Tuesday, December 20, 2005

A Tragesty of Justice in Pennsylvania!

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Breaking News!

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones has just ruled against the teaching of alternate scientific theories in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover case. As you know, The Math Skeptic has had high hopes for this case as part of our "wedge strategy" to insert alternative math theories into the classroom, so this is a huge setback indeed.

Judge Jones issued this utterly ludicrous ruling based on the positively ridiculous notion that Intelligent Design Theory is religious:
The concept of intelligent design (hereinafter “ID”), in its current form, came into existence after the Edwards case was decided in 1987. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child.

We initially note that John Haught, a theologian who testified as an expert witness for Plaintiffs and who has written extensively on the subject of evolution and religion, succinctly explained to the Court that the argument for ID is not a new scientific argument, but is rather an old religious argument for the existence of God. He traced this argument back to at least Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, who framed the argument as a syllogism: Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex; therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer.
Really, Judge? Really? Well I am an objective observer AND an adult or child, and I don't see the religiousity inherent in the claim that a supernatural being guided evolution every step of the way!

It's simply a ludicrous notion. Any believer in an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God could never believe that such an all-powerful being would be so thoroughly incompetent as to intentionally guide evolution into all of its mass extinctions and dead ends and malicious mutations and the utter cruelty of natural selection. So if it's not God doing the guiding, it's not religious, thus, what the cdesign proponents are proponing is not religion! Case closed!

And, of course, organizations such as the National Center for Science Indoctrination were fawning over themselves in praise for the decision to ban freedom from the classroom. I suppose I can't blame them, of course. They and the rest of the scientific community are so deep in the pocket of Big Digit that they can't possibly support academic freedom in the maths OR sciences. We alternative math and/or science proponents are just tiny Davids facing a giant Goliath of the scientifo-numeric cabal.

Which wasn't meant as a religious statement, just to be clear. I was merely using a well-known anecdote, that happens to come from the Old Testament, to illustrate my point.