Saturday, July 22, 2006

 

Defending intelligent design after Dover

Washington DC Examiner: In their new book, "Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision," authors David DeWolf, John West, Casey Luskin and Jonathan Witt criticize the manner in which Judge John E. Jones III (a George W. Bush appointee) decided in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School Board (2005), the first case regarding the inclusion of "Intelligent Design" in public schools brought in a U.S. federal court. Jones ruled that the teaching of "Intelligent Design" in public school science classes violated the First Amendment due to the fact that it is not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

The Examiner interviewed the authors to get a better understanding of their arguments against Kitzmiller.

Excerpt from "Traipsing Into Evolution" [p.30]:

"Judge Jones ... repeatedly insists that ID 'requires supernatural creation.' Judge Jones can make this claim only by misrepresenting the actual views of intelligent design scientists, who consistently have maintained that empirical evidence cannot tell one whether the intelligent causes detected through modern science are inside or outside of nature. As a scientific theory, ID only claims that there is empirical evidence that key features of the universe and living things are the products of an intelligent cause. Whether the intelligent cause involved is inside or outside of nature cannot be decided by empirical evidence alone. That question involves philosophy, including metaphysics." [Interview follows]
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"Traipsing Into Evolution" is currently appearing on the 'Featured Books' page of the Evolution Book Store: UK | US)

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