Month: November 2007
Judge Jones Nudges Judge Judy
Judge John E. Jones, a former trial attorney and State Liquor Control Board member who now is a federal judge for central Pennsylvania, is also a new phenomenon on the federal bench: a judge who, having made a ruling (e.g., the Dover case), goes on speaking tours and television shows to promote himself, his ruling and — yesterday — a PBS documentary on his ruling. Yesterday morning he was on the Today Show. Soon we will be asked to consider his views on the Iraq War or the writers’ strike in Hollywood. Maybe he should retire and start a talk show for Air America (where he also has appeared).There must have been others who have broken from the long-standing customary Read More ›
What NOVA Won’t Tell You about Dover
When John E. Jones decided in 2005 to “traipse into” the controversial area of evolution and science education, deciding the scientific merit of intelligent design as a federal court judge in Dover, PA, he may have only dreamed of the day when he would see himself on the silver screen. As the author of the 139-page verdict in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, Jones gained national notoriety (and much acclaim from certain fashionable quarters) for ruling that intelligent design is not science but religion. That more than 90% of the section on intelligent design was copied nearly verbatim from the ACLU didn’t diminish his standing as a “great thinker” in the mainstream press. Neither did the fact that the Judge Read More ›
Why Discovery Institute Scientists Aren’t in
NOVA’s Retelling of the Dover Tale
For the story behind the picture click here.
PBS Encouraging Teachers to Violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause
A “Briefing Packet for Educators” just issued by PBS in conjunction with the NOVA program Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial inserts religion into the classroom and encourages teaching practices that are likely unconstitutional, says Discovery Institute. “The NOVA/PBS teaching guide encourages the injection of religion into classroom teaching about evolution in a way that likely would violate current Supreme Court precedents about the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause,” says Dr. John West, vice president for public policy and legal affairs with Discovery Institute. Tuesday, November 13th, Discovery Institute will publish its own guide, The Theory of Intelligent Design: A briefing packet for educators, to help teachers understand the debate between Darwinian evolution and intelligent design. The briefing packet can be Read More ›
Behe Writes Again
Proving once again that he’s not one to take things lying down, Michael Behe is posting a new series of responses over at his Amazon blog. This response is different from the others he’s been posting. As Behe explains In his introductory post from Friday, available here: This series of posts (besides this intro, there will be five posts over the next week) will be different. Here I will address a post on the blog The Panda’s Thumb by a man named Ian Musgrave. Musgrave, a professor at the University of Adelaide, wrote “An Open Letter to Dr. Michael Behe”, in which he questioned my earlier reply to a woman named Abbie Smith, who is a graduate student working on Read More ›