Win in Dover!

Here is what I just read on Yahoo news.

By MARTHA RAFFAELE, AP Education Writer 5 minutes ago

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A federal judge has ruled "intelligent design" cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district.
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The Dover Area School Board violated the Constitution when it ordered that its biology curriculum must include "intelligent design," the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled Tuesday.

The school board policy, adopted in October 2004, was believed to have been the first of its kind in the nation.

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy," Jones wrote. "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."

The board's attorneys said members sought to improve science education by exposing students to alternatives to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection causing gradual changes over time; intelligent-design proponents argue that it cannot fully explain the existence of complex life forms.

The plaintiffs argued that intelligent design amount to a secular repackaging of creationism, which the courts have already ruled cannot be taught in public schools.

But remember, ID fellas are like the bad guys on comic stories...they will be back surely :P

Wow! Good news... I can't wait to hear the reactions from the ID crowd...

Sweet! I am still reading but Judge Jones addresses the history of Creationism, Creation Science, ID. It looks like repackaging isn't going to happen!

"We won't be back in a couple of years for the sudden emergence trial, will we?" the lawyer asked.

To which Judge Jones interjected, "Not on my docket."

OK second and last quote for me, but this ruling can sustain a local quote mining community for generations!

"For the reasons
that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent
to an objective observer, adult or child."

Yeow. When the decision makes no bones about defendants lying, I think it's pretty clear what this means....

There's a minor error on page 8 of the opinion. The opinion refers to the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court case of Edwards v. Arkansas. It was Edwards v. Aguillard, a case out of Louisiana, not Arkansas.

Excerpts:

An Objective Observer Would Know that ID and Teaching
About "Gaps" and "Problems" in Evolutionary Theory are
Creationist, Religious Strategies that Evolved from Earlier Forms of Creationism
The history of the intelligent design movement (hereinafter "IDM") and the development of the strategy to weaken education of evolution by focusing students on alleged gaps in the theory of evolution is the historical and cultural background against which the Dover School Board acted in adopting the challenged ID Policy.
As a reasonable observer, whether adult or child, would be aware of this social context in which the ID Policy arose, and such context will help to reveal the meaning of Defendants' actions. . .

The concept of intelligent design (hereinafter "ID"), in its current form, came into existence after the Edwards case was decided in 1987. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child.
Although proponents of the IDM occasionally suggest that the designer
could be a space alien or a time-traveling cell biologist, no serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed by members of the IDM, including Defendants' expert witnesses.
[D]espite Defendants' protestations to the contrary, it describes ID as a religious argument.
Professor Behe remarkably and unmistakably claims that the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God.

As Plaintiffs meticulously and effectively presented to the Court, Pandas went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after the Supreme Court's decision in Edwards, which held that the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID; (2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards.
The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.
We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one
of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting
supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation
science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community.

Judge Jones's opinion crushes the ID movement. From the conclusion:

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.

There's no wiggle room here for TMLC and the Discovery Institute. The opinion goes into great detail about the history, goals, and methods of the ID movement and its proponents. Any appeal of this decision would be based on this factual record, which is devastating to them.

Ken-

The "wiggle room" for the IDers is that they will now focus solely on getting the "evidence against evolution" taught, or even a bill like we have in Michigan that encourages "critical thinking" about evolution. That's the next phase of the anti-evolution movement, clearly.

Judge Jones also made a factual finding that Bonsell and Buckingham both lied at their depositions

As we will discuss in more detail below, the inescapable truth is that both Bonsell and Buckingham lied at their January 3, 2005 depositions about their knowledge of the source of the donation for Pandas, which likely contributed to Plaintiffs' election not to seek a temporary restraining order at that time based upon a conflicting and incomplete factual record. This mendacity was a clear and deliberate attempt to hide the source of the donations by the Board President and the Chair of the Curriculum Committee to further ensure that Dover students received a creationist alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution. We are accordingly presented with further compelling evidence that Bonsell and Buckingham sought to conceal the blatantly religious purpose behind the ID Policy.

Ed -

Agreed on the next phase. I meant "no wiggle room" regarding their ability to construe the opinion narrowly as based on the bad acts of the DASD board rather than on the inherent unconstitutionality of teaching ID.