists:"
http://unfutz.blogspot.com/2005/10/kitzmiller-reading-signers.html

Thanks, Ms Harley. It's kinda what I expected. I was thinking of an incident not long ago when I was accosted in a coffee shop by an elderly gentleman who told me he was a "physicist" who'd just returned from Medjugorje http://www.medjugorje.org/ terribly excited about the "appearances" there of the Virgin Mary to three children but apparently to no one else ever. When I asked him about the physics research projects he was working on he admitted that he was a retired high school science teacher, and when further pressed told me he'd taught at a Catholic High School. I did keep the souvenir Medjugorje medal he gave me though, just in case.

#47295: — 11/05  at  06:48 PM
I think the Discovery Institute experts did have legitimate interests that warranted their own counsel. The Discovery Institute has a finely nuanced position (if one was less inclined to be charitable, the word “inconsistent” also springs to mind) on teaching Intelligent Design; and this was not accord with the TMLC position. Dembski also had special extra concerns due to his involvement with the new edition of pandas and with their publishers. The drafts had been subpoenaed for the trial but held under seal.

#47298: keith sewell — 11/05  at  07:14 PM
Uncharitable though it may be it is hard not to smile at the spectacle of our ememies falling out with, and turning against, each other. May this trial 'run and run'.

#47301: — 11/05  at  08:06 PM
now, this is odd...

the person who posted that is named Robert Crowther...

and the technologist in charge of microscopy in my lab is named Robert Crowther... Not exactly a raving creationist either...

plus recent searches on visualizing viruses by electron microscopy turned up papers referencing work done by a Robert Crowther...

I'm becomming more and more confused...

#47305: — 11/05  at  08:13 PM
Well, I must say that I'm surprised that the DI are cowards without the courage of their convictions.

2, 3, 4...

HA!

-jcr

#47310: — 11/05  at  11:04 PM
DI's fellows and fellow travelers argue in print that it is legal to teach ID. The ringleader of the aborted amicus was Stephen DeWolf, who published a piece in the University of Utah Law Review a couple of years ago arguing that ID is perfectly legal. Francis Beckwith has at least two publications urging the same thing.

I think an attorney could reasonably be held liable for malpractice on such advice. I don't know whether DeWolf, who teaches law at Gonzaga, talks to school boards about it; Beckwith isn't a lawyer.

It will be interesting to watch the Dover case. Assume for a moment that the school district loses, and the judge awards the plaintiffs nothing but the massive fees Pepper Hamilton have so richly earned: Who pays, the schoolboard or the Thomas More Center?

What happens if a new school board is elected on Tuesday, and they elect not to appeal? Who pays then?

("caliche?" What does soil type have to do with zebrafish?)

#47311: — 11/05  at  11:48 PM
"Who pays, the schoolboard or the Thomas More Center?"

I can't speak to the US, but in Canada, the losing party pays the costs, not their counsel. The only time costs are awarded against counsel are where there has been an abuse of process by counsel. I don't think the TMLC have engaged in anything that would meet the test for abuse of process, unless the judge concluded they were behind what appears to be the lies of various board witnesses told at their January depositions about whether there had been any mention of creationism and about the funds for Pandas.

#47312: — 11/05  at  11:57 PM
Good Gorb the DI idiots are lying scum:

The guidebook focused on supporting teachers who wanted to teach about intelligent design, not on the defensibility of requiring teachers to teach about intelligent design.

Meaningless and incomprehensible hair splitting. Teachers teach what they need to teach, and what they need to teach is determined by the school board and the State. Furthermore, to the extent teachers violate the Constitution while working on for the government, whether they were "required" to violate the Constitution according to the school board's "mandate" is irrelevant ... at least as far as the Discovery Institute's culpability is concerned.

This is a crucial distinction.

Hahaha. No. It's not. You wish it was, anonymous DI asshole.

Indeed, the guidebook clearly states that "to summarize, the safest course is one in which a school board permits [not "requires"] a biology teacher to teach the full range of scientific theories about origins." (emphasis added)

Please tell me that the DI didn't add the text in brackets after the fact.

Discovery Institute's central concern of protecting the academic freedom of teachers was further emphasized in a Utah Law Review article in 2000, which was written by the same authors as the legal guidebook. That article discussed a hypothetical "John Spokes" who wanted to teach about intelligent design, and addressed whether the school board would be legally required to prevent him from doing so. Nowhere did it suggest that a school board would be on legally safe ground to <b>require unwilling teachers<b> to address intelligent design.

Two questions: did the DI clearly suggest otherwise? And does it make it a difference whether the teachers are reciting the DI script willingly or not?

I know the answer to the questions, of course.

The only important question is where in the Bible does it say that liars for Jesus are less likely to go to hell than other liars? I have to assume that the Bible approves of some kinds of lying because all the DI people self-identify as Christians.

Perhaps they are only in it for the money, as Frank Zappa used to say.

#47319: Keith Douglas — 11/06  at  09:20 AM

If a witness would have interests he would need to protect, or if the witness where a high profile person, he may have his own attorney at a witness deposition. But that is not the case here.

So, maybe that's the explanation - or rather, that Dembski et al think they are "high profile" people. (Or is "high profile" a legal term?)