Cobb County

DI Responds to Cobb County Ruling

stcynic — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:16:16 +0000

DI Responds to Cobb County Ruling

The Discovery Institute has responded to the Cobb County ruling with their usual empty rhetoric.

"A final ruling in this case will be at least as important, if not more important, than the Dover school district case last year," added Luskin, a co-author of "Traipsing Into Evolution Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision". "Eventually it's likely that a decision will be handed down from this federal appellate court governing legal decisions in multiple states, whereas the Kitzmiller decision was from a trial court with no legal force outside of the parties in that local case."

That is pure wishful thinking. Regardless of what level the case stops at, there is no way the Cobb County case can be as important as the Dover case simply because the issue is so much narrower. The ruling will say nothing at all about the validity of ID, whether it's a scientific theory or not, or whether one can teach it in schools. It will be a very narrow decision on very narrow grounds, regardless of which way it goes. Frankly, I'm just not too fired up over this case no matter which way it goes because it isn't gonna change much of anything.

Discovery Institute believes that school districts should have the right to require science teachers to inform students about both scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution. The Institute does not favor the mandatory inclusion of alternative scientific theories, such as intelligent design, and also does not favor the use of disclaimers, but instead recommends that school districts require teaching critical analysis of evolution.

Ah yes, their standard nonsensical answer - we don't want ID taught, we just want the "strengths and weaknesses" or the "arguments for and against" taught. But as I've said a hundred times, this is a shell game. ID, at this point, is nothing but arguments against evolution. There is not a single positive argument for ID, every single ID argument relies upon the failure of evolution as an explanation. So this statement is a reverse tautology - "we don't want ID taught, we just want ID taught". The only thing that changes is the label on the bottle.

stcynic Fri, 05/26/2006 - 05:16

Tags

Cobb County

More important than Dover? Wishful thinking indeed, and I'll bet that if the decision does not go the way the DI wants it to go, we will read that it wasn't so important after all.

Discovery Institute believes that school districts should have the right to require science teachers to inform students about both scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution.

Hmm, that would first require teaching students enough about the theory of evolution for them to understand the weaknesses. (As opposed to DI's misconceptions. You could teach those too I suppose, but some of them require a bit of background to understand just where DI & co. go off the rails.) But it's not impossible. I volunteer at a club to help students with their homework, and the section on Mendelian genetics included a bit on the weaknesses of that model. And there was one student who casually commented that Darwin got the nature of variation a bit wrong. I don't think that was on the curriculum.
Anywho, all this is neither here nor there: the DI is once again doublespeaking and no doubt by "critical analysis" they mean "he said, she said" crap.

Cobb County Decision - a Do Over

stcynic — Thu, 25 May 2006 14:03:30 +0000

Cobb County Decision - a Do Over

The appeals court decision in Selman v Cobb County School District, the evolution textbook sticker case, is in. I've uploaded a PDF of the ruling here. I haven't really had time to read it yet, but basically the court declared a "do over", remanding the case back to the district court:

Whether we should reverse or affirm the judgment depends on the evidence that was before the district court, and we cannot tell from the record what that evidence was. Everyone agrees that some evidence presented to the district court has been omitted from the record on appeal, but the attorneys have not been able to identify what was omitted. The problems presented by a record containing significant evidentiary gaps are compounded because at least some key findings of the district court are not supported by the evidence that is contained in the record. We have concluded that the unfilled gaps in the record, coupled with the problematic nature of some of the district court's factfindings, prevent proper appellate review of the merits of the important constitutional issues raised in this case. For reasons we will explain, we have decided the best thing to do is remand the case to the district court in order for it to conduct new evidentiary proceedings and enter a new set of findings based on evidence in a record that we will be able to review.

Back to square one.

stcynic Thu, 05/25/2006 - 10:03

Tags

Cobb County

Oh, boy! Now Cobb County gets to spend more taxpayer money on this boondoggle.

"We have concluded that the unfilled gaps in the record..."

Oh no! Now they have the courts saying it!

"...unfilled gaps in the record..."

Look for the DI press release declaring this a big win. Not that they'd quote anything out of context, of course.

A couple questions, Dan:

Will the case go back to the same judge? I'm reasonably sure it does.

Will the Dover verdict perhaps play a role in the re-trial?

Kitzmiller is not binding precedent, but its findings of fact and conclusions are admissable at the judge's discretion (and do not, in themselves, become a basis for appeal). i'm pretty sure he doesn't want to hear this all over again and will rush through anything that didn't come over clear enough the first time.

the real question: question is, will Cobb County actually bother to waste more money by putting the accursed stickers back on the books in the meantime? does it even mean anything to the students anymore, with them knowing what it really costs, and would it just be a feel-good gesture to the handful of ignorants in the school board?

Ed--

Yes, the case will go back to the same district court where it originated.

As to the influence of Dover, as you know Kitzmiller is not binding precedent. The district court in the Cobb County case may find some of the Kitzmiller legal reasoning and conclusions to be persuasive and thus may choose to adopt that reasoning and follow the conclusions, but the Cobb County district court is not obligated to do so. I suspect the Dover decision is much more important strategically than legally, as Dover did an excellent job of exposing so many of ID's constitutional soft spots.

Dan - you mean this press release?

My big question: How big of a role can the Kitzmiller decision play in the trial? The school district's endorsement of an "alternative theory" seems to be less obvious than it was in Dover.

Citizens for Science Brief in Cobb County Case

stcynic — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:32:07 +0000

Citizens for Science Brief in Cobb County Case

Michigan Citizens for Science, along with similar groups in several other states, has filed a brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Cobb County disclaimer case. That brief can be found here (pdf format). On behalf of MCFS, I'd like to thank Lynn Hogue, Catherine Ross, Reed Cartwright, Sarah Pallas and everyone else who worked so hard on this brief. I'd also like to thank again Timothy Sandefur for his work on our brief in the trial phase of the case.

stcynic Wed, 06/22/2005 - 06:32

Tags

Cobb County

Anti-Evolution Gangs Terrorize Georgia

stcynic — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 08:37:49 +0000

Anti-Evolution Gangs Terrorize Georgia

The Swift Report has a wicked satire on the Cobb County, Georgia evolution disclaimer stickers and the legal battle over them.

stcynic Wed, 06/15/2005 - 04:37

Tags

Cobb County

Briefs in the Cobb County Appeal

stcynic — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:25:24 +0000

Briefs in the Cobb County Appeal

The 11th Circuit Court is set to hear the appeal of the Cobb County evolution disclaimer case soon and the briefs are being filed quickly. The National Center for Science Education is compiling many of those briefs, including the brief that they and People for the American Way filed together last week. Other briefs have been filed by Americans United (along with the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League), the National Association of Science Teachers (along with the National Association of Biology Teachers), the American Jewish Congress, the Clergy and Laity Network (with the Witherspoon Society), and 56 professional science organizations. We have also completed a brief on behalf of several state science organizations, including Michigan Citizens for Science. I hope to make that available both here and on the MCFS website in the next few days.

stcynic Mon, 06/13/2005 - 03:25

Tags

Cobb County