Science and Theology News has a series of invited commentaries on the Dover trial and Judge Jones' ruling that are worth reading. Among others are commentaries by Steve Fuller, witness for the defense in the trial; Alvin Plantinga, prominent Christian philosopher; Paul Gross, fellow Panda's Thumb contributor; and Robert Pennock, my MCFS co-founder and witness for the plaintiffs in the Dover trial.
Pennock, by the way, has just become a father for the second time (at least I assume the baby has been born by now, since she went into labor on Wednesday) and I'm impatiently waiting to hear the details when he resurfaces from what has been an exhausting week for him, to be sure. Congratulations to Rob and his lovely wife Kristin, who are already the proud parents of an adorable and predictably precocious 4-year old daughter.
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I read Plantinga first. I've never read anything he's written, so I had no idea what position he would take, or how well he'd render it. I was not terribly impressed.
I gave him the benefit of doubt on the first instance of sneering rhetoric ("I won't offer an opinion on whether the judge's decision is correct - although apparently he's never met an objection to intelligent design he doesn't like..."), hoping that he'd offer some substance in support.
But right there in the next one-sentence paragraph, we learn that Judge Jones decided the case "just by fiat." He could have meant the reader to infer that he only intended the word "fiat" to mean a governmental authorization or decree, but the context suggests he intended the first definition of the term one finds on dictionary.com, to wit: "an arbitrary order or decree." Still, why not continue to give him the benefit of the doubt after only three sentences?
A few paragraphs later, Mr. Plantinga asks the reader: "[a]nyway, isn't this question - whether ID is just rewarmed creation science - a question for philosophical or logical analysis?" So, we know that Judge Jones didn't analyze the logic of any arguments for ID. Thanks for the heads-up, Al.
In the very next paragraph, the reader learns that the Judge has committed the Eighth Deadly Sin, which is of course Legislating from the Bench ("But again, is that the sort of thing a judge can legislate?"). Al goes on to ask: "[a] judge can declare until he's blue in the face that an objection has been successfully refuted. Couldn't it still be perfectly cogent?" I guess we know which definition of "fiat" he had in mind.
Next, the reader is treated to the beating of a strawman. Plantinga says that Judge Jones determined (legislatively, and by mere fiat) that none of the claims ID proponents make are testable, i.e. that ID theorists make no verifiable or falsifiable predictions. I was under the impression that only the central claim of ID is untestable - that there is a supernatural intelligent designer at all - and that that is the way the criticism is typically stated. I was also under the impression that a Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame would appreciate the distinction.
We also learn that: (1) when Judge Jones referred to the definition of science, he could only have been referring to the colloquial dictionary definition; (2) the question of whether methodological naturalism is a necessary aspect of scientific inquiry is open; (3) the definition of science that Judge Jones used is circular (from the democrat and republican example); (4) anytime Isaac Newton theorized about anything - even when he mused about divine intervention in a given process - it should be considered science; (5) there is philosophical disagreement on the definition of science, so we should define it as broadly as possible to accommodate ID; and finally, (6) that the observance of methodological naturalism in science will preclude reaching the "truth" about the universe.
That Truth, of course, is that the Christian flavor of god made everything. If we assume that truth exists - as we clearly must - science must go looking for it, even if it must discard what to date has been its very useful methodological underpinnings in order to find it.