MEMEHUNTER

Judge Jones is my hero.

Ok. Going back to the beginning of the month when I was in Philadelphia...

It was my privelege to attend a panel discussion on the teaching of evolutionary science in schools. One of the panelists was Judge Jones, who presided over Kitzmiller vs the Dover Area School District in 2005. This has been widely reported as a rerun of the Scopes 'monkey trial' of 1925. In short, Creationist school board attempts to introduce teaching of Intelligent Design in science classes in Pennsylvania public schools. Judge rules that this is unconstitutional, declares Intelligent Design wholly antithetic to science, exposes a long running fundamentalist political agenda and ultimately causes the whole school board to be replaced.

Get in.

Anyway. I've just read Judge Jone's official opinion . It's 136 pages of brilliance. Very easy to read, very exciting. At the conference, we were all urged, as scientists, to read it and I have to say I wholly agree. If you're a scientist, you should read it to feel reinvigorated. If you're an adherant to Intelligent Design, you should read it if only to be put firmly in your place (which is the theology department, incidentally), if you're neither, then simply read it as an wonderful exersize in rationality.

I'm so excited, I'm going to link to it again.
And again.

In these days, when so many people seem intent on abandoning rational thought and pretending that the Enlightenment was just a bunch of wooly minded academics poncing about in libraries, it is very exciting to have a piece of writing like this emerge. Intelligent Design publically exposed as a fundamentalist, theist, creationist agenda which has about as much place in a science classroom as a big fat crucifix.

"Methodological naturalism is a 'ground rule' of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upone what we can observe, test, replicate and verify" Judge Jones, 2005, p.65

posted by Memehunter @ 2:59 PM