Religion & Law

Would You Like Cheese With Your Whine?

By John Pieret

Michael Behe is in the Oregon Salem-News whining at how the mean ol' "Darwinists" abuse the poor Intelligent Design Creationists. Of course, Behe then promptly repeats the Discoveryoid defamatory claim that Judge Jones "plagiarized" his decision from the plaintiffs' "proposed findings of fact":

I don't think the judge understood any of the academic arguments that were presented in his courtroom, whether science, philosophy or theology, or whether presented by the plaintiffs or defendants. If you examine the court records, you see that when the judge's ruling discusses the nature of science, the judge's opinion was essentially copied from a document given to him by the plaintiffs lawyers. There is no evidence he himself understood what he was copying. But when the leading scientific societies are strongly arrayed on one side against a local community school board on the other, the judge went with those who have cultural power in our society.

I regret the judge's decision, but nonetheless I think the school board elections in which the old board lost and a new board was installed is a reasonable example of democratic action. The big issue for many local residents was not what was taught in biology class in the local high school. Rather, it was the expense of the trial itself, which was over a million dollars. Residents who had no children in the school, or who knew little of the issues, would still have their taxes increased to pay the legal costs of the trial. That made many of them angry, so they voted against the old school board.

Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on May 19, 2010 (boomark / email).