Seth Cooper and Joe Manzari’s article, “ACLU Demands and Dover Designs,” raised fresh questions about the potential for a dismissal of the Kitzmiller case based upon mootness, potentially allowing the Dover Area School Board to avoid a large attorneys’ fees judgment against them by rescinding their intelligent design (ID) policy before Judge Jones issued his decision. Opponents of intelligent design responded harshly to the AEI article (and my own reporting) by questioning the legal reasoning about mootness. One critic stated that the AEI article, and my commentary, “appear to be utterly ignorant of the voluntary cessation doctrine” and “there was virtually no chance that the case would be mooted.” Yet several Supreme Court cases dealing with mootness and a careful Read More ›

This story from England is a month old, but took a while getting over the Pond to my in-box . Dennett and Dawkins say in public what Eugenie Scott says in private. Ruse may actually be sincere (though sincerely wrong), and not a ruse deviser at all. He was morally compromised some time ago when he took to quaffing beer with known “creationists in disguise” (as the ACLU’s favorite judge would call them). Ever since then Ruse has been incapable of sober materialist judgement. Recently in his Seattle debate with Steve Meyer, Peter Ward, too, criticized Dawkins, and with a bit of a snarl, I thought–all happily captured and preserved on tape. Dennett should rise again to the defense of Read More ›

Kevin Shapiro’s recent Wall Street Journal essay, “Misplaced Sympathies,” appeals to the opinion of a low-level district judge (John Jones of Dover fame), an Ohio school board vote, and a strawman characterization of intelligent design in an effort to convince us that Darwinism is settled truth.