Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

Darwinist blogs are infamous for ridiculing those who question the party line until they change their mind, stop posting, or leave. But is this strategy employed by those higher in the Darwin-defense hierarchy? Richard B. Katskee, Assistant Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State and attorney for the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller case, illustrates in his article in First Amendment Law Review how this Darwinist tactic of ridicule and name-calling goes all the way to the top. Mr. Katskee attacks those who do not oppose ID as “succumbing to the basic deceit at the heart of intelligent design,” saying they “have been deceived.” He uses language to ridicule ID as uncool and evil, calling it a Read More ›

As noted recently, anti-ID legal scholar Jay Wexler believes that Judge Jones went too far when he tried to address whether ID is science in the Kitzmiller ruling. Wexler also complains that “The Judge Did Not Explain Why He Addressed the “Is it Science?” Issue” and argues that Judge Jones gives “no coherent answer” to that question: “If there is no coherent answer, then Judge Jones’ explanation that consideration of the science issue will be useful to other courts likewise falters.” (Jay D. Wexler, “Kitzmiller and the ‘Is It Science?’ Question,” 5 First Amendment Law Review 90, 108, 109 (2006).) The implication is that Judge Jones’ ruling on whether ID is science, which was largely copied from the ACLU, is Read More ›

When the Kitzmiller ruling was issued, Darwinists were quick to give it nothing but unyielding praise, while many ID-proponents immediately observed that Judge Jones made findings outside the scope of the judicial system. For example, I critiqued the ruling because “[i]t overreaches the judicial arm by ruling that the nature of science is characterized by methodological naturalism and that intelligent design is not science.” Darwinist Tim Sandefur replied, using irrelevant examples to claim that “surely a judge can decide that science is characterized by methodological naturalism.” A little over a year later, one of the most prominent anti-ID legal scholars has agreed in print with my position on this question. Wexler, an associate professor at Boston University School of Law, Read More ›

Jack Cashill has an insightful column on the progressive mindset, especially as exemplified by Darwin’s modern defenders. Where others see light, they see a threat to their way of life. And given their mastery of the media and academia, they do a great job of screening out the uncomfortable. Read the column here.

The New Yorker recently published a story by Jonathan Rosen: “Missing Link: Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin’s neglected double.” Picking up on a thought of G.K. Chesterton, Rosen notes that while he did “as much as anyone to overturn traditional religious assumptions, Wallace proceeded to horrify his fellow-evolutionists by concluding that natural selection could not in itself explain the uniqueness of man.” There must be intelligent guidance, claimed Wallace.

And this raises an interesting question: Would Judge Jones’ Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling have banned the views of the co-founder of evolution from Pennsylvania classrooms? A question already addressed in Traipsing Into Evolution:

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] Last year I was contacted by Edward Humes, a reporter who wanted an interview for a book he was writing on the Dover trial. In his original emails (which he now refuses to grant me permission to quote), Humes claimed to be fair and non-partisan. I felt suspicious because reporters that take great lengths to tell me they are neutral usually write highly biased and partisan anti-ID stories. What did Humes write? As I discussed Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] In Part I, I discussed how in the spring of 2006, I was contacted by a reporter named Edwards Humes who was writing a book on the Dover trial. He claimed to be supremely neutral, fair, and non-partisan. (Humes now refuses to grant me permission to directly quote his emails where he made these claims of neutrality.) But I had reasons to be suspicious. Reporters who go out of their way to claim to be Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] The York Dispatch has an article promoting an anti-ID book about the Dover trial by a Darwinist journalist, Edward Humes. Last spring, I was contacted by Mr. Humes, who requested an interview for his book. He immediately tried to convince me he was fair and objective, which is usually a red flag that a reporter isn’t going to be fair or objective. I would directly quote Humes declaring his commitment to a non-partisan journalism, but Read More ›

In Part I of this series, I discussed how Michael Francisco’s post last year had a bumper sticker for people who take the “Judge Jones Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It” approach to intelligent design. Devin James Carpenter, over at Warren Reports blog deserves the bumper sticker due to his many inaccurate statements about intelligent design and his thoroughgoing acceptance of Judge Jones’ Kitzmiller ruling. In this second installment, I will discuss problems with some of Carpenter’s arguments against intelligent design (ID). Misrepresentations of ID Carpenter states that ID “calls into question (on a theological basis) the ability of nature to transform simple biological beings into complex ones.” To claim that ID challenges neo-Darwinism “on a theological basis” Read More ›

Last year, a post from Michael Francisco presented the “Judge Jones Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It” bumper sticker. A recent blog post at Warren Reports Blog employs so much uncritical acceptance of Judge Jones’ ruling (calling it a “scathing decision” and a “hard blow”), gets so many facts wrong, and is so full of contradictions that its author, Devin James Carpenter, deserves to have the bumper sticker awarded to him. This 2-part series will respond to some of Carpenter’s statements. The “Main Issues”Carpenter states: “The main issues in Kitzmiller v. Dover were: the soundness of evolution and ‘intelligent design’ as science, the separation of church and state, and the philosophy of science itself.” Actually, that’s not true. Read More ›