Kitzmiller v. Dover Board of Ed. -- aka the "Panda Trial"

I thought maybe I'd take some of the heat off BRrussel's derailed dualism thread. Maybe that thread can then get back on track.

Has anyone here been following the "Panda Trial" in Dover, PA? It's fascinating stuff. Here's a link to the PA ACLU's blog where they're following the trial:

http://aclupa.blogspot.com/

The ACLU is backing the plaintiffs in this case (the plaintiffs being parents suing the Dover school board on First Amendment grounds for trying to introduce "Intelligent Design" into a public school curriculum), so obviously the ACLU's blog isn't the most unbiased place to look at what's going on.

Nevertheless, even after doing my best to account for potential bias, and after looking at neutral documents like raw court transcripts, things look like they are going terribly for the ID defense. The Discovery Institute (essentially the main ID think tank) is now doing all they can to distance themselves from this mess -- they even pulled two witnesses for the defense which they'd originally planned to provide, including the (in)famous William Dembski.

To start with, the ID-peddling members of the Dover Board of Education are certainly doing themselves no service with their own testimony. Anyone who's ever listened to a five-year old try to squirm his way out of stealing a cookie could see through the contradictions and convenient "lapses of memory" of the various board members.

Here's just one example of that, from the very entertaining Mike Argento, in one of his stories in the local York Daily Record:

Buckingham seesaws on the stand

Here's an amusing excerpt from the above:

Question: Does this man imagine himself doing "the Lord's Work" by lying through his teeth under oath like this? These guys should re-read the part of the Bible where Peter denies Jesus three times. They're all doing a fair reenactment of that while trying to deny their well-documented Christian/creationist motivations for their ID agenda.

Even getting away from the dithering local yokels from the school board, the so-called "experts" aren't doing much better. You've got Michael Behe not only having to admit that the very definition of science would have to be changed to include ID as science, you then have him forced to admit that using the definition he proposes astrology would be science too! Mr. Behe also seems to have gotten himself caught up in one of these shall we say "memory lapses"?... regarding whether or not his book Darwin's Black Box had actually been peer reviewed or not. Odd thing to get a fuzzy memory about, wouldn't you think?

How's this for a desperate angle on the part of the defense: Intelligent design's plea for help

The gist? Poor, struggling, underappreciated Intelligent Design just can't catch a break in the mean, close-minded world of the scientific establishment. So, unlike any other theory which has had to fight its own way the hard way, working from the top down and becoming well-established before becoming the stuff of high school textbooks, poor ID just can't make it without a "from the bottom up" approach.

The solution? Our public education system is somehow obligated to inspire and recruit the ID researchers of the future -- and then, I guess, we all just wait for these brilliant young minds to do the research which usually comes up front.

I don't think they can win either, but here's one angle I think the defense might be trying for:

There may be a constitutional prohibition against promoting a religious agenda in public schools, but there is no prohibition, per se, against teaching bad science. If some school board members somewhere got it into their heads to teach E=mc³ instead of E=mc², there's not really anything you can do about that except try to convince the voters that the school board has gone mad, and fix the problem if you can vote them out.

So, in and of itself, getting mad and stomping your feet that ID is bad science doesn't get you anywhere.

Exposing ID as bad science, which has little to offer in its present (and probable future) form, merely lays bare whether what's left is religious in nature, and whether the motivation to push such a "science", with so little credence in the scientific establishment, is religiously motivated.

Having the case hinge on the motivation of those pushing the ID agenda can be a tricky thing. After all, many people were motivated by their religious beliefs to fight for civil rights -- their religious motivation in no way invalidates civil rights laws.

I imagine the degree of power school boards have varies from state to state and from town to town. My main point is that I don't believe it's possible to make a federal constitutional case against ID purely on the basis of whether or not ID is good science, or even science at all.

The examples you gave, however, aren't "just bad" -- they're bad with a religious twist that would likely cause a run-in with the Establishment Clause.

"Just bad" would be teaching that Kermit the Frog was the first president of the United States, or that mental illness is caused by thinking about pizza.

The ID gambit is to pretend that ID is religiously neutral about who or what did the supposed intelligent designing -- to leave it supposedly open to interpretation such that it could mean an advanced alien race, or time-travelling hyperintelligent vending machines, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or... ssshhhh... maybe even the Christian God. If you buy the argument that the clearly Christian motivations of the vast majority of those who promote ID must be ignored, so as long as the teaching materials for ID have all been properly de-Christianized and de-Godified before presentation, then ID is "merely" bad science.

One of the plaintiff's exhibits, for instance, shows how the current edition of Of Pandas and People reads almost exactly like an older pre-ID edition of Of Pandas and People, except that words like "creationism" have been replaced with the text "intelligent design". Not only is the ID "update" ludicrously shallow about hiding its creationist origins, the publishers make it clear where students can order supplemental materials to the book which currently still make no effort to hide the Christian creationist agenda.

Of course, the less ID says about the alleged designer, the less it says, period. There's less to claim, less to look for, less to prove, less to possibly ever subject to evidence or testing. And there's little reason left for anyone to fiercely advocate ID... unless, of course, they're trying to use it as, hmmm... a "wedge strategy", perhaps?

Whether or not people re-elect their school board members is one check on them, but not a very good check when it comes to the Constitutionality of what school boards do.

Beyond that? Hopefully someone else here who's more familiar with these issues can answer better. All I'm aware of is the general concept of there being laws passed which create various state and federal guidelines.

I think most federal guidelines are "optional" in the sense that it's not a matter of breaking the law not to follow them, but merely a matter of whether or not a school continues to receive federal funding or not. If a school district were wealthy enough, and/or their school board headstrong enough, I imagine a bit more latitude in curriculum planning would exist. Most schools need money so badly, however, that by tying money to federal guidelines those guidelines essentially become mandatory.

While it's still disappointing enough, don't blow these poll results out of proportion.

The poll asks nothing about Creationism with a capital C. Just any sort of involvement of God, and only as it relates to humans -- a lot of people have a weak spot for treating humans as a special case. There's a lot of wiggle room in here for variations on a theistic evolution theme.

If the question is about diehard Biblically-literal creationism, "only" (yes, it's still depressingly high) about 1/3 go for that in other surveys I've seen. At least that leaves 2/3 who aren't making themselves live in complete denial of the broad geological and paleontological realities of our planet.

I'd suggest we ignore sophmoric "No, you are!"-style rhetoric and blunt unsubstantiated assertions coming from some people, and only address those who actually seem to be digging into the details of the court case and have something substantial to contribute to the discussion.

What's fascinating is just how slender a sliver these guys seem willing to settle for.

From the ACLU blog:

So, when the Panda Trial goes down in flames, it looks like we might have to look forward to the "Sudden Emergence" movement.

First, they try to peddle Biblical Creationism. That doesn't work.

Next... toss out their own particular God and the Bible and try to get Intelligent Design in the door. At least the little kiddies will get the God hint, right?

That's not working? Okay, 86 the Designer. Let's settle for getting the children wondering, "Hmmm. What makes things suddenly "poof!" into existence?"