Pharyngula::The Discovery Institute squeaks back

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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

The Discovery Institute squeaks back

PZ Myers • 15 Comments

The Discovery Institute has responded to the Kitzmiller decision, hurling out a thunderbolt of a press release. What else would they do?

"The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate, and it won't work," said Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute, the nation's leading think tank researching the scientific theory known as intelligent design.

Their criticism has two predictable prongs: it was an activist judge, and this is censorship. Both objections have already been preempted by Judge Jones.

He was not an "activist judge", but was responding to reckless activism by "ill-informed" creationist activists. Judge Jones, by the way, was appointed by GW Bush.

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.

It was also not censorship. The judge goes out of his way to say that the creationists should be free to continue to study their ideas…they are just so poorly formed and without foundation that they do not meet the standards required to justify teaching it in a public school.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.

The DI is going to have to go shopping for a new schtick. "Intelligent Design" has just been rubbished in the courts. Can we expect "Sudden Appearance Theory" to suddenly become fashionable?

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Comments:

#54413: — 12/20 at 12:13 PM
Best Slashdot Post EVAR

#54414: Dave Doherty — 12/20 at 12:30 PM
Here's a delicious irony:

Spot the typo in the last paragraph in the DI's statement:

Drawing on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines, the scientific theory of intelligent design proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. Proponents include scientists at numerous universities and science organizations around the word.

#54417: Jeremy — 12/20 at 12:49 PM
I am quite interested in what Dembski will post on the matter and what his sycophants will say about it. I recall DaveScot being enormously cocky when the trial got under way, saying of the plaintiffs "they're going to lose" and, after reading Behe's testimony, "the plaintiffs are in big trouble."

Har har hardy har har.

#54420: — 12/20 at 01:02 PM
Dave Doherty-
There are actually two typos that I can see. The obvious one is "word" rather than "world". But they also seem to have said "proponents" where they mean "opponents".

#54451: Lee J Rickard — 12/20 at 03:39 PM

It was also not censorship. The judge goes out of his way to say that the creationists should be free to continue to study their ideas.

As I've said before, one stark sign that the DI doesn't want to play by the rules is that, despite all their funding, they do not choose to publish their own journal.

#54481: — 12/20 at 06:13 PM
Perhaps their new theory should be "Sudden Appearance Design"

Sad, isn't it?

#54482: — 12/20 at 06:16 PM
"Sudden Appearance Theory"

The will probably go for 'Ultra-Rapid Punctuated Equilibrium', proposed by MJ in another thread here. Because, you know, finally they find use for their old tool: the pin with oo angels on. And poof, goes the theory.

#54512: SocraticGadfly — 12/20 at 07:36 PM
Dave Doherty, here's better than a typo, instead, it's ID hoist by its own petard!

If they're calling ID a scientific theory but evolution is "just" a scientific theory ... oops!

For those that haven't plowed through the PDF yet, I have a long blog post which lists most of Judge Jones’ most telling comments, indexed by page number in the PDF.

Let’s put it this way: If Jones is telling Behe he doesn’t even have a firm grasp on his own centerpiece of ID, the idea of “irreducible complexity,” ID now has zero credibility. Period.

#54527: — 12/20 at 08:31 PM
Inanity?

I've read a lot of judicial opinions, but I've never known a judge to use that word before.

#54531: Phoenix Woman — 12/20 at 08:49 PM
I read the DI's press release, and guess what?

I saw a lot of stupid-ass hot-air verbiage similar to the representative excerpt PZ's posted above, and lots of whining about the evil Dover voters kicking the IDers off the school board. But I saw nothing, nothing, that would indicate any desire to take this case to the appellate level. (And of course, absolutely no lengthy quotes from, or links to, the judge's decision -- goodness gracious, you'd think that the Discovery Institute people are afraid of people 'discovering' just what the judge said about them!)

Nosiree, the DI ding-dongs are going to go venue-shopping now for their next test case. They need to find a place that has both a compliant school board AND an idiot judge of the Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore flavor. Much, MUCH cheaper, and much safer strategically, than going the appeals court route and risking an asskicking that holds nationwide.

But they'd better make sure that they get one HELL of a corrupt and/or stupid judge, because Judge Jones has set one HELL of a precedent that exposes the Discovery Institute's legal strategy as a pack of lies; and their primary "expert witness", Michael Behe, is likewise exposed as a ridiculous airhead whose testimony undermines the ID cause.

#54554: Moment of Science — 12/20 at 10:56 PM
Dembski: "I told you so."

http://momentofscience.blogspot.com/

William Dembski has broken his silence on the Kitzmiller verdict.

#54563: — 12/20 at 11:34 PM
I just noticed for the first time that the Discovery Institute's initials are the reverse of Intelligent Design. D.I., I.D.

I wonder if that's just a coincidence or if it was intentional for some reason?

#54564: — 12/20 at 11:38 PM
Phoenix Woman--

Actually, it makes no difference whether the Discovery Institute, or the Thomas More Law Center, or any other gang of crackpots would like to appeal the Dover ruling. The defendant itself--the Dover school district--is now led by board members who are somewhat less stupid than their predecessors, the lying idiots whom Judge Jones dismantled in his opinion. The new board has no intention of appealing Tuesday's ruling, so that's the end of it. You can't have an appeal without an appellant.

#54565: — 12/20 at 11:39 PM
The ruling states ID can not be taught in "public school science classroom". I believe an article in the local paper stated that the new school board will consider offering a class in ID as an elective in the "social sciences".

#54731: — 12/21 at 03:52 PM
Umm, wouldn't "Sudden Appearance Theory" be a fancier name for the "Big Bang Theory"? Just a question, where did the initial matter come from?

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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

The Discovery Institute squeaks back

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