Running Commentary on Decision

Note: This is a running commentary on the opinion. I will be adding to it and revising it as I read the opinion more carefully.

What I find most striking as I read the opinion more carefully is how amazingly unaware the trial judge seems to be of his own personal bias and worldview. He seems to believe that he is really neutral in all this.

Macroevolutionary theory cannot be taught as a theory! Here is a wild quote:

Moreover, the objective student is presumed to know that encouraging the teaching of evolution as a theory rather than as a fact is one of the latest strategies to dilute evolution instruction employed by anti-evolutionists with religious motivations. Selman, 390 F. Supp. 2d at 1308.

Oh my gosh, are you kidding me? You cannot treat macroevolutionary theory as a theory because that is consistent with what religious people think? This is really scary stuff.

I am actually glad to see what a wacky, extremist opinion it is. It cannot be taken very seriously.

It is curious to see how frequently he cites to the Selman district court opinion, even though that judge seems to be on the verge of being overturned by the appeals court, maybe by a 3-0 vote.

Whether ID is science:

After a searching review of the record and applicable case law, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. 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.

Simplistic, biased, narrow-minded. It seems to me that Judge Jones simply does not have the intellectual firepower to understand intelligent design.

The third reason is the funniest: ID is not science because it has been refuted by the scientific community. Does this judge not understand basic logic?

One only needs to read the dissent in Edwards to see how two different men can see things so differently. Thankfully, this is one opinion by one district court judge, and the opinion was arguably moot before he ever ruled.

I can't imagine Roberts or Alito writing or affirming an opinion like this. Or Kennedy, who will likely be the swing vote on Establishment Clause cases. I can't even imagine William Brennan putting his name on something this simplistic and angry.

A debate is going on regarding evolution and intelligent design, and this opinion adds virtually nothing constructive to it. This opinion may be important because this judge possesses some local judicial power, but in the realm of ideas it is like puff of smoke.