Light Fiction

Author’s note: this is much longer than I intended. Sorry about that. I think it’s interesting though, and I think that people should not let this kind of thing happen. I provide a couple of links to the article that I’m quoting from within the body of my text, but they will all open in this window. Here is one that will open in a new window or tab (depending on if you’ve got firefox or not) so that you can flip back and forth if you want to see if I’m taking these out of context or anything. I don’t, but I certainly wouldn’t trust me.

Most of these quotes are pretty funny, and if read this probably you will get an idea of why I hate ID so much, and also probably you will learn something about why ID is not science and has no fucking place in a biology class. Thank you for your time.
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You might have heard that there was a trial in Pennsylvania recently about the teaching of intelligent design, and you may have further heard that the judge handed out his decision on this most recent Tuesday (December 20, 2005), and also that he ruled in favor of science. This would not be shocking if it were not for humanity’s amazing ability to ignore the truth even when it’s skullfucking you in what had been your eye, but the giant razor-sharp phallus of truth destroyed it, leaving you myopic and half-crazed from the pain. Hey, nobody said the truth is nice.

Anyway, since I had been following the trial so closely I decided to read the Judge’s decision instead of the news stories, I felt like it would afford some nice closure, at least until it goes to the supreme court. But then I came across this sentence:

“defendants’ argument lacks merit legally and logically”(all quotes from the judge’s memorandum/decision, internal citations omitted, all errors my own, page numbers start on p35 because I didn’t realize I was going to do this thing until then, and I don’t feel like going back and checking on 3 quotes now. Maybe later)

technically that was part of a footnote referring to the defendant’s (who were the people trying to get Intelligent Design (ID) into the dover high school by way of a brief statement (available on the first page of the judge’s memorandum)) attempt to block some of the plaintiff’s evidence, but that’s still very strong language from a Christian conservative judge appointed by GWBush. But it goes on, and boy was I excited when I read this next sentence:

“the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child”

I think that it’s at some point around here where the judge traces the history of the central concept of Intelligent Design (i.e. irreducible complexity) back past Reverend Paley to St. Thomas Aquinas and the Catholic church in the 1200s. When it is referred to in every context except intelligent design irreducible complexity is the argument from design.

To fully grasp the import of this next quote you have to know that Professor Behe (pronounced “bee-hee”) is the scientist in the ID movement. There are three main guys, one of them is the lawyer/founder of the movement, one of them is a mathematician (And the only guy who’s written more than one book on the subject, although all of them have been very seriously mocked by other mathematicians), and the last is this Behe guy who is a biochemist. He’s only published one paper in 16 years which he claims supports ID, and that paper never uses the words “intelligent design” or “irreducible complexity,” and it is in fact just a standard biochemical paper on protein structures. Anyway, Behe is the ID version of what Einstein is for physics: the guy who everybody thinks of when they think of people doing it:

“Consider… that professor Behe remarkably and unmistakable claims that the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God. As no evidence in the record indicates that any other scientific proposition’s validity rests on belief in God, nor is the Court aware of any such scientific propositions, Professor Behe’s assertion constitutes substantial evidence that in his view, as is commensurate with other prominent Id leaders, ID is a religious and not a scientific proposition”(28, emphasis added by judge)

this next is pretty much self explanatory, but fyi Associate Professor Scott Minnich is a fellow of the Center for Science and Culture, an adjunct of the Discovery Institute:

“although… defense experts professors Behe and Minnich testified that ID is not creationism, their testimony was primarily by way of bare assertion and it failed to directly rebut the. . . evidence presented by plaintiffs showing the commonality between creationism and ID”(35)

and:

“The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.”(43)

Here is the first hint of the judge’s opinion of the defendants (as opposed to their lawyers):

“one consistency among the Dover school board members’ testimony, which was marked by selective memories and outright lies under oath, . . . is that they did not think they needed to be knowledgeable about ID because it was not being taught to the students. We disagree” (46)

In between these two quotes he goes into a detailed analysis of each paragraph of the 4 paragraph notice that is to be read to the students and explains why virtually every word of it, to quote Kevin Padian “makes people stupid,” this, as is pointed out by the first two words, is a summary:

“In Summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere. Furthermore, . . . introducing ID necessarily invites religion into the science classroom…”(49)

and, in case you’re wondering why ID isn’t science, and why it’s pissing me off so much, and again fyi the “contrived dualism” is the notion, proposed and supported only by fundamentalists, that if you believe in god you cannot believe in evolution, and if you believe in evolution you cannot believe in god:

“ID is not science. 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. . . .it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research” (64)

Here are a series of quotes that talk about what science is and the fact that the core aim of the ID movement is to redefine science to include god. Bastards:

“[The] self-imposed convention of science, which limits inquiry to testable, natural explanations about the natural world, is referred to by philosophers as “methodological naturalism” and is sometimes known as the scientific method. Methodological naturalism is a “ground rule” of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.”(65, emphasis mine)

“It is notable that defense exerts’ own mission, which mirrors that of the [Intelligent Design Movement] itself, is to change the ground rules of science to allow supernatural causation of the natural world, . .” (67)

Something important to note is that “theory” is a technical term. ID proponents use the term as though it means “hunch” or, to be a science jerk: “hypothesis,” and another fyi is that the National Academy of Sciences is the most prestigious science advisory body in america, possibly in the world:

“[D]efense experts concede that ID is not a theory as that term is defined by the [National Academy of Sciences] and admit that ID is at best “fringe science” which has achieved no acceptance in the scientific community.” (70)

Here is another quote that basically deals with the contrived dualism proffered by fundamentalists re: evolution/god:

“[We] believe that arguments against evolution are not arguments for design. Expert testimony revealed that just because scientists cannot explain today how biological systems evolved does not mean that they cannot, and will not, be able to explain them tomorrow. As Dr. Padian aptly noted, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” To that end, expert testimony from Dr.s Miller and Padian provided multiple examples where Pandas asserted that no natural explanations exist, and in some cases that none could exist, and yet natural explanations have been identified in the intervening years.”(72, emphasis mine)

in here there is a long and detailed analysis of all of the arguments offered by ID proponents for ID. Each argument is dismissed as scientifically unsound due to the fact that none of the arguments are scientific. They’re all logical fallacies. Read the section, and here’s the quote:

“It is our view that a reasonable, objective observer would, after reviewing both the voluminous record in this case, and our narrative, reach the inescapable conclusion that ID is an interesting theological argument, but that it is not science.” (89)

This is a definition of the Lemon Test, Lemon is a person who brought a charge to the supreme court that dealt with the first amendment, and this is the criteria that the supreme court laid out for deciding if a policy is constitutional:

“[U]nder the Lemon test, a government-sponsored message violates the establishment clause of the first amendment if: (1) it does not have a secular purpose; (2) its principal or primary effect advances or inhibits religion; or (3) it creates an excessive entanglement of the government with religion.” (90) The plaintiffs sued on the ground of the first two prongs of the Lemon test, if either prong is judged to be broken then the teaching of ID is unconstitutional.

So in here the judge analyses the first prong and analyses the testimony to see if he can determine whether or not the board had primarily a secular or religious purpose for the change. He spends pages 94-108  providing quotes of members of the board saying that they wanted to get creationism taught in science class, and that they’re not particularly fond of evolution, that’s 14 pages of quotes of the board giving religious reasons for wanting to teach ID! Some gems:

“Seventh, Buckingham testified that he had previously said the separation of church and state is a myth and not something that he supports. Buckingham also said: It is inexcusable to have a book that says man descended from apes with nothing to counterbalance it. . . . [Later, during a public school board meeting] Buckingham’s wife, Charlotte, gave a speech . , , in which she explained that “evolution teaches nothing but lies,” quoted from genesis, asked “how can we allow anything else to be taught in our schools,” recited gospel verses telling people to become born again christians, and stated that evolution violated the teachings of the bible. … During this religious speech at a public Board meeting, board members Buckingham and Geesey said “amen.”"(103)

One of the things that suggested that Buckingham was against evolution was his refusal to approve the purchase of the textbook “Biology” because it was “laced with Darwinism.” This refusal happened in 2004 and it was the 2002 edition of the book that he was filibustering, so you can imagine the crap quality of the books that the students were using. This becomes important at the end of the next quote:

“[During all of this bullshit there is also the story of the evolution mural that was torn down and burned by the school’s head janitor, when Buckingham was asked how he had gotten a picture of the mural that had been incinerated he responded] “I gleefully watched it burn” . . . Burning the evolutionary mural apparently was insufficient for Buckingham, however. Instead, he demanded that the teachers agree that there would never again be a mural depicting evolution in any of the classrooms and in exchange, Buckingham would agree to support the purchase of the biology textbook in need by the students”(108, emphasis added by the judge)

There are many, many examples of the school board threatening the biology teachers, strongly encouraging them to become born again Christians, here’s a quote that captures the gist:

“The unrebuted evidence reveals that the teachers had to make unnecessary sacrifices and compromises advantageous toward board members, who were steadfastly working to inject religion in the classroom, so that their students would have a biology textbook that should have been approved as a matter of course” (120)

These are juicy:

“[O]ne unfortunate theme in this case is the striking ignorance concerning ID amongst board members. Conspicuously, board members who voted for the curriculum change testified at trial that they had utterly no grasp of ID.” (121, emphasis in original)

“Cleaver. . . consistently referred to ID as “intelligence design” throughout her testimony.” (122)

This next quote is actually from the resignation speech of one of the (3) members of the school board who opposed the inclusion of the ID statement in the curriculum. Two of the three resigned as soon as the change was passed, and the third resigned I think at the next board meeting. Anyway, this is from her resignation speech:

“There has been a slow but steady marginalization of some board members. Our opinions are no longer valued or listened to. Our contributions have been minimized or not acknowledged at all. A measure of that is the fact that I have been twice asked within the past year if I was ‘born again.’ No one has, nor should have the right, to ask that of a fellow board member.”(124)

And this is a quote from the third guy to resign. He didn’t give a speech, he just said this:

“I was referred to as unpatriotic, and my religious beliefs were questioned. I served in the U.S. Army for 11 years and six years on the board. Seventeen years of my life have been devoted to public service, and my religion is personal. It’s between me, God, and my pastor.”(125)

And now, four quotes for the decision about whether or not there was primarily secular or religious purpose in the adoption of the policy:

“Although Defendants attempt to persuade this court that each board member who voted for the biology curriculum change did so for the secular purpose of improving science education and to exercise critical thinking skills, their contentions are simply irreconcilable with the record evidence. Their asserted purposes are a sham, and they are accordingly unavailing…”(130)

“Although as noted defendants have consistently asserted that the ID Policy was enacted for the secular purposes of improving science education and encouraging students to exercise critical thinking skills, the board took none of the steps that school officials would take if these stated goals had truly been their objective, The board consulted no scientific materials. The board contacted no scientists or scientific organizations. The board failed to consider the views of the district’s science teachers. The board relied solely on legal advice from two organizations with demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions, The Discovery Institute and the [Thomas Moore Law Center]. Moreover, Defendants’ asserted secular purpose of improving science education is belied by the fact that most if not all of the board members who voted in favor of the biology curriculum change conceded that they still do not know, nor have they ever known, precisely what ID is. To assert a secular purpose against this backdrop is ludicrous.”(130-131)

“Defendants’ previously referenced flagrant and insulting falsehoods to the court provide sufficient and compelling evidence for us to deduce that any allegedly secular purposes that have been offered in support of the ID Policy are equally insincere.” (132)

“[It is] 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.”(136)

And this next one is just thrown in because the board members are jerks:

“It is ironic that several [members of the school board], 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.”(137)

this is strongly worded:

“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.”(138)

Ok, this is the most interesting part of the whole thing, to me. In this next (And last. didn’t think it would ever end, did you?) quote the judge states the effect his ruling will have:

“[The court 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.”(138)

That bit about not disparaging evolution is new. That’s strong stuff. That’s precedent that, if the supreme court decides to handle this case and mentions something like that, then the Kansas (and other) “science” standards will be considered unconstitutional. I mean, that’s really, really big. I like this judge.

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So, that’s it. A fairly long list of quotes, and hopefully just barely enough context for anybody to understand it perfectly. Sorry that was so long, but I did manage to get a 139 page document down to just barely 7 pages. Even if my treatment was incomplete, at best. Anyway, fuck people who try to use mankind’s greatest tool for knowledge gathering to try and promote their religious beliefs.