Federal Judge Rules Against Intelligent Design

evil agent writes "CNN is reporting that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III has ruled that Intelligent Design cannot be discussed in Dover, Pennsylvania biology classes. Dover Area School Board members had previously mandated that Intelligent Design be included in the biology curriculum. According to the judge, 'our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.'" Update: 12/20 23:40 GMT by J : eSkeptic has a look back at the trial and what led to it. And the Discovery Institute has issued a press release.

Comments

Bets on the over/under for replies to this thread?

[ip_freely_2000]

Should be hundreds of nut cases with moronic opinions wading in here. I'll let all of you decide which is which. My karma is too fragile to offer an opinion :)

Re:Article didn't mention HOW it's unconstitutiona

[TripMaster Monkey]

From the decision:

To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we 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. We will also issue a declaratory judgment that Plaintiffs' rights under the Constitutions of the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have been violated by Defendants' actions.

Re:Intelligent Design is not Hocus Pocus

[CapnRob]

Ye gods.

What's wrong with it is a: it begs the question, b: it's clearly (and, originally, admittedly) a first step for Christian fundamentalists to get evolution out of the science classroom, and c: there's absolutely no evidence *for* it - remember, absence of evidence for one hypothesis is not postive evidence for another. The ID types say "You don't have any evidence for X" (ignoring, quite often, the fact that there *is* evidence for X) "so therefore OUR idea is correct" ... but that ain't the way it works, and offering teaching that says it does weakens the entire system that we call science. If Intelligent Design gets into science classrooms, then the whole idea of "offering evidence for claims" that's kind of, you know, important in science, will go out the window.

My reaction to the ruling...

[onwardknave]

Thank god.

Re:ID vs Evolution is the Wrong Discussion

[jjohnson]

The point you're missing is that there's a difference between "expressly denying something" and legally mandated silence on an issue. For ID to be taught in science class in a public school amounts to the government teaching ID, a religious theory. Mandating that the government remain silent on ID by not teaching it is not teaching that ID is false. Were a public teacher to teach against ID, it would be the same violation of church and state as teaching for it.

Ultimately, "separation of church and state" means that the government (and all its agents) remains silent on religious doctrine. Silence is not the same as contradicting religious doctrine.

It is not oppressive to prevent the government from endorsing your views. You're free to articulate them all you want; you just can't have official help.

And science is not religion in the broadest sense. The quality of belief in each case is fundamentally different. Science is predicated on conditional belief, faith on unconditional belief. They are inherently different.