Dover defendants' expert witness defends self, criticizes ACLU in the blogosphere
at the University of Warwick (UK). In his testimony on behalf of the defendants, he claimed that intelligent design was indeed science, and that scientific methods are inherently discriminatory and designed to shut out alternative ideas. (For more on his testimony, see this blog entry.)
Since his testimony, apparently a number of individuals in the scientific community have questioned Fuller's defense of intelligent design. Fuller posted a lengthy response to a post on Penn State University professor Michael Berube's blog.
In addition to a lot of defense of his testimony, Fuller had a strange take on what the trial was really about:
Frankly, I think the public disposition of the Dover case is over-influenced by hatred of Bush and especially fear of the role of fundamentalist Christians in shaping the Bush agenda. (I have in mind here the propaganda campaign being waged on webpages associated with the ACLU: Don't they have more important civil rights violations in the US to worry about?) I'm certainly no fan of Bush, and have never even voted for a Republican, but I don't think that this trial is the right place to "send a message" to Bush. Why not work instead toward getting an electable Democrat - perhaps even one that can relate to the vast numbers of religious folks in the US, as the liberal evangelist Jim Wallis ("God's Politics") suggests? rest of post
I don't even know where to start with these comments, so I think I'll leave it to all of you to start!
Sara in Philly
posted by ACLU of Pennsylvania at 12/05/2005 05:33:00 PM
9 Comments:
Fuller can start by explaining why Paul Mirecki was beaten--apparently for making remarks disparaging of ID.
(See Pandas Thumb for more data.)
Sounds like a major civil rights issue to me...
Actually defendants item #657 says that ID's openness to supernatural does disqualify it as science because it's not testable. Although since I didn't cross check with the referenced testimony I'm not sure that's what he actually said. If I were the plantiff, I would absolutely agree with the item exactly as worded. :)
Where to start?
Let's start with the judge that is deciding this case isn't blogging on this board.
Let's start with this blog is not what decides this case, this blog is just reporting (with commentary) what is happening.
Let's start with he is trying to save face at this point.
Let's add a Bush Grammer course to the public school curricula to go with the ID Science. Maybe our kids can later become trash men in China?
"Let's start with he is trying to save face at this point."
Why would he feel the need to save face? It's not like someone forced him to defend ID in court.
I read those posts so you don't have to - take me out and shoot me now. So many words, so little new.
Mr Fuller thinks ID should be taught in High School science classes, but acknowledges that there is no scientific evidence for it. That's my interpretation, since this controversy would immediately go away if there was some evidence. None has been produced.
Mr Fuller understands that as a scientific proposition, ID is in its infancy. No argument there. But then he argues that ID should be allowed to bypass the normal scientific process of hypothesis, experiment, testing, peer review, publishing, and go straight to being taught in High School science class.
Mr Fuller believes that the way to kick start the scientific exploration of ID is to teach it in High School so that maybe a groundswell of budding young scientists will atudy it enough to come up with some scientific data that will prove it belongs in science class.
It's all too sad for words.
Cheers, Neil.
How about: If a Democrat were president, ID still wouldn't be science, people would still be trying to teach their superstitions to children as fact, and we would, in one form or another, still be having this trial.
How about, if a Democrat were President?
The President wouldn't be beholden to the Religious Right and the Religious Right wouldn't be as bold as they seem to be now.
The President wouldn't have advocated teaching both sides of a non-scientific controversy in science class.
I doubt we would be having this trial if the President was a Democrat.
Cheers, Neil.
Fyi, more fun with Fuller here:
http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/comments/789/
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