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Judge Jones III, may I approach the bench?
In my recent defense of Dr. Michael J. Behe, I revisited the court transcripts of the Dover trial and it struck me that there was a lot of philosophy being doled out in the name of the law. Now, please bear in mind that this post isn't written to answer whether it's right for the bench to be used to choose between philosophies. This post is written to point out that Judge Jones' philosophy was just bad.
After a searching review of the record and applicable case law, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research. (p. 64)
ID is not science. Now, first, I appreciate the fact that the judge tried to add new reason that ID is not science, because the old one (that is unfortunately still peddled in full public view, i.e. the judge's point # 1) has proven a resounding problem for evolution as science.
I'd like to just make a few points of my own about the judge's points:
(1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation;
Centuries old? That seems odd, since the mandate is recently formed, around the time of Darwin as a matter of fact. The judge is not a very good historian, since he doesn't seem aware of the philosophic leanings of the fathers of modern science-- from Copernicus to Newton, between and beyond...
The question was similarly framed in a letter to the House of Representatives by neo-Darwinian scientists at Baylor and replied to by the Indiana representative, and I'll quote his response in part:
Nevertheless, many of us continue to be concerned about the unreasoning viewpoint discrimination in science. This letter dismisses those who do not share the philosophy of science favored by the authors as frauds. It is ironic, however, that the authors do not ever actually get around to answering the substantive arguments put forward by people at the Discovery Institute. The authors support a philosophy of science they call materialistic science. The key phrase in the letter is that we cannot consider God's role in the natural phenomenon we observe. Yet this assumption is merely asserted without any argument.
...
In addition, the philosophy of science the authors talk about is just that, a philosophy. It is not itself science, even according to the definition of science put forward by the authors themselves. They state, for example, that all observations must be explained through empirical observations. I am not sure what that means but I do know this: This statement itself is not verifiable by observation or by methods of scientific inquiry. It is rather a philosophical statement.
(as relayed at Bill Dembski's: http://www.designinference.com/documents/2007.12.MPC_Rise_and_Fall.htm)
On to point 2...
(2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and
This point denies a "dualism" between ID and naturalistic evolution. This is important, because the judge contradicts himself in his own findings, per:
(3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.
Here, he describes the dualism that he just claimed doesn't exist. So, basically what we have here is that point one chose one philosophical view over another (possible in part due to a huge misunderstanding of science history?) In any event, point one chooses one philosophy over another. Point (2) denies a dualism between the two philosophies. Point (3) reaffirms the choice between the two because the chosen philosophy doesn't accept the philosophy in question (i.e. a definition of the duialism that point 2 denied).
Maybe in later posts I'll have the time to jot a few more lines about the "refutation" that the judge erroneously concluded against ID. Maybe I'll post about the unmistakable peer review of Dembski's "Design Inference"...
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