The contemporary interpretation of the Scopes trial, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, has reached its conclusion. Darwin wins this one. From Michael Powell in the Washington Post:
A federal judge barred a Pennsylvania school district yesterday from mentioning "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolutionary theory in a scathing opinion that criticized local school board members for lying under oath and for their "breathtaking inanity" in trying to inject religion into science classes.
U.S. District Court Judge John Jones III, a Republican appointed by President Bush, did not confine his opinion to the missteps of a local school board. Instead he explicitly sought to vanquish intelligent design, the argument that aspects of life are so complex as to require the hand, subtle or not, of a supernatural creator. This theory, he said, relies on the unprovable existence of a Christian God and therefore is not science.
I haven't had time yet to read the opinion, but judging from the summaries in the WaPo, and on Public Radio, I will concur in part and dissent in part.
First, I think the U.S. District Court was almost certainly correct in striking down the Dover School Board's policy. Here is the policy as the Court describes it:
On October 18, 2004, the Defendant Dover Area School Board of Directors
passed by a 6-3 vote the following resolution:Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin’s theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design.
On November 19, 2004, the Defendant Dover Area School District announced by press release that, commencing in January 2005, teachers would be required to read the following statement to students in the ninth grade biology class at Dover High School:
The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.
Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations. Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.
With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.
No reasonable person can doubt that the purpose of this rule was to take sides in a controversey pitting Darwinian evolution against Biblical Religion. As constitutional law now stands, government bodies are not allowed to do that.
However, Judge Jones (as noted, a Bush appointee) went far wide of the mark in his characterization of the Intelligent Design argument.
"The overwhelming evidence is that Intelligent Design is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism and not a scientific theory," Jones wrote in a 139-page decision. "It is an extension of the Fundamentalists' view that one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution."
It is simply false to say that Intelligent Design is a religious view. Many or even all of those who hold that view may have religious motives. But many people who opposed slavery in the 1850's had religious motives, as did many who campaigned for civil rights a century later. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was, after all, a reverend. This does not mean that anti-slavery arguments or civil rights concerns were "extensions" some Fundamentalist view.
Intelligent Design is a perfectly legitimate position in the fields of philosophy of science and philosophy of religion. ID proponents argue that many features of organic life display irreducible complexity, which is to say that they cannot be explained by ordinary processes of evolution. For example, many complex molecules on which life depends exist only when living organisms create them. They work only they are already complete. Simpler versions or parts of such molecules would be useless. They cannot be the products of blind mechanical forces, and only an intelligent designer could have first brought them into being.
Now, for reasons I will not go into, I think this argument fails badly. I think most people who believe it do so because they think they have to defeat Darwinism in order to save the creation story. It is nonetheless a rational argument based on good evidence. I can understand that Judge Jones wanted to drive the last nails into the coffin of the Intelligent Design movement, but he has gone far beyond any expertise he might have on the subject.
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