PZ Myers. 2005 Nov 08. At least the news from Dover is good. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/at_least_the_news_from_dover_is_good/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Tuesday, November 08, 2005

At least the news from Dover is good

Some good news: the election results for the Dover school board are online. Take a look at this:

Reinking, H McIlvaine, Rehm, Emig, Gurreri, Dapp, and J McIlvaine are on record as in opposition to teaching Intelligent Design creationism; all the Republicans in this list supported it. It looks like a clean sweep to me.

The NY Times weighs in:

All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy.

Among the losing incumbents on the Dover, Pa., board were two members who testified in favor of the intelligent design policy at a recently concluded federal trial on the Dover policy: the chairwoman, Sheila Harkins, and Alan Bonsell.

The election results were a repudiation of the first school district in the nation to order the introduction of intelligent design in a science class curriculum. The policy was the subject of a trial in Federal District Court that ended last Friday. A verdict by Judge John E. Jones III is expected by early January.

Next, let's make the garbage-peddlers of the Kansas state board of education suffer in their re-election bids. Making Intelligent Design creationism the kind of toxic baggage that kills your election chances is exactly what we need to promote.

1. Closer to home there are some creationists running in the Minnetonka school board election. They've already got that blithering creationist Dave Eaton on their school board.
   #: Posted by Eva Young  on  11/08  at  10:29 PM
2. Good news indeed; and in a few weeks, hopefully we'll have the court ruling that gives the coup de grace to the ID nonsense, at least in PA.
   
   It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of wankers.
   #: Posted by  on  11/08  at  11:20 PM
3. Sweet!
   #: Posted by Zeno  on  11/08  at  11:53 PM
4. Maybe if this happens enough times, Republicans will learn that siding with religious pseudoscience is not a way to get elected and re-elected.
   
   I can dream, can't I?
   #: Posted by Orac  on  11/09  at  07:13 AM
5. Hearing about this on the radio this morning really started my day off well. For the moment, at least, Pennsylvania has broken ranks with the Legion of Goober.
   #: Posted by  on  11/09  at  07:16 AM
6. Well, one step forward in Dover. One step back in Kansas.
   
   I wish I could experience one of those forward steps down here in Texas, which has made one step backwards into theocracy on a different topic, recently.
   
   I voted against that step... The polling place was a church, complete with pictures of Gee-Whiz on the walls. I feel icky.
   #: Posted by  on  11/09  at  02:13 PM
7. It's interesting that they all lost, regardless of which way they originally voted on the ID thing. Does anyone know how much of an issue the trial and its potential fallout were in the campaign? Was the potential 7-figure loss to the school district in having to pay the plaintiff's legal fees an issue?
   #: Posted by  on  11/09  at  04:18 PM
8. The election results and the testimony Harrisburg may not be what they seem.
   
   Many voters in Dover may well have been voting on more than just the ID nonsense. True, the Dover CARES slate ran in opposition to ID in the science classroom but that was only one issue. Others such as the current boards mismanagement of money and their unwillingness to engage in serious negotiations with the teacher's union (Dover is a blue-collar town) were likely factors as well. Some, who are backers of ID, voted for Dover CARES because they thought pushing the issue was counter productive and a waste of taxpayers' money.
   
   Also as Ed Brayton has so ably pointed out on his blog, Judge Jones's decision could wind up applying only to the two parties in this case and set no precedent beyond Dover. And the decision could hinge entirely on the dissembling of the school board members and their administrators, and not address the scientific and/or religious merits of ID. And with the school board having completely turned over, a decision for the plaintiffs is unlikely to be appealed by the new DASD board. ID could emerge from a losing decision with little more than a scratch or two, ready for another legal battle. Kansas anyone?
   
   I noted from the the ACLU blog and the York Daily Record that Richard Thompson did not appear (or at least wasn't reported) in court after the first week or so of testimony, leaving his underlings to cross examine the plaintiffs' witnesses, present the DASD's witnesses and deliver the summation. Could that have been because he saw the handwriting on the wall and wanted to dissociate himself from fathering this particular failure?
   #: Posted by  on  11/09  at  04:48 PM
9. Yes, that NYT article put a smile on my face this morning.
   #: Posted by  on  11/09  at  05:27 PM
10. As was already mentioned, one of the big issues besides the ID proposal itself, was the money being spent on legal fees to push that agenda. It wasn't just that people were against ID in the classroom, it was also people who are for it, but thought it was a waste of taxpayer money to wage a legal battle over the issue.
    #: Posted by  on  11/09  at  08:01 PM
11. The election won't change the trial...the school district will still lose and will still have to pay over a million dollars in plaintiffs' attorney fees.
    
    The intellichimp design nutcases are going to lose, the only question is how big. The ruling might only apply to this case...or it may set a nationwide precedent against intellichimp design.
    #: Posted by  on  11/09  at  08:56 PM
12. York Dispatch today reports that one voting machine apparently conked out, and it seems quite within the cards that it was not a clean sweep for Dover CARES.
    
    The margins were very, very thin.
    #: Posted by  on  11/10  at  02:35 PM
13. "And the Lord did look with discontent upon the town of Dover in the province of Pennsylvania. For Dover was a wicked and prideful place and had turned its back on God. Its people had voted out school board members who tried to introduce intelligent design into schools as an alternative to the theory of evolution."
    
    "And the Lord was wrathful and said, I will smite them with burning coals from the sky. Their fields I will make barren, their rivers I will cause to rise in flood, their football teams will lose, their sewers will back up, no one who lives there shall hit the Powerball. And I will help them not."
    #: Posted by  on  11/14  at  05:14 AM