From Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District:
Fundamentalist opponents of evolution responded with a new tactic suggested by Daniel’s reasoning which was ultimately found to be unconstitutional under the First Amendment, namely, to utilize scientific-sounding language to describe religious beliefs and then to require that schools teach the resulting “creation science” or “scientific creationism” as an alternative to evolution. [...] 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.
I feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, as though I had swallowed an entire kitten.
8 Comments
A whole kitten would cause killer indigestion, no?
This is such a terrific STFU to the fundie crowd.
No, you may NOT get an Amen.
There’s many sentiments that I wish to express about this, but it’s mostly summed up by the following.
FACE!
pwned!
Home Rowed!
and so on…
Jamie: Amen to that!
More than that they judged the right way, I find interesting the reasons that they gave, which demonstrated a really solidly grounded understanding of science for a court. Aside from the two determinations that a student and an adult would judge the declaration to be about religion rather than science, they also lucidly argue that ID ISN’T science (while stating that the court takes no position on whether it’s right or wrong…):
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. As we will discuss in more detail below, 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.
Here’s one for your quote mill:
“A theory is useless to science, indeed not really a scientific theory at all, if no possible observation could falsify it.”
Nigel Warburton, Philosophy: The Basics
Sean: True!
Mel: Amen to what you said! What’s even more bizarre (besides a court of law cogently explaining the definintion of science and giving examples of what is and isn’t science), is that this particular judge was appointed to his position by Dubya. I wonder how he slipped through? :)