Today marks the 11th anniversary of the conclusion of Tammy Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. This, of course, was the court case that made it clear that the Intelligent Design movement is nothing more nor less than yet another incarnation of creationism.
The Dover trial had a number of memorable moments. Just months before, William Dembski posted his Vise Strategy at Uncommon Descent, talking tough about facing “Darwinists” in court. When he found out that his deposition would be attended by Wesley Elsberry and Jeff Shallit, Dembski suddenly found himself unable to participate.
Another highlight was the NCSE’s discovery that the intelligent design creationist textbook at the center of the trial, Of Pandas and People, had been modified shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard that the teaching of “creation science” is unconstitutional. Every instance of “creationism” and “creationist” had been replaced with “intelligent design” and “design proponent” respectively. Every instance but one, that is. “cdesign proponentsists” survived the edit to demonstrate that the terms are synonyms.
Judge John E. Jones III’s decision is well worth reading. His conclusion could not be more clear:
The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.
Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.
To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.
The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. 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.
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.
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.
To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, § 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID. We will also issue a declaratory judgment that Plaintiffs’ rights under the Constitutions of the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have been violated by Defendants’ actions. Defendants’ actions in violation of Plaintiffs’ civil rights as guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 subject Defendants to liability with respect to injunctive and declaratory relief, but also for nominal damages and the reasonable value of Plaintiffs’ attorneys’ services and costs incurred in vindicating Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.
Merry Kitzmas!
What worries me, and I wonder whether it doesn’t also worry US citizens, is that this doesn’t matter now. You have a new president-elect. His name is Donald Trump. It is in his gift to choose who fills the vacant slot on the Supreme Court. Both houses have Republican majorities.
ID is indeed irrelevant, as it always was with regard to reality; the fig leaf is no longer necessary!
LoL! The trial in which evolutionists had to lie and bluff their way through.
Dr Behe responds to Judge Jones
The sad part is no one was trying to teach ID in the classroom.
That is what evos say:
Will Provine
Alan you have no idea about reality. You sure as hell cannot say how to test the claim that natural selection didit. THAT is the reality here. You have no idea how to test the claims of your position.
Patrick, it looks like your buddy Trump is arranging to have this whole thing taken care of for creationists within a few months. Your opposition to Clinton will really have paid off!
Eleven years of butthurt for the IDiots and still going strong. 🙂
Eleven more years of lies and bluffs and the evoTARDs are still going strong. 😉
Hi Joe, how’s the toaster repair business? Did you ever have that liposuction you were saving up for? Have you finally realized that wavelength does not equal frequency? 😀
Wow, one season’s greeting and we get an immediate Frankie infestation.
Stop the War on Kitzmas!
And speaking of lies and bluffs, enter acrappa. Did you ever find your integrity? No- figures
Well your spewage will do that. Too bad you have to ignore reality to post the pap that you do
This ruling did nothing to ID and even less to IDists. Perhaps you ought to buy a vowel and get a clue.
Don’t let context get in the way of trying to score points, Patrick. In context what Dembski is saying is to get evolutionists on trial and having to support the claims of their position. That didn’t happen here as the motivation of the DSB was the thing on trial.
I would love to see an evolutionary biologist on the stand trying to explain how natural selection, drift and any other stochastic process could produce ATP synthase. When it couldn’t be done I would just move to the next protein machine.
That is what Dembski wants and that is what evolutionists cannot afford.
Religion in schools–it’s the reason for the season.
For some people, anyway.
Glen Davidson
ID doesn’t have anything to do with religion.
For reasonable people, anyway.
Frankie,
“Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.” – William Demski, father of the modern ID movement. Are you a leader of the ID movement?
Richie quote-mine strikes again. What does that quote mean, Rich? Wait, I need popcorn…
“The Design Revolution”, page 25, Dembski writes:
He goes on to say:
In his book “Signature in the Cell” Stephen C. Meyer addresses the issue of Intelligent Design and religion:
and finally:
Even Gonzalez of “The Privileged Planet” said ID doesn’t require God…
You clearly don’t understand “quote mine”
Richie false accusation strikes again. Strange how Richie always accuses and never actually makes a case.
So let’s see- Richie took a quote out of context and thinks it refutes what I said about ID not being religious. That is the very definition of a quote mine.
Frankie,
So put it in context and show how the meaning radically changes. Oh wait, you can’t. You don’t understand “quote mine”
Richie, darling, you proved my point by refusing to answer my question: What does that quote mean, Rich?
And to top it off I quoted three ID leaders, including Dembski,who agree with me- no interpretation required.
You lose
Frankie,
We’ll take your inability to fully contextualize and show change of meaning as defeat. You don’t understand quote mining.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI001_1.html
There’s a difference of opinion about how important this debate [advocating intelligent design] is. What I always say is that it’s not just scientific theory. The question is best understood as: Is God real or imaginary? (Phillip Johnson, “The Search for Intelligent Design in the Universe”, Silicon Valley Magazine, 9 Jan. 2000.)
“We are taking an intuition most people have [the belief in God] and making it a scientific and academic enterprise. We are removing the most important cultural roadblock to accepting the role of God as creator. (Phillip Johnson, “Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator”, LA Times, 25 Mar. 2001.)
Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools (P. Johnson 2003).
“Father’s words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle (J. Wells n.d.).
If we take seriously the word-flesh Christology of Chalcedon (i.e. the doctrine that Christ is fully human and fully divine) and view Christ as the telos toward which God is drawing the whole of creation, then any view of the sciences that leaves Christ out of the picture must be seen as fundamentally deficient. (William Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1999.)
“Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory (Dembski 1999, 84).
Johnson said he and most others in the intelligent design movement believe the designer is the God of the Bible (Maynard 2001).
Then we have the ‘Good Christians” being caught in the act:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cdesign_proponentsists
As predicted Richie chokes again. Richie’s quote mine does not say that ID is religious in nature and yet he is trying to use it to refute my claim, which is supported by at least 4 ID leaders, including Dembski.
You lose cupcake
its not a quote mine. Stop using phrases you don’t understand
“Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.” explicitly says ID is the content of a religious text.
It is clearly a quote mine as you don’t have any idea what he means. He definitely doesn’t say that ID is religious.
And by Richie’s “logic” the alleged ToE is religious because Darwin spoke of a Creator in later editions of “On The Origins…”
You’re descending into knee-jerk gibberish now. As you can offer no context to change its meaning (it’s from Christian print journal ‘Touchstone’) we take it as is: “Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.”
Do you know what theology means? Do you know what John’s Gospel is?
Richie, your projection is duly noted as all you have is knee-jerk gibberish. What part of my quotes don’t you understand? All three books get into the discussion. Just because IDists may say the designer is God that is different from ID which says nothing about the designer.
Again by your “logic” evolutionism is religious because of Darwin.
This, of course, is false.
Moderators here at TSZ really ought to do a better job of maintaining the integrity of the site by not posting fake news articles.
“Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.”
That’s a definition.
IDC is nothing but fake scientific information, that’s literally all this site is for.
ID is based on three premises and the inference that follows (DeWolf et al., Darwinism, Design and Public Education, pg. 92):
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
Where is the religion, Richie?
cdesign proponsntsists
Creation is a subset of ID and ID relies on real scientific information. That is how we know there are many IC biological structures, the scientific information.
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.- Charles darwin
Naaaaww….ID has nothing to do with God of Christianity…
Well, DUH!
Joe is perhaps trying to show evidence of ID proponents being caught lying?
It doesn’t. ID doesn’t require God. ID doesn’t require the supernatural. But then again facts aren’t your strongest suit.
Hindus can be IDists, as can Islamists and Jewish people.
Frankie,
“Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.”
Not lying Richie, cupcake, just letting their personal biases get in the way. ID is not about the designer so ID cannot be about God. I know that simple fact is beyond you but that doesn’t change anything.
Richie, look up the word “supersede”. Dembski’s later quote supersedes his earlier quote.
Forget it, Richie has his jaws on that bone and won’t let it go, even though it means that evolutionism is religious. Some puppies are just stupid that way…
People of any and all religions can embrace ID. Even those without a religion can embrace ID. Heck Anyone willing to set aside naturalistic prejudices and consider the possibility of evidence for intelligence in the natural world is a friend of intelligent design.
Joe, look up ‘liar’. That’s one way you can hold two positions at once. Barry Arrington thinks ID is both winning and losing.
Geeeee….Hmmm…Who to believe…Some slow Joe who apparently can’t read or the founder of the ID movement? Gosh…this is s toughie…
Yes Richie, dealing with you and your ilk I deal with liars all of the time.
Are you daft? I quoted Dembski, Meyer and Wells- all who agree with me. And AGAIN- ID is not about the designer so it definitely cannot be about God.
BTW Behe testified that ID does not require the supernatural. That is another ID leader for me.
Philip Johnson: “Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit, so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools.”[36]
AGAIN:
ID is based on three premises and the inference that follows (DeWolf et al., Darwinism, Design and Public Education, pg. 92):
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
Where’s the religion? It’s as if our opponents are afraid to read and answer
“Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.”