Guest Post by Morbo
Every day real scientists working in real laboratories undercut the claims made by proponents of “intelligent design” creationism. This recent New York Times article showcases a newly discovered example of evolution in humans.
Creationists have no traction in the scientific arena, because what they are doing isn’t science. It’s theology. With no successes in the lab to point to, they are left with only one option: fighting battles through the media.
This week, the Discovery Institute, the leading ID group, issued a study of a legal opinion against ID released by a federal court in December of 2005. In that case, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, ID opponents had their butts handed to them by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones. Jones not only declared a Pennsylvania school district’s pro-intelligent design policy unconstitutional, he flatly declared ID unscientific and demolished allegedly scientific claims made in court by Michael Behe, a Lehigh University biochemist and leading ID proponent.
In the Dover case, ID backers did not lose — they were creamed. And the defeats have kept on coming: Kansas’ Board of Education is now in the hands of moderates who oppose creationism. Ohio’s is as well, and Michigan’s state board rejected an overture by ID boosters. Attempts to promote ID in Pennsylvania and other states fell flat. ID’s biggest booster in the Senate, Rick Santorum, has been sent packing.
Against all of this, ID proponents have one victory: A school district in that hotbed of intellectual life and cutting-edge science, northern Louisiana, unanimously approved a policy in November stating that the district “understands that the teaching of some scientific subjects such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming and human cloning, can cause controversy and that some teachers may be unsure of the district’s expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects.” The policy, approved by the Ouachita Parish School Board, goes on to read “Teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught.”
With so little to show for their efforts, desperate ID boosters at the Discovery Institute are now tying to re-litigate the Kitzmiller case through the media. This week they issued a phony report accusing Jones of plagiarizing a key 6,000-word passage of his opinion from an ACLU document called the findings of fact.
This is a non-story.
Jones’ opinion is 139 pages long. It is extremely well reasoned and well written. It is not uncommon for a federal judge to borrow findings of fact if they are well stated and in accord with his thoughts on the matter. This is what Jones did, in the course of a lengthy opinion. Big deal.
As one Pennsylvania attorney put it, “A judge doesn’t adopt findings of fact until he hears (testimony) and agrees it supports those facts. Any judge who is efficient and well-versed in the law takes advantage of the findings of fact. It’s par for the course. Any attempt to make a stink out of it is absurd.”
This incident is a telling example of the intellectual dishonesty of the Discovery Institute — and the underhanded tactics it employs. To read more about the sleazy nature of this group, I recommend Barbara Forrest’s article in the January issue of “Skeptical Inquirer” magazine. Forrest, who has written a history of ID, was an expert witness in the Dover case, and her piece recounts the various personal attacks and snide comments she had to endure during the trial.
The Institute’s low-road stunts are infuriating, but it’s even more unfortunate that the group was able to dupe an Associated Press reporter into writing about this non-issue and spreading its lies nationwide. This is what the group wanted all along. Having lost in the science labs and having lost in court, intelligent design backers have nothing else to rely on but a disinformation campaign. It’s a shame when legitimate news outlets agree to act as P.R. agencies for right-wing hacks.
The Discovery Institute got a few lines of ink in some newspapers from this stunt. But that’s all they will get. They will continue to have their butts handed to them where it really matters — in labs all over the country where real science goes on every day.