Ah! It's the Sudden (Re-)Emergence of the Discovery Institute

I thought for sure that by now the crew at the Discovery Institute had found new careers at Starbucks. But I was wrong.

A federal judge who barred a Pennsylvania school district from teaching "intelligent design" virtually copied findings suggested by the winning side in a key section of the landmark ruling, according to a think tank that promotes the concept and has criticized the decision.

Alas, now we learn that not only are the DI boys not experts in science but law is also not their area of expertise.

But legal experts say it is common for judges in civil cases to rely heavily on findings proposed by lawyers when they write their opinions - and there is nothing wrong with copying those findings if the legal briefs have been well-prepared.

The DI properly got the smack down from our own Vic Walczak...

"They're getting no traction in the scientific world so they're trying to do something ... as a PR stunt to get attention," said Witold Walczak, legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the ACLU's lead attorney on the case.

"That's not how scientists work," he said. "Discovery Institute is trying to litigate a year-old case in the media."

Walczak said the Discovery Institute staff is not, as it claims, interested in finding scientific truths; it is more interested in a "cultural war," pushing for intelligent design and publicly criticizing a judge.

"Why don't these guys go back to their 'labs,' and do something meaningful?" Walczak asked. "Oh, wait. They don't have labs. Silly me."

...and the York Dispatch:

Well, they're back. Why is anybody's guess, but their latest public relations stunt, claiming that Judge Jones in his final ruling copied text from motions filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on the behalf of the plaintiffs, smacks of more goofiness.

Further -- and this is the silliest part -- a spokesman for the institute claimed that the use of that text in the ruling undercuts its credibility.

Note to Seattle: That's not how it works, folks. At least not in the last 200 years of American jurisprudence. Judge Jones' credibility remains intact, Discovery Institute's claims flop.

I wonder where the DI is getting its funding these days.


Any day now we'll probably hear again from Constitutional Expert Bill Buckingham.

Andy in H-burg