Courts

I’d like to take this opportunity to give a tip o’ the hat to Roddy Bullock for a really great read From Jefferson to Jones: Self-Evident Truths Made Illegal Self evident truths is a reference to the first line of the second paragraph of the United States’ Declaration of Independence made in congress by the 13 original states on July 4, 1776. To wit We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. It is often pointed out that the United States Constitution does not specify that inalienable rights are bestowed upon all men Read More ›

Once again, when the secular ruling elite of the science establishment can’t make a convincing case on the merits they try to get their conclusions mandated by judicial fiat. US Supreme Court appears divided over global warming

Discovery Institute attorney and scientist (and IDEA co-founder) Casey Luskin has posted this article on more of Ken Miller’s mis-steps under oath and in public. See: Ken Miller’s “Random and Undirected” Testimony. Luskin earlier pointed out Miller’s misrepresentations under oath here. I figured you all might want a thread to discuss this, so here it is!

I normally don’t respond to any of Ed Brayton’s pap (see here and here) but he’s become apoplectic on this and he’s contradicting his good friend and attorney Tim Sandefur who wrote about a right to a jury in the Dover case. Read More ›

This is a follow on to my earlier article urging people to write their congress persons in support of H.R. 2679, Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005.

What I want to talk about here is how the people have been stripped of their right to have a jury judge the law – commonly called jury nullification – and have a judge’s opinion substituted for that of a jury of peers as intended by the constitution. Read More ›

Stop the ACLU

ACLU lawsuit challenges Ky. funeral-protest law

By The Associated Press
05.02.06
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Portions of a new state law intended to prevent protesters from disrupting funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq are unconstitutional and should be struck down, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a federal lawsuit filed yesterday. Read More ›

Graduation prayer axed at Shelby County High
PRINCIPAL CITES COMPLAINT FROM STUDENT, CIVIL LIBERTIES ORGANIZATION
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SHELBYVILLE – The principal of Shelby County High School said the school will not have formal prayer at graduation exercises next month after receiving a complaint from a student and the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

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If Miller ever makes an appearance in a public event to criticize ID, during the Q&A session, IDers should call him into account for why he misrepresented Michael Behe’s ideas under oath in Kitzmiller vs. Dover.

Casey Luskin, IDEA co-founder and attorney at the Discovery Institute, exposed the misrepresentations which Miller used in the trial. These misrepresentations were used by Judge Jones to unjustly criticize Michael Behe and Scott Minnich’s testimony.

Here is the link: Do Car Engines Run on Lugnuts?

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At Telic Thoughts, Mike Gene points out that PZ Myers would vote against tenure to an IDer: PZ Myers on Tenure and ID.

The question about tenure denial has been a question I’ve been trying to get reporters to inquire about since last Fall. As far as I can tell, the question has been mostly evaded or been obscured until recently.

If tenure is to be denied, how about hiring? If ID is grounds for denying tenure, then logically why should it stop there? How about the granting of PhDs, or master’s degrees, or bachelor’s degrees, or even entry into college? Read More ›

Go here to read the full article.

Not-So-Quick But Nonetheless Dirty Review of the Kitzmiller Decision
By Casey Luskin

Introduction:
This is a response to the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board (hereafter “Kitzmiller) decision (see http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf to download the full opinion). This response is adapted from an e-mail I sent out to a bunch of friends in late December, 2005, just a few days after the Kitzmiller ruling was released. I’ve been asked by some friends who received the e-mail to post it on the internet in presentable fashion, and so I’m finally getting around to it in February, 2006.

The Kitzmiller ruling declared intelligent design is religion, not science, and unconstitutional to teach in public schools. This response here is by no means an exhaustive response to the problems with the Judge’s ruling. In fact, a more extensive discussion of many of these issues may be found in the Response to the ACLU ID FAQ which I wrote in February, 2005, about 7 months before the trial started. In some cases I simply provide links to other places which provide more complete discussions and refutations to the assertions made in the Kitzmiller decision. However, I hope this will help the reader see 4 things clearly: Read More ›

South Dakota just passed a law making abortion a felony except in case of medical emergency. It’s now just a matter for the governor to sign it which everyone expects him to do. The law is designed to force the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade. The present Supreme Court is unlikely to hold up Roe v. Wade which is based on a made up out of whole cloth (mythical) constitutional guarantee of privacy. It will become again a matter for states to decide for themselves. This is as it should be. A bunch of politicians or judges in Washington have no business defining the moral standards that the good and free people of South Dakota or any other state must live with. Legislated moral values not explicitely enumerated in the constitution are simply something the federal government has no business dictating to the states.

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http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=697

Behe covers several sections in detail but here is the overall summary at the end:

The Court’s reasoning in section E-4 is premised on: a cramped view of science; the conflation of intelligent design with creationism; the incapacity to distinguish the implications of a theory from the theory itself; a failure to differentiate evolution from Darwinism; and strawman arguments against ID. The Court has accepted the most tendentious and shopworn excuses for Darwinism with great charity and impatiently dismissed arguments for design. Read More ›

This article lays it out and backs it up with quotes from the opposition. Read More ›

It has come to my attention that some of our best informed ID supporters don’t believe politics are important to winning and that science education is the key. Now I dearly love science but without politics providing us a level playing field our arguments from math and science are doomed to being censored.
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