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December 20, 2005

Score: Intelligence 1 - Intelligent Design 0

No intelligent design nonsense for the school children of Pennsylvania:

"Intelligent design" cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said.

But, wait - it gets better!

Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said...

Said the judge: "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."

I'm positively shocked! Why, I can't even begin to imagine these theocrat wanna-bes lying for the Lord!

Jones wrote that he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed, saying its advocates "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors."

Of course, that's the problem and the reason that ID is not science. The creationists decide on the result they want and selectively pick evidence they think supports it (while also lying about that which does not, e.g. transitional forms). They drive their *cough* "scholarly endeavors" on an agenda rather than facts and observation. Their beliefs inform their "research," rather than actual research informing their beliefs. They have it precisely backasswards.

But, he wrote, "our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."

Amen.

Update: Small edits to the section on so-called ID research in order to properly characterize it. Thanks for the idea, Ron!

Update 2: More choice words from the judge are quoted over at In the Agora:

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.

Ouch! That's going to leave a mark*!

* Probably the mark of the beast! Oh no!