Good Reads Library
An (You Should Pardon the Expression) "Intelligently Designed" Judge
For your reading pleasure, extracts from today's decision by Justice John Jones III of Pennsylvania on the Dover, Pennsylvania school board's attempt to teach intelligent design (ID) in its classrooms.
The members of the board who voted in favor of teaching ID were all voted off the board in this fall's elections, BTW. Hopefully they can now all go back to teaching at Bob Jones University or other similarly "open minded" places of learning.....
"We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents,"
"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,"
"They (intelligent design scholars)have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors,"...... but "Darwin's theory in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator."
"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."
"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 intelligent design policy. ...."
"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 intelligent design, who in combination drove the board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy."
Here's the added pleasure of this case. Judge John Jones III is truly a "fair and balanced" judge.
He was appointed to his current post by George Bush in 2002....................................
