The Significance of the Dover Decision

You stated I think you must be reading the wrong judgement. Which part of can be interpreted as "the judge considers it legal"? I've lifted that portion straight from the Judgement.The statement is as plain as a pikestaff, the judge considers it illegal based on the fact that, in his Judgement he describes it as unconstitutional, with regard to the Establishment clause (the First Ammendment of the US constitution). He goes on to declare it a violation of rights under the Pennsylvania Constitution also. Last time I checked, actions which are in breach of the First Ammendment are NOT considered legal.You cannot read from the judge's declaration of unconstitutionality that the judge considers it legal. He has stated perfectly plainly that he considers it ILLEGAL!!!!!.You say"The law is strictly about legal rules, precedent, etc,.....it is not about scientific truth. That's not me dodging. If you want to think that, I really don't care. It's just reality. In fact, legal proceedings and litigation are often not even about the truth, period, but about the rules."I agree with you as far as it goes. Yes, the law pertains to legal rules, precedent etc and one of those legal rules is that you mustn't lie under oath. Many of the witnesses for the defense must have thought that the proceedings were not about the truth, since they provided so little of it. To quote the judgement again (and remember, this quote in no way addresses science)."Moreover, defendants' asserted secular purpose of improving science education is belied by the fact that most if not all of the Board members who voted in favor of the biology curriculum change conceded that they still do not know, nor have they ever known, precicely what ID is. To assert a secular purpose against this backdrop is ludicrous. Finally, although Defendants have unceasingly attempted in vain to distance themselves from their own actions and statements, which culminated in repetitious, untruthful testimony, such a strategy constitutes additional strong evidence of improper purpose under the first prong of the Lemon test. As exhaustively detailed herein, the thought leaders of the Board made it their considered purpose to inject some form of creationism into the science classroom, and by dint of their personalities and persistence they were able to pull the majority of the Board along in their collective wake, Any asserted secular purposes by the Board are a sham and are merely secondary to a religious objective.[there then follows some legal argument using case law which establishes that it is the duty of the courts to distinguish a sham secular purpose from a sincere one. The Judgement then continues] Defendants' previously referenced flagrant and insulting falsehoods to the Court provide sufficient and compelling evidence for us to deduce that any alleged secular purposes that have been offered in support of the ID Policy are equally insincere."It's difficult to pick examples of the flagrant and insulting falsehoods since there are so many whoppers to choose from in the transcript. I can vouch that, having read the transcripts of the trial on a number of occasions, until I almost lost the will to live, that lies and falsehoods are peppered throughout Defendants' testimony. If you do require verbatim examples I will provide them. I would recommend to interested parties the whole of Bill Buckingham's testimony, but in particular his testimony with regard to the funding of the purchase of 60 copies of Pandas. This should serve to demonstrate the lies, deceit, and blatant dissembling indulged in and which the judge found "flagrant and insulting.""The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy".You state
"I am not sure how much litigation you have been involved in, but it is inconceivable to me that a reasoned person would consider a legal proceeding a good judge or forum to decide scientific theory. It is equally puzzling to see evos actually think somehow the case has any merit within science or scientific opinion whatsoever."I fully agree that a court of law is not the best place to decide scientific theory, but I would argue that it's a huge improvement in comparison to a school board peopled by a majority who admitted in open court that they had no clue what ID actually claims or what constitutes a valid scientific theory!!! Really, they had no idea what ID claims, but in their opinion it was a valid scientific theory.The Judgement stated They didn't even know what is is, never mind whether it is a valid scientific theory!In support of this part of the Judgement I provide the following evidence from the transcripts, taken from the testimony of Bill Buckingham.Mr Harvey for the plaintiffs during cross of Mr William Buckingham (Page not found | ACLU Pennsylvania start page 20, line 21, end page 21, line 3. By their own admission several other Board members testified that they had even less of and understanding and so deferred to the superior knowledge of Buckingham. For example, Heather Geesey testified that she didn't understand the substance of the curriculum change, but she voted for it. She also admitted having never read Pandas, the textbook recommended by Buckingham.See the whole of Geesey's testimony at the link below, starting page 145 and ending page 206Page not found | ACLU PennsylvaniaIn his Judgement, the judge also pointed out that her grasp of the whole thing was so poor that she referred to ID in her testimony as "intelligence design" throughout.I would also content that statements like the following have no place in deciding the validity of scientific theory Missing text added here in edit mode While the above is taken from the Judgement, the actual statements can be found in the transcript.To quote from the Judgement again (and you will find the evidence for all of this in the witness testimony transcripts - hell, transcripts are handy things) While it is significant that the Dover decision ruled that ID isn't science because of its religious overtones, I think the major significance is that a critically thinking court of law was able to cut through the tissue of lies, falsehoods, bigotry and show these particular "cintellient design proponentists" for what they were. It ripped away the smoke screen which "teach the controversy" creates.Hopefully it will be quite some time before anyone is stupid enough to try this again.Edited by Trixie, : Formatting gone mad, will sort it later after I emerge from my little dimly-lit padded room.Edited by Admin, : Attempt fix of formatting, fix some typos.Edited by Trixie, : Edited to add the missing text which admin brought to my attention

I misinterpreted his statement which read
"I may point out that the judge considers it legal"I still don't thing that it really takes anything away from my post.
The significance of the Dover decision lies in the fact that the Judgement thoroughly laid bare what was at the root of the whole nastly, little mess.Thanks for the heads up Mod. I will eventually get round to editing my post and I will correct this portion with a strikethrough, rather than removing my error, in the interests of transparency.

See post 18.

Your entire post here is a straw man. What you say in you rpost is true, but the judge didn't rule on teaching ID, he ruled on teaching IDin the science classroom and that's the whole crux of the matter.The judge stated In other words it was the specific ID Policy of the Dover School Board which was declared unconstitutional, not ID itself. He makes a particular distinction between the policy of ID and the policy of the school board wrt ID.I'm sure that most parents wouldn't object to ID being brought up in a Comparative Religion class, but that wasn't the argument at Dover.Can you now do me the courtesy or reading the rest of my initial post on this matter?

Which laws that the judge cited and interpreted in order to reach a final judgement do you think were interpreted incorrectly? Did the judge misapply the Lemon test. Or with regard to Lemon and all the other cases which he cited, was the judge correct in his interpretation of case law.Given that the only way to know if the judge was correct or not is to begin by asking "Well, what did he say and how did he apply case law to this particular trial" and the only way to find this out is by actually reading the judgement, you are disqualifying yourself from commenting meaningfully on the legality or otherwise of the judge's decision.Unless you can find legal flaws in his reasoning process and case law interpretation, your opinion is uninformed and you'll certainly never find any flaws in the Judgement if you don't read it.This sort ofthing may constitute yet another point of significance of the Dover trial. People who allow their partisan views to dictate their uninformed opinions are forced to openly admit to just how uninformed their opinion is.I would really like to have a debate with someone who has actually read the judgement, yet has come to a different opinion from me as to whether the judge erred in fact or in law. I've yet to come across one, but I think it would be a very fruitful discussion. Are you prepared to do this? You would have to actually read the judgement in all it's unedifying glory and the transcripts to see if the judge actually had evidence on which to make the statements he made.

t the risk of being totally ot this shouldn't be left unanswered.You say Which part of the application of case law do you disagree with? BE SPECIFIC.What does the actual case which was used as a test say in regard to this matter? BE ACCURATECan you describe which prong(s)the judge misapplied? BE SPECIFICCan you summarise your interpretation of the Lemon test. BE PREPARED TO ACTUALLY CITE AT LEAST ONE RELEVANT PART OF THE LEMON TEST.Other than the Lemon test are there any other cases that you feel the judge misinterpreted? BE PREPARED TO CITE ACCURATELY AND GIVE FULL SOURCE INFO.You cannot comment on the applicability of the law to science (which is your own take on this) unless you are willing to actually substantiate your your ramblings.Since you haven't shown any willingness to address the OT material which you brought up, can you at least address the on topic information which I gave in my first post to this thread.Can you actually address the significance of this judgement from an informed standpoint, or ar you just going to cover your ears and shout "La la la" for the next 250 or so posts? At the moment you appear to be as concerned with the truth of the matter as the defence witnesses were.Randman, make your case or go away and let the rest of us discuss this sensibly

Try again. The judge ruled that the Ist Amendment had been breached, however he came to that decision USING THE LEMON TEST AND A BUNCH OF OTHER CASES, NONE OF WHICH ARE CALLED THE 1ST AMENDMENT, NONE OF WHICH ARE THE FIRST AMENDMENT.How many more hints do you need that the interpretation of the whole shebang debends on the application of the Lemon test to the evidence in question?Do you actually understand how case law is applied? You take an already decided case, you look at how it was decided and you then apply that to the case in question. This is why certain things called "legal precedents" can be so important. They set a benchmark by which all similar cases can be interpreted and determined.THE LEMON TEST!!!Do us all a favour and go read the judgement which will explain exactly how this works because you'll get to see it in action. Then come back and discuss. You'll be in a better position to discuss the significance of Dover once you've done this.I wonder if the topic title is leading to some confusion. Its not so much the decision, per se, but the judgement as a whole which is a bunch of things and includes the decision. Subbie, I would appreciate your input here since you speak legalese.

Thank you for the links Mod, I've just spent a very enjoyable time watching these videos. The one thing that would have made my life complete would have been that cameras in court to record this historic trial. Sadly this wasn't the case.I think that the videos highlight just how significant this whole debacle was and do an admirable job of explaining why it is significant.Once again thank you fo your litte nugget of pure gold.

Edited by Admin, : Reduce image size.Edited by Trixie, : sig removed

That's my signature box

If you could be bothered to actually read even a smidgeon of the judgement and the judge's description of how the Lemon test applies, you might start to see what is so unique about Dover. It may have been a District Court but the jude ruled on two importnt aspects. He ruled that Pennsylvania State constitiution had been breached as well as the US Constitution.You say that the US constitution wasnot breached so show us exactly where Jones misapplied lemon.Lemon is relevant until it is overturned. Since it hasn't been overturned as yet, your insistence that it is irrelevant is just so much uninformed handwaving,Make your case, show us what's wrong with Lemon, show us where the judge misapplied Lemon. if all else fails you could always (again) declare this off topic and ask me to start another thread.I will not be diverted. Provide evidence of your assertion, because until you do all you capable of is making unsupported assertions from a position of self-proclaimed and wilful ignorance. I say wilful because you refuse even to read parts of the transcript, even when links have been provided. Before you say anything - it is on topic and will stay in this thread unless an admin deems that supporting your assertions that Dover has no significance because it is wrong, is off topic.I suggest that in a topic with the title "The Significance of the Dover Decision", providing evidence for your position that it has no significance is very much on topic, especially when you declare it has no significance because it is wrong. That means provide evidence that it is wrong.I wonder how many different ways I have to say this?

I'd appreciate a considered and on-topic reply to my post number 136 above. Either defend your assertions or retract them. If you retract them, you have to stop making them. You choose, the ball's firmly in your court.