Tammy Kitzmiller of Dover Penn., the trial and the failings of Intelligent Design.

Tammy kitzmiller at the courthouse

The Dover Board of Education obtained the legal services of the Thomas More Law Centre, a conservative Christian not-for-profit law centre, to represent it in court. The Board stated that Intelligent Design (ID) was not ‘religion in disguise’, regardless of the Thomas Moore Law Centre’s involvement. The same Law Centre, that uses litigation to promote ‘the religious freedom of Christians and time-honoured family values’, along with being ‘the sword and shield for people of faith’.

Then there were the three golden boys, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer and John Campbell, the big guns of the Discovery Institute, who withdrew their expertise prior to giving the defense their depositions, apparently due to not having personal attorneys during depositions.

From the Discovery Institute, there was good old John West, who portrayed the American Civil Liberties Union’s involvement as ‘Orwellian’, in its stifling of scientific discourse and its use of the courts. Then after the decision was handed down, John West continued with:

“The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of scientific ideas and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate, and it won’t work. He has conflated the Discovery Institute’s position with that of the Dover School Board, and he totally misrepresents intelligent design and the motivations of the scientists who research it”.

I’m not sure if it is pure ignorance of scientific methodology or simply a matter of self-delusion from the standpoint of all the members of the Discovery Institute’s position that openly opposes methodological naturalism. This principle at the most basic of levels, of which limits the pursuit of science and scientific investigation, to natural phenomena and natural causes. By this definition, the supernatural is not applied or without assuming its existence or non-existence, is purely beyond the relm of science and a natural explanation.

From the decision as a footnote, which kind of sums it all up for the need of due diligence for the position held by the Board Members, a public office, with specific expectations:

‘Throughout the trial and in various submissions to the Court, Defendants vigorously argue that the reading of the statement is not ‘teaching’ ID, but instead is merely ‘making students aware of it’. In fact, one consistency among the Dover School Board members’ testimony, which was marked by selective memories and outright lies under oath, as will be discussed in more detail below, is that they did not think they needed to be knowledgeable about ID because it was not being taught to the students. We disagree’.

          To claim an error or even an error in ignorance is tolerable, as long as a peaceful remedy is available and obtained, but to perform an outright error in ignorance and then proceeding to initiate conflict is totally unacceptable. There was an offer to avoid any legal fee payments, if the Dover School Board members took the opportunity to rethink their decision and rescind the policy, immediately after the filing of the lawsuit. The offer was rejected and the lawsuit proceeded to court, the Dover School Board members were dishonourable and the court decision went against them.