Anti-Evolutionism

"ID theory" hasn't been "reduced to" a tool in the Culture Wars - that's what it was designed as.

tqa — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:53:28 +0000

"ID theory" hasn't been "reduced to" a tool in the Culture Wars - that's what it was designed as.

Over at The Austringer, Wes Elsberry has been engaging in a bit of debate with BeliefNet blogger David Opderbeck over Opderbeck's views on the Dover Intelligent Design case. The bulk of their disagreement seems to center on the appropriateness of Judge Jones' decision to rule that Intelligent Design is not a scientific concept. Opderbeck thinks Jones should have avoided the topic; Wesley disagrees.

This is long-familiar ground, of course. The Discovery Institute has been complaining that Jones should have stayed a long way away from the question of whether or not ID is science for years now - despite the fact that they themselves submitted an amicus brief in the Dover case that seems to ask Jones to address that topic. Given that the plaintiffs and defendants both asked the court to rule on whether or not ID was science, I think that Wesley is on much firmer footing than Opderbeck.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about right now.

When I was looking at Opderbeck's side of the argument, something he said about the Intelligent Design movement caught my eye - mostly because it seems to reflect a certain ignorance of the Intelligent Design movement as it actually exists:

I've come to believe that the misuse of ID theory by those Dover school board members reflects a common misuse of ID in the Church generally. In my experience, it's widely assumed by evangelical church-goers - contrary to the official statements of leaders in the ID movement - that ID supports belief in God, or more specifically supports young earth creationism, over and against evolution. Countless apologetics programs, websites, and publications designed for evangelicals respond to any suggestion that biological evolution may be true (or that direct creationism may be false) with a passing reference to Mike Behe and Bill Dembski. These would-be apologists are sometimes shocked to learn that many ID theorists accept common descent, which definitely is not compatible with special creationism (or sometimes they know better and conveniently fail to mention that fact in their presentations!).
The unfortunate reality, in my judgment, is that ID theory - or rather, a crude distillation of ID theory - has been reduced to a tool in the culture wars both inside and outside the Church. Whether the leaders of the ID movement intended for this to happen or not, Christian proponents of ID are using it just as they tried to employ "creation science" in the 1980s. Within the Church, this tends to remove ID from the realm of ideas that can be calmly and reasonably discussed, and places it instead into a "hot button" category.

(Emphasis mine.)

It is not possible for Intelligent Design to be reduced to a tool in the culture wars for the simple reason that it has never been anything more than that. That fact is clearly apparent to anyone who has taken the time to give more than a cursory examination to the actual activities of the main Intelligent Design proponents - particularly those affiliated with the Discovery Institute.

Even if we completely disregard the infamous "Wedge Document" - which begins not with an analysis of the scientific strengths of Intelligent Design but with a denunciation of the social consequences of "materialism" - there is still ample evidence that Intelligent Design is less about investiganting reality than shaping people's perceptions of reality.

I realize that it's been years since I've updated this, but I think it's still extremely compelling evidence:

The Discovery Institute is and always has been the center of the ID movement. It's fellows have provided the public face of the movement, and conducted the bulk of the alleged research. When I took some time back in early 2006 to look at how the effort they put into public relations compared with the effort they put into science, the results were revealing:

Press Releases: 0.44/day

'Scientific' pubs: 0.0046/day

As I mentioned, those are old numbers, but I think they still tell the story well. At the height of the Intelligent Design movement, the Discovery Institute was pushing public relations materials at a rate that was two orders of magnitude greater than the rate at which they were pushing out material that they could claim as scientific support for their views.

That's not what you expect to see from people who are trying to do science, but it's exactly what you'd expect to see from people who are primarily focused on fighting the culture wars.

tqa Mon, 11/30/2009 - 17:53

Tags

Anti-Evolutionism

...These would-be apologists are sometimes shocked to learn that many ID theorists accept common descent...

The reason they're shocked is because the only time the "we believe in common descent" card gets played is on the rare occasion the IDiots engage the scientifically literate.

And it isn't "common descent" anyway. It's common descent + meddling, which isn't common descent. To quote Darwin, "I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."

Honestly, I have to wonder if Opderbeck has been paying any attention at all and whether he actually a) read the decision or b) read Barbara Forrests testimony or c) has ever heard the term "cdesign proponentists" and is aware of just when the search and replace seemed to occur compared to Edwards v. Aguillard.

Let's not forget that the bit of the Discovery Institute responsible for ID is called the Centre for Science and Culture. And the claim that "many" ID proponents accept common descent is absurd. The whole point of ID is to refute common descent. A handful of its supporters may accept it genuinely and confusedly, but more likely he's thinking of people like Behe who claim to accept it, but make arguments (eg irreducible complexity) which imply special creation for each organism. If, as Behe claims, the mammalian immune system cannot have evolved, how exactly did the 5,000 species of mammals come to be if not creation?

There is now a part 2 to the discussion with Opderbeck.

"If, as Behe claims, the mammalian immune system cannot have evolved, how exactly did the 5,000 species of mammals come to be if not creation?"
Presumably Behe doesnt need every mammal to be created seperately, just the first one with the 'irreducibly complex' immune system in question.
What surprises me is the fact that the diversity of views about evolution is so great amongst the members of the Discovery Institute. There are disputes amongst their stated positions over the age of the Earth (between ten thousand and 4.5 billion years old), common descent, macroevolution and even in the case of Egnor, microevolution!
We need to have a teach the controversy campaign for them alone so they can let people know their enormous level of disagreement.
The problem is that they simply don't seem to care (to me the idea that the age of the earth or the question of common descent is central to the question - that anyone could see these as unimportant cannot be seriously thinking about doing science.)

"Presumably Behe doesnt need every mammal to be created seperately, just the first one with the 'irreducibly complex' immune system in question."

Except that, as he himself has said, different mammals have different, supposedly IC, immune pathways. Behe explicitly rejects the evidence of multiple mammalian immune systems with different parts "missing" as evidence that a given mammalian immune system could have evolved. The only logical inference is that every single one was specially created.

The bulk of their disagreement seems to center on the appropriateness of Judge Jones' decision to rule that Intelligent Design is not a scientific concept. Opderbeck thinks Jones should have avoided the topic; Wesley disagrees.

As Judge Jones has made clear in a number of talks he has delivered since his decision in the Dover case, both sides requested that he rule on whether ID was science. Mr. Opderbeck is talking out of his posterior orifice.

Press Releases: 0.44/day
'Scientific' pubs: 0.0046/day

Good numbers to know. I suggest updating these figures. This could be a good focus for your website (if I may be so bold as to suggest that. That is, a counter on the sidebar) providing an agruement against ID as science.

Armor in Freshwater Sticklebacks: Selection Against, or Just No Selection For?

tqa — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:09:31 +0000

Armor in Freshwater Sticklebacks: Selection Against, or Just No Selection For?

There are certain organisms that you hear about a lot in evolutionary biology. In some cases, like Drosophila flies or E. coli bacteria, that's because the organisms are easy to use in experimental studies. Other organisms, like Hawaiian silversword plants or Galapagos finches, come up frequently because they're fantastic examples of evolution happening out in the "real world". And then there are those rare cases where an organism is both a fantastic example of evolution in the field, and a convenient organism to work with in more controlled circumstances. The three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) is one of those doubly-convenient organisms.

There are populations of three-spined sticklebacks in the ocean and in many freshwater streams and ponds. The oceanic populations have been around for a long time, but the freshwater populations are all relatively recent in evolutionary terms - they're found in bodies of freshwater that were formed after the ice sheets retreated about 12,000 years ago. These populations appear to have evolved independently of each other, but they share a number of similar traits.

One of the more notable of the traits concerns the bony "armor" along the sides of the fish. The marine populations typically have a line of over 30 bony plates along their sides. The freshwater populations typically have only 6-9 of these plates. Why this is the case is a classic evolutionary biology question: do the freshwater populations lose the armor because there is a real advantage to losing the plates, or do they just lose them because there's no real disadvantage to losing them.

Casey Luskin cites a news story about a recent scientific paper to support his view that the loss of the armor is just the result of the freshwater populations not facing the selective pressure seen in the oceans:

A scientific study published a few months ago reports that the marine stickleback (the ones with the armor plates) came before freshwater sticklebacks (the ones without armor-plating), meaning that this is not an example of the evolution of a new function, but an example of loss-of-function, or what one might term devolution. As a Science Daily press release on the paper stated, this evolution entailed "[s]hedding some genetically induced excess baggage":

Shedding some genetically induced excess baggage may have helped a tiny fish thrive in freshwater and outsize its marine ancestors. Measuring three to 10 centimetres long, stickleback fish originated in the ocean but began populating freshwater lakes and streams following the last ice age. Over the past 20,000 years - a relatively short time span in evolutionary terms - freshwater sticklebacks have lost their bony lateral plates, or "armour," in these new environments. "Scientists have identified a mutant form of a gene, or allele, that prohibits the growth of armour," says UBC Zoology PhD candidate Rowan Barrett. Found in fewer than one per cent of marine sticklebacks, this allele is very common in freshwater populations.

Alas, Collins' example, which is intended to break down the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution, really only provides evidence that populations of organisms can lose unique and complex features when selection pressure is relaxed. ...

The scientific paper itself, however, reaches a very different conclusion:

Our results highlight the utility of direct measurements of natural selection on genes for understanding the genetic basis of adaptation by enabling us to test a mechanism favoring reduction of lateral plates in freshwater environments. Many of our results are consistent with selection against high plate number, although they do not rule out the possibility that selection is also occurring on genes tightly linked to Eda. Our results also expose opposing selection on Eda early in life similar in magnitude to the measured advantage of the low allele later in life. This demonstrates not only that countervailing selection pressures diminish the advantage of the low allele over the whole life span but also that the overall fitness effects of Eda do not seem to be determined solely by differences in lateral plate number. Along with the fluctuating dominance in fitness at the Eda locus, these results indicate that there may be additional pleiotropic effects of this gene. This work underscores the need for a synthesis of population biology and genomics, to determine the genetic basis of fitness differences in natural populations.

The two different opinions raise a key question: how can we tell the difference between selection in action and a lack of selection in action? The Science paper in question provides us with a simple answer: you do a hell of a lot of hard work to conduct a series of fairly simple experiments.

Dolph Schluter's lab at the University of British Columbia has been working with the sticklebacks for a while, and one of his grad students, Rowan Barrett, took a look at the armor question. The experimental design was very simple: he went out and trapped a large number of sticklebacks in the ocean. He took a genetic sample from each of them, and checked to see if the fish in question had a copy of a gene that is known to cause a drop in armor plates (this gene is found in about 1% of the oceanic fish). He selected wild-caught fish that had one copy of the gene in question (heterozygotes), and placed similar numbers of the fish into each of four experimental freshwater ponds. The fish were allowed to breed, then Barrett sampled the offspring repeatedly during the following year to follow any changes in the gene frequency over time.

The easiest way to show you what Barrett found is just to show you one of the figures from his paper:

(Modified from Figure 2 of Barrett et al 2008)

That figure shows the percentage of alleles on the x-axis and time on the y-axis. The four lines on the graph represent the four separate experimental ponds.

If there's one thing that stands out on that graph, it's the agreement among the lines. At least three of the four are always doing the same thing at the same time. The pattern is not remotely random-looking. If the changes in gene frequency were simply the result of a selective pressure disappearing, we would not at all expect to see a graph like that one. We'd expect to see each of the ponds doing its own thing, and the gene frequency remaining more or less stable over time. It's also clear from the graph that whatever is going on is not simple. There's clearly a strong selective pressure favoring the armor gene early in the lifespan of the organisms, which is then followed by a strong selective pressure against the gene. It's going to be interesting to see what the Schluter lab turns up as they continue to study these organisms.

This experiment does clearly illustrate one thing, though: talking about "devolution" or "loss of function" doesn't make much sense at all when we're talking about evolutionary biology. At least as far as these fish are concerned, not having armor isn't a lack of a trait. It is a trait. A lack of armor has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, and is - as Barrett illustrated - subject to both positive and negative selection. Saying that freshwater sticklebacks simply lack the armor trait doesn't make any more sense than it would to say that the saltwater sticklebacks lack the "lack of armor" trait.

It's just another example of something that's easy to lose sight of: organisms do not exist to manufacture complex traits. Complex traits exist because - and when - they help manufacture more complex organisms.

R. D. H. Barrett, S. M. Rogers, D. Schluter (2008). Natural Selection on a Major Armor Gene in Threespine Stickleback Science, 322 (5899), 255-257 DOI: 10.1126/science.1159978

tqa Mon, 01/12/2009 - 06:09

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Anti-Evolutionism

biology

Science

You mixed up X and Y axis. And yes, you caught at least one of us off guard at the Panda's Thumb with "Freshwater" in the title.

FYI there is also an endangered freshwater population in S. California that lacks the plates completely: the "unarmored threespine stickleback." Worked as a tech on a project dealing with these when I was first out of undergrad... http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/fish/unarmored_threespine_st…

I don't see what Casey's point is supposed to be. The paper isn't about "macroevolution vs. microevolution." It is about evaluating selection and fitness on a variable trait. Armor has different fitness in different environments, just like antibiotic resistance has different fitness inside versus outside hospitals. Furthermore, it is difficult to predict the complete effects of selection if more than one trait might be linked.

Note to Casey: Changes in allele frequencies are evidence that evolution is occurring. Writing it off as "microevolution" does not change the fact that it is evolution and the authors do not predict that speciation will occur. But thanks for drawing attention to a paper I had missed!

...I thought I'd better be fair and read Casey's whole blog before concluding that it had no point. I stand by my argument.

Another note to Casey: Some traits have fitness costs as well as benefits. The paper shows evidence that the benefit of armor as protection in one environment is outweighed by the cost of producing it in another.

Many years ago, in population genetics class, I learned of the (person's name) effect. Where an unused adapation is lost; for example, eyes in cave species. Can anyone tell me the person's name?

A while back, in Science Daily, there was a news release about sticklebacks in a lake (Lake Washington?) which has had its pollution cleared up so that the water is clearer and there are fewer plants. The sticklebacks are regaining their armor, presumably as a result of being exposed to stronger predation. Anyone have that reference?

Here is the Science Daily news relaease.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080515120759.htm

As a person who teaches evolution at the undergraduate level, I have been familiar with the stickleback example for some time and use it quite frequently in classes to illustrate the arbitrary difference between "micro" and "macro" evolutionary phenomena. There are, in fact, two traits that appear to rapidly increase in frequency in freshwater populations of sticklebacks. Not surprisingly, Luskin has chosen the loss of body armor to use as an example of "genetic loss" since this the less studied trait. The other trait - loss of pelvic spines - is understood at a greater level of molecular detail (mainly through work in David Kingsley's lab at Stanford). In this case, we know with reasonable certainty we are not dealing with "genetic loss". The relevant gene is this case is Pitx1, a gene coding for a transcription factor that is deployed during development of the stickleback (and in most, if not all, other vertebrates). One of the functions of the gene is to activate the transcription of other genes that are required for hind limb development (pelvic spines in this case). But, the gene also has other critical roles including the normal development of the pituitary and lower jaw skeleton. The point here is that these other functions of the gene must be retained in sticklebacks that lose their pelvic spines. Thus, the gene is not lost - indeed, DNA sequencing has shown that the coding region of Pitx1 is identical in marine and freshwater populations. What has occurred is a mutation in the regulatory region of Pitx1 in freahwater populations that acts to prevent the expression of the gene, but only in the developing pelvic region. Pitx1 continues to be expressed normally in other areas. While there is much more than this to the stickleback story, this should provide enough information to demonstrate that Luskin's "genetic loss" hypothesis has been conclusively falsified in the case of the Pitx1 gene and the loss of pelvic spines in sticklebacks.

Another example is the loss of eyes in cave critters. A very interesting investigation was reported by Yamamoto & Stock in Nature (2004, v. 431 p. 844-847). They found surface-dwelling fish related to blind cavefish, and diddled with levels of the regulator molecule hedgehog and...lo and behold, produced blind fish. What they found was that the eyeless condition was not so much mere loss of a feature that was unused (Casey's "devolution") but rather the developmental process involved selection for enhanced sensory and feeding features whose development was controlled by genes that, like genes for eye development, were regulated by hedgehog. So while it's true that a little-used feature was lost, the driving force for that loss was selection favoring other features whose embryological development shared a regulator with genes for the lost feature.

Complex traits exist because - and when - they help manufacture more complex organisms.

That should be "Complex traits exist because - and when - they help manufacture fitter organisms." While some measures of complexity may increase in evolution, it really isn't the yardstick by which the dynamics are determined. Fitness is.

I would suggest doing away with the relative, baggey, error-prone distinction between micro and macro evolution. Speciation, phenotypic plasticity, natural selection, and genetic drift are all more accurate and more common to scientific journals. So why are these inadequate?

gillt:

They aren't inadequate, that's the problem. Creationists and other loons who want to deny Modern Evolutionary Theory need ambiguous, poorly specified terms to facilitate goal-post shifting and similar tactics.

Thank you for pointing out Luskin's nonsense. But I have to say, I really don't read it too closely anymore. If he were to say "My name is Casey Luskin", I would demand a government-issued photo ID and two alternate forms of identification before I believed him. Now when I see his name on something, I just take it as read that it's wrong.

Years ago I read some fascinating work done by Michael Bell - whom, I believe has collaborated with Schluter - comparing and contrasting paleontological with neontological data on sticklebacks. Without a doubt, one of the better examples of studying microevolution using both sets of data. I was especially impressed seeing the evidence for substantial morphological variation within this genus.

As for trying to dissolve the distinctions between microevolution and macroevolution, I strongly beg to differ. There is ample scientific literature which delves into both, and we should not be beholden to creationist IDiots for deciding what is - and what isn't - valid scientific terminology.

Sincerely yours,

John

While I think I've read before that the same effect has been experimentally observed (saltwater sticklebacks transported to freshwater, see if they lose armor), I'm curious about what evidence there is that the saltwater variety came first - do we know this, or is it an assumption? Doesn't help the creationists either way, but it'd still be interesting to know/find out.

Also, is it me, or does just the translation from a saltwater <-> freshwater environment seem like it could have all sorts of developmental effects without any mutations at all, just by messing with any regulators that depend on salinity/molarity/etc.?

Re: Dreikin. The Gasterosteidae are described as "Peripheral marine" by:

TM Berra - 1981. An atlas of distribution of the freshwater fish families of the world

That generally means that they were a marine group that invaded freshwater; however, it is difficult to know whether certain individual species within peripheral families arose in freshwater and then re-invaded marine envirionments. With sticklebacks it seems safer to assume a primarily marine, then freshwater sequence. With sculpins (cottidae), I have taken flak from Barry Chernoff (formerly @ Field Museum in Chicago) over this assumption.

Also, there is a 2001 update of Berra's book and I don't know if the info for stickleback changed...

Egnor shoots! He scores!

tqa — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:47:56 +0000

Egnor shoots! He scores!

(another own goal, of course.)

There he goes again. Creationist neurosurgeon Michael Egnor's latest post over at the Discovery Institute's Why's Everybody Always Picking On Me blog may have actually reached a new standard for missing the point. And, as both my loyal regular readers know, that's not an easy mark for Egnor to hit.

The current contender is his latest post in a back-and-forth that he's been having with PZ and Orac. Once again, Egnor is attempting to argue that evolutionary biology has not provided any useful insights to the field of medicine. That much is familiar ground. What's new this time is the hypothetical that he's dredged up in an attempt to prove his point. His hypothetical is long and involved, which should provide you with your first warning that the argument is perhaps not as sound as he believes:

What I'm arguing is that the truth or falsehood of Darwinian stories is of no tangible value to medicine. Consider the following example.

I would suspect that careful epidemiological studies of the British population would show that the prevalence and incidence of spina bifida increased following World War One. To my knowledge, this has not been investigated, but it would make sense if it were true, for the following reasons:

Britain suffered enormous casualties during the Great War, as did many other European nations. (I'm just using Britain as an example). It has been said, with asperity, that Britain lost a generation of men on the Western Front. Britain suffered 2,300,000 war casualties -- forty four percent of mobilized men, with 703,000 men killed in battle or by disease. On just one day -- July 1,1916 -- 19,240 British soldiers died in the battle of the Somme. The young men who died were the best of their generation -- healthy, and by definition capable of meeting the rigorous physical standards required for military service.

Of course, other British men with debilitating genetic disorders, such as men with spina bifida (which renders the afflicted congenitally paralyzed), were not in the trenches that day, because they were physically unfit for military service, or at least service on the front lines as infantrymen. It's safe to say that military age British men without spinal bifida were at greater risk of death in the war than were military age British men with spina bifida. Whatever the impediments faced by people with spina bifida -- and they face many impediments -- they were not called to serve and die in the trenches.

Spina bifida would then be a fine example of an environmental adaptation; it was protective against "acute lead poisoning" -- protective against being mowed down by German machine gun fire on the Western Front. So, assuming for argument's sake that my hypothesis about the post-war epidemiology of spina bifida is true, the genes that give rise to spina bifida conferred a selective advantage on young British men in the period 1914 to 1918, and the differential survival (and reproduction) of that age cohort would explain a (hypothetical) increase in the incidence and prevalence of spina bifida in England in the post war period.

Where to begin?

We could begin with the inanity of his example. Spina bifida is still a very serious condition that carries with it a significant risk of early death - and that's despite the development of effective neurosurgical techniques. A study of babies born with spina bifida in the UK between 1965 and 1972 reported an overall 5-year survival rate of about 37%. One of the symptoms that would have been fairly common in the surviving males is impotence. When you add in the fact that there seem to be factors beyond heredity involved, I'd doubt that there was any measurable spike in the incidence of the disease. Given the high mortality and rarity of the condition, I'd also be surprised if there was even a noticeable difference in the prevalence.

(For those of you who are not familiar with the technical use of the terms, prevalence refers to how common a particular condition is in a population, while incidence refers to how frequently new cases turn up.)

Ultimately, though, dealing with the inanity of the example is unnecessary. Egnor cheerfully admits that he doesn't actually have any idea at all if his example is actually real:

Interesting vignette, if true. I haven't a clue about its veracity.

Someone less kind and charitable than myself might point out that the last three words in that quote were entirely unnecessary, but let's move on.

We could also start things off by focusing on Egnor's characteristic lack of intellectual integrity. Orac cited both sickle-cell disease and antibiotic resistance as examples of cases where an understanding of evolution has provided useful medical knowledge. Both of these have been pointed out to Egnor before. In fact, they've been pointed out to him many, many times.

Egnor has, yet again, decided to ignore the examples that were presented to him. Instead of facing those issues head on, he cooked up an unlikely and convoluted hypothetical that - by his own admission - may have absolutely no relationship whatsoever to reality. Declining to face reality in favor of tilting with your own personally invented reality may not necessarily be the mark of a psychiatric pathology, but it's definitely not the mark of intellectual honesty, either.

But we can ignore the lack of integrity, too. After all, the fact that Egnor is apparently incapable of facing reality is not in and of itself proof that he is actually wrong.

Instead, let's assume that the hypothetical is actually true, and look at the argument that he's trying to make:

Interesting vignette, if true. I haven't a clue about its veracity. But here's the crux of my argument: military history, which is the basis for understanding this hypothetical blip in spina bifida in England in the 1920's, is obviously not essential to medical education, research, or practice as relates to spina bifida. Military history may, if my inference is true, offer an explanation for changes in population frequency of the spina bifida genotype and phenotype in post-war England, but it's not in any way essential or even relevant to the medical management or understanding of spinal bifida. It's tangential at best, and such historical vignettes, interesting and perhaps of importance to historians, are of no practical use to physicians or medical scientists.

The analogy between my military history hypothesis and Darwinian theories of the origins of disease is quite close. Darwinian explanations for disease are historical vignettes. Darwinian stories are "military history" hypotheses about the ancient struggle for survival, a characterization long employed by evolutionary biologists, and I think an apt characterization.

Here's the funny thing about his argument: a basic understanding of the principles of evolutionary biology is actually more important to understanding the "hypothetical blip" in the incidence of spina bifida than military history. In fact, there are cases where an understanding of evolutionary biology can be combined with demographic factors (like a war) to inform us about the underlying causes of a disease.

Those are actually two separate arguments, so let's take them one at a time. We'll start with the asinine assertion that military history is all that informs us about the cause of the increased incidence.

In fact, our understanding of military history can only inform us of the cause of the (hypothetical) increase if we already understand some basic principles of evolution, and some basic facts about the disease. At a minimum, we would need to know that spina bifida patients are typically unsuitable for military service, that there are hereditary factors involved in causing spina bifida in the first place, and that differential survival among individuals carrying an allele will affect the proportion of that allele in the next generation.

The first two factors relate to our understanding of the condition. The third is nothing more nor less than the central principle of evolutionary biology. Only one of those three factors is connected with the military in any way. Military history provides us with an explanation for the differential survival, but that's all. If we didn't know the other stuff, the war alone would provide absolutely no explanation for the change.

Egnor has, in short, provided another example of why an understanding of evolutionary biology is essential to the medical field known as epidemiology.

But (as the television salesman says) wait! That's not all!

Let's take Egnor's hypothetical and add an element. Let's assume, hypothetically, that we have absolutely no idea of whether or not spina bifida has any heritable component whatsoever. In such a case, the demographic changes caused by the war could be combined with our understanding of the effects of spina bifida and evolutionary biology to help answer that question.

If we knew that a particular condition rendered sufferers ineligible for military service, and saw a dramatic spike in the incidence of cases of this condition in the years following a bloody war, an understanding of evolutionary biology would allow us to make several predictions. First of all, we could predict that the condition in question was not so severe as to drastically reduce either survival to reproductive age or capacity for reproduction. Second, we could predict that the condition does, in fact, have a substantial hereditary component.

In a case like that, as in Egnor's slightly simpler hypothetical, evolutionary biology can help medical understanding.

tqa Sat, 11/29/2008 - 04:47

Tags

Oh. My. God. The stupid truly does burn.

I hadn't noticed that Dr. Egnor had responded, mainly because ENV traffic is so low that I didn't notice any incoming traffic from his link. Maybe I'll post a response under my real name elsewhere, to take away his whining about my using a pseudonym. ;-)

Question from the lay readers for Dr. Egnor:

Exactly how likely is a spina bifida sufferer--that is, a congenitally paralyzed man--to reproduce in the first place?

Seems to me that spina bifida's efficacy as a protection against "acute lead poisoning" is significantly decreased if it's not a trait that can actually be passed down to the next generation.

I would bet that if we take into account the element of sexual selection, we would be able to correct for spina bifida and its selective advantage regarding acute lead poisoning, even if, as in Egnor's hypothetical the trait is heritable.

I find Egnor's writing so poor it is unreadable. His inability to connect his comments logically makes it read like it was written by a person from another planet. It shows how desperate the DI is to employ competent writers and scientists.

There's also the confounding factor that folic acid deficiency in the mother's diet increases the risk of spina bifida in the fetus. Nutritional deficiencies were more likely during wartime, so this could certainly give rise to an increased incidence of the condition. But then, Dr. Egnor is a neurosurgeon and knows this already - doesn't he?

Dr. Egnor does raise one interesting, and perhaps even significant point. The increased incidence of spina bifida (or, for that matter, any genetically-induced affliction) after the War is a dramatic example of how natural selection can be trumped by artificial selection. Because of artificial human priorities, healthier man were actually selected against. It in no way argues against the natural selection mechanism, nor against biological evolution.

The increased incidence of spina bifida (...) after the War

There was one?

The intellectual blinders are pretty obvious in this case. So long as Dr. Egnor can keep evolution out of his own mind while practising medicine, he will remain firmly convinced that evolution has nothing to do with medicine.

There's also the rather ludicrous assumption in this hypothetical that men who die in war fail to pass on their genes, meaning they die childless. There are no war orphans! Hurray!

#5 Food shortages and rationing were very common during WWI. Towards the end of the war things got very bad in England. Malnutrition is a very good suspect for any increase in spina bifida.

We also can't ignore the effects that the 1918 flu pandemic also had. It killed more people than the war did and I suspect had long term effects on the survivors that might also have raised the risk of birth defects.

I wonder if war would change allele frequencies even considerably. Maybe in the Thirty Years' War when one third of the German population died. But I guess even then killing didn't make a difference. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time your genetic conformation just will not help much.

Ouch! I'm not sure if Egnor entertains a mental spine, but he sure seems to be afflicted by veras bifida.

I don't know the facts, so I ask here.

I've been told that Scotland had the highest average adult male hight of European nations prior to World War I, and became much closer to the mean in the next generation.

I've been told that both above-average and below-average height in adults in inheritable, notwithstanding reversion to the mean.

Is there or is there not evidence of artificial selection on the trait of adult male height in accepted statistical analyses about the above-mentioned suggestions?

And, yes, I find Egnor one of the more astounding educated idiots in the known galaxy.

I don't suppose if anyone knows if Egnor is an AIDS denialist?

Where to begin?

In addition to all the substantive problems pointed out in the discussion, I can't seem to figure out what he means by

It has been said, with asperity

Got here from Panda's Thumb. The abridged version over there currently seems to be misformatted--the first line of Egnor's remarks is outside of the quote box.

I've been told that Scotland had the highest average adult male hight of European nations prior to World War I, and became much closer to the mean in the next generation.

All that means is that haggis is good for you, and the rest of Europe caught up nutritionally. Seriously, height is very well correlated with the height of parents, all other things being equal, but all other things are seldom equal across cultures. :-)

On Egnor's actual argument, it is the typical creationist "But if natural selection were 'true,' then a serial killer who targets pretty girls will make everyone ugly!" (raises voice and waves arms)

In picking a ridiculous example, he is talking to his own supporters, who "just know" evolution can't be true.

I'm not a scientist, and my memory is a little hazy on this point, but IIRC, isn't spina bifida only manifested in cases where the individual carries 2 alleles for it? If I'm not completely mistaken in this assertion, then the most likely male parents of spina bifida children would be single allele carriers of the disease, who would not be exempted from military service any more than the norm of healthy individuals, rendering even the basis for this supposed scenario dubious.

I don't know about Egnor's Fan Club, but when I see articles like this (particularly when written by someone known for getting his facts wrong), I figure there is no reason to believe a single word. This reinforces my opinion that such a person is a dozy twit.

Mike Dunford said (original post) --

We could begin with the inanity of his example.

His example of WW1s influence on spina bofida was intended to be inane. It was presented as supposedly another example, along with evolution theory, of something that is irrelevant or unimportant in medical research -- Egnor argues, "Darwinian stories, which are orders of magnitude less credible and testable than military history, are, like my spina bofida hypothesis, worthless to modern medical research and practice." (emphasis added) However, something cannot necessarily be shown to be irrelevant or unimportant just by showing that something else is irrelevant or unimportant. And WW1's irrelevance or unimportance in understanding spina bofida has nothing to do with the credibility or testability of WW1's influence on spina bofida. Credibility and testability are not the same issues as relevance and importance, though credibility and testability may bear upon the confidence of claims of relevance or importance.

We could also start things off by focusing on Egnor's characteristic lack of intellectual integrity. Orac cited both sickle-cell disease and antibiotic resistance as examples of cases where an understanding of evolution has provided useful medical knowledge.

Genetics and microevolution are important in understanding sickle-cell disease and antibiotic resistance -- macroevolution is not. I'm with radio talk-show host Dennis Prager, who said that one can be a creationist, believe in witchcraft, and believe that the earth is on the back of a turtle and still be a great medical researcher.

Larry writes:
"I'm with radio talk-show host Dennis Prager, who said that one can be a creationist, believe in witchcraft, and believe that the earth is on the back of a turtle and still be a great medical researcher."

Indeed.

But such a researcher would be well advised not, not, NOT to present himself as having expertise in anything other than what he does.

Which is precisely what Egnor has done (not necessarily in this piece).

Egnor is a surgeon, NOT a researcher. As such, his commentary on 'Darwinism' and medical research - or 'Darwinism' and eugenics, or 'informaiton' and genetics, etc. - is at best not noteworthy, at worst, ignorant and malicious propaganda.

Larry - while it might be logically true that someone who believed that crap could be a "great" medical researcher, in practical terms it is highly unlikely. Someone who managed to believe it would appear to lack the very skills of critical thinking and logic that great research requires. Alternatively, such a person might have good logic skills but clearly compartmentalizes their thinking to protect cherished beliefs. This too would tend to work against great research. There's a reason why most "scientific" creationists have technical credentials, if at all,in engineering and applied fields. I can't even think of a single modern creationist who is a great scientific researcher, let alone someone who holds the additional beliefs you outline. Can you think of one?

sylvilagus said,

I can't even think of a single modern creationist who is a great scientific researcher, let alone someone who holds the additional beliefs you outline. Can you think of one?

Michael Egnor. I don't think he believes in that witchcraft and turtle stuff, though. I think that Dennis Prager was exaggerating a little when he mentioned that stuff.

Good try Larry, but get real.

Egnor's CV looks interesting, and there's almost certainly some good work there, but his publication record doesn't rank him up with the "greats". PubMed shows 11 papers; his department page shows a total of 29 papers, presentations, and posters (but hasn't been updated since ~2002). One of the 11 papers seems to be the result of research he participated in as an undergrad. There are MD's who post at ScienceBlogs who have more impressive publication records than that.

Didn't they recently find that the reason Europeans are statistically less susceptible to HIV is due to the Black Death which killed people who lacked a certain gene and left the present population with a higher incidense of a gene that confers resistence. Wouldn't that be a good example of evolution in action where the selection event caused the unintended consequence of resistance to another disease? How would ID explain this? THe Designer hates non Europeans???? If the evolutionary explaination accounts for the known facts why would Egnor say evolution contributes nothing to medicine when we could not have understood why the resistence existed without applying the mechanism of natural selection?

Interesting that evolutionists have to shout such repetitive abuse. Surely, since evolution is infallibly true, there's no need to keep shouting so. Unless you have doubts. If so, don't let your "friends" know. You'll immediately become the enemy.

Larry said: I'm with radio talk-show host Dennis Prager, who said that one can be a creationist, believe in witchcraft, and believe that the earth is on the back of a turtle and still be a great medical researcher.

And Prager's qualifications for knowing anything about medical research are what again? I guess its ignoramuses all the way down.

Tell me Novparl, do you even look at the content of threads before doing your cutting and pasting?

Interesting that cdesign proponentsists have to shout such repetitive abuse. Surely, since cdesignism is infallibly true, there's no need to keep shouting so. Unless you have doubts. If so, don't let your "friends" know. You'll immediately become the enemy.

This is a non-argument because it works equally well (that is, not at all) regardless of the facts of the matter.

Mike Dunford said (#24) --

Egnor's CV looks interesting, and there's almost certainly some good work there, but his publication record doesn't rank him up with the "greats".

OK, ,maybe we can substitute "good" or "fair" for "great." I picked up the word "great" from Dennis Prager's statement. IMO there are probably some "great" medical researchers and practitioners out there who doubt Darwin, but in today's climate of Darwinist orthodoxy, they are not likely to go around advertising themselves. Also, someone -- I forget who -- sent out questionnaires to top researchers asking them if evolution theory guided their research or something like that, and they all answered negatively.

Also, someone -- I forget who -- sent out questionnaires to top researchers asking them if evolution theory guided their research or something like that, and they all answered negatively.

Well when you find out who, let us know. Then maybe your unnamed authority will have some authority - assuming the poll was valid.

I'm with radio talk-show host Dennis Prager, who said that one can be a creationist, believe in witchcraft, and believe that the earth is on the back of a turtle and still be a great medical researcher.

One can be a great electrical engineer and totally reject Newtonian mechanics, but I would hesitate to hire anybody who can get through an EE program and not pick up F = ma on the way.

Egnor ignores the fact that his much trumpeted record is not all of the life sciences or even a bulk of it. The human life sciences become a part of larger life science theory only when examined across species and higher taxonomic orders. Egnor is nowhere near that having studied organismal systems in a very limited context. Joe the Plumber can scream all he wants about being able to fix the pipes anywhere with nary a bow in the direction of QM or GR. So also Egnor can talk about evolution. He is nowhere in the picture and inconsequential.

Gary Bohn said,

Also, someone -- I forget who -- sent out questionnaires to top researchers asking them if evolution theory guided their research or something like that, and they all answered negatively.

Well when you find out who, let us know. Then maybe your unnamed authority will have some authority - assuming the poll was valid.

The "who" is Philip S. Skell -- details are here:

http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2006/09/darwinism-is-grossly-overr…

This is what Skell said in 2005 in his opinion piece in The Scientist:

I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.

This is a creationist's paraphrase of personal correspondence from Skell in 2003:

The renown carbene chemist, Professor emeritus Dr. Philip Skell of Pennsylvania State University, did a survey of his colleagues that were engaged in non-historical biology research, related to their ongoing research projects and found that the Darwinist researchers he interviewed in answer to the question Would you have done the work any differently if you believed Darwin's theory was wrong? found that the answers for the large number of those persons he questioned, differing only in the amount of hemming and hawing was in my work it would have made no difference, and some added they thought it would for others (2003. p. 1).

Hemming and hawing? It sounds like he's interpreting the answers, not reporting them. What constitutes a "no difference" and what constitutes "hemming and hawing?" Perhaps he would interpret the following quote from PZ Myers as "hemming and hawing" and "no difference":

Yes, I can go into my lab right now, make up some solutions, run a pH meter, collect embryos, use a microscope, etc., without once using the principles of evolutionary biology. Likewise, I can do a lot of the day-to-day stuff of the lab without even thinking about developmental biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, or physiology; that does not imply that these disciplines are not central to how life works. We don't need evolutionary biology...except whenever we want to think about how these narrow, esoteric little experiments we do fit into the grander picture of life on earth. You know, biology.

If so, Skell's results are useless and dishonest: PZ spent several posts dealing with exactly how he uses evolutionary theory in his "non-historical biology research." Links from this post by PZ will give the sources for most of my quotes (the first can be found from following Larry's link tree).

Phil Skell is an interesting character with whom I exchanged emails in the past. He is a organic chemist, national academy member and signer of the DI dissent list. His mantra is that evolution is irrelevant to some working biologists (or at least not explicitly referred to in their work) and therefore need not be taught. I asked him if he teaches chemistry without referring to atomic theory, but he never would answer any questions I posed. He would only demand I answer his questions about how evolution is relevant and then dismiss the answers. He actually said science should not try to explain only describe - which I took to mean that we shouldn't ask certain questions - those he is afraid the answer might not match what he believes. He also tried to claim that Darwin rejected evolution late in life.

I wanna play unexpert conjecture too!

Ahem...I Predict that there would be LESS cases of spina difida after the war! Why? I would imagine that those men on the homefront would be seen as cowards by the patriotic lasses, and unworthy of reproduction. However, those who returned from the front would be seen as both heroically selfless and evolutionarilly fit. I therefore predict an increase of spina free children with unusually stiff upper lips!

@Russ:
Given that anyone who made major or up was likely to spend the war to the rear among the maps and plans rather than shells and mud, and given that such men were largely drawn from the upper crust, I'd also expect to see a similar surge of children with no chins and buck teeth.

Or possibly a lot of kids who were really good at gardening.

@Larry,
There's the example of my friend's father, a 7th Day Adventist who certainly does believe in both creationism and witchcraft, who not only performs scientific research, but performs and publishes genetic research of a kind that specifically relies on evolutionary theory. I think that people with what I'd call a consistent empirical world view underestimate the degree of mental compartmentalization and rationalization that other people are capable of in order to preserve their world view.

sylvilagus said,

"I can't even think of a single modern creationist who is a great scientific researcher, let alone someone who holds the additional beliefs you outline. Can you think of one?"

Here Syl. Let me give you some examples:
First a few early 19th century prominent Bible-believing English scientists:
Chemists Andrew Ure (1778-1857) and John Murray (1786?-1851) Entomologist William Kirby (1759-1850)
Geologist George Young (1777-1848).
And of course, who could forget James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) who discovered the four fundamental equations that light and all forms of electromagnetic radiation obey. His equations are what make radio transmissions possible! He was firmly opposed to evolution even back then.

Today there are many other Ph.D. scientists and researchers who seem to function just fine without a faith in evolution.
I certainly don't have a comprehensive list, but you said you couldn't even think of one, so here are just a few to help you understand that you exaggerated a bit:
Russ Humphreys is a Ph.D. physicist who has developed (among many other things) a model to compute the present strength of planetary magnetic fields, which enabled him to accurately predict the field strengths of the outer planets. Did a belief in the Bible hinder his research? Not at all. On the contrary, Dr. Humphreys was able to make these predictions precisely because he started from the principles of Scripture.
John Baumgardner, a Ph.D. geophysicist and biblical creationist, has a sophisticated computer model of catastrophic plate tectonics, which was reported in the journal Nature; the assumptions for this model are based on the global Flood recorded in Genesis.
Also, think of all the people who have benefited from a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan. The MRI scanner was developed by the creationist Dr. Raymond Damadian.

Creationists can do this kind of "normal" science as well as the best evolutionists. You don't need evolution for this kind of science. In fact, sometimes evolution actually hinders the progress of medicine and science such as the idea of junk DNA(which discouraged scientists from studying it and finding out it's secrets) and so-called vestigial organs. How many people suffered unnecessarily because of the evolutionary idea of vestigial organs? This idea too hindered medical research on the function of these organs for years. Or how about the evolutionary idea on the back which for decades mislead doctors and actually encouraged them to prescribe the wrong thing for back sufferers? Evolutionists taught that the reason for back problems was the evolution of bipedalism, which was superimposed upon a skeleton previously well-adapted for quadrupedal motion. The idea was this. Evolutionists thought that the spine was "deformed" when humans began to stand and walk erect, so the logical conclusion was that the proper treatment for back pain would be to decrease or, ideally, even reverse the lordosis curve. It is now recognized widely that back problems generally are not due to maladaption caused by upright posture, but rather to abuses of the body that are common in modern life.
But for many years, a series of exercises now called "Williams flexion exercises" have been used widely in many medical back treatment programs. The goal of many of these exercises was to decrease, or even reverse, lordosis as much as possible.(which I repeat, is now generally understood to be wrong treatment) Here is one site that refers to this issue:http://www.chiroweb.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=35008

The creationist position says that the back was created this way and so rather than seeking to decrease lordosis, the idea is to strengthen the trunk muscles so as to maintain the lordosis and restore it to it's original position.
Williams' exercises perhaps had some benefit for certain issues, but for the most part, it seems they were ineffective which is why they have fallen out of favor. The reason they didn't work is the goal of his treatment was based on evolutionary thinking. These examples show very clearly that Evolution can and does hinder medical progress and even harms it at times.

"Medicine needs ... population genetics.... Although stories in evolutionary biology draw heavily from several of these fields, none of these scientific fields depends in any tangible way on evolutionary stories."

Wow. Population genetics is simply the mathematical formulation of evolutionary theory. So apparently understanding of evolution is not even used when attempting to understand evolution. Twit.

paul:

in a way, it's not all that artificial a selection. What people are doing in wartime is changing the environment. Natural history is full of niche advantage examples like that.

The military aren't a bad stand-in for mosquitoes. Sickle cell sufferers are inherently less healthy, yet they survive.

Human hunter and fisher selection of animals is also not artificial. It's unfortunate from most POVs, but it's still "natural," given that the human animal hunts and selects differently than, say, the lupine. Is a wolverine tearing up, urinating on, and befouling anything it can't eat unnatural?

If taxonomy were purely behavioral, it could be humans would be classified as some sort of highly organized wolverine with language skills, IMO.

What's really wrong with Egnor is, to me, much, much simpler than his disagreement with evolutionary biology or his low estimate of its worth. He seems willing to dismiss the value of etiology in medicine, just to score points against evolution.

James M.: please find a dictionary and look up "modern".

OK StuV,
Granted, I added some names that are not "modern", but I gave some that are too. I think you got the point.

James M.

Nasty!
Hi there, I wrote the note below first and decided to add how I got here before signing off. I mean, you don't know me, nor I you, so interpreting what you say and commenting on it is unfair otherwise, imho. I am not a sniper. I was looking for information on Antarctic geology, specifically about the structures containing the largest subglacial lakes on the continent. One thing led to another, as is common on the internet, and I ended up on this page after about an hour of searching (for something else, as ALSO often happens on the web). This page being
http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2008/11/egnor_shoots_he_scores.php in case you were wondering.

Wow, you seem to really enjoy "taking him down."
Not knowing your actual motives, I must say your personal abuse of Dr. whatzisname (Egnor) is antithetical to a scientist, but very much in line with what one might expect from a bureaucratic toady intent on preserving his prerogatives. Downright ugly from this lay perspective. From your own hand (writing) I see you as less interested in the actualities of science than the maintenance of its unbroken veneer. I suppose as one gains greater respectability, one must do what one must to maintain it. If that is indeed your motivation, indeed your rice bowl, then go at it, don't sweat the unscrupulousness of your screed, and Good Luck in the future.
Peter Davis

John Baumgardner, a Ph.D. geophysicist and biblical creationist, has a sophisticated computer model of catastrophic plate tectonics, which was reported in the journal Nature; the assumptions for this model are based on the global Flood recorded in Genesis.

Is that so? Because I heard that Baumgardner was publishing old-earth and old-moon
papers in mainstream scientific journals, even as he was pursuing the young Earth RATE work. His two listed publications in Nature are:

D. R. Stegman, A.M. Jellinek, S. A. Zatman, J. R. Baumgardner, and M. A. Richards, An early lunar core dynamo driven by thermochemical mantle convection," Nature, 421, 143-146, 2003.
The abstract states:

Although the Moon currently has no internally generated magnetic field, palaeomagnetic data, combined with radiometric ages of Apollo samples, provide evidence for such a magnetic field from approx3.9 to 3.6 billion years (Gyr) ago1, possibly owing to an ancient lunar dynamo1, 2. But the presence of a lunar dynamo during this time period is difficult to explain1, 2, 3, 4, because thermal evolution models for the Moon5 yield insufficient core heat flux to power a dynamo after approx4.2 Gyr ago. Here we show that a transient increase in core heat flux after an overturn of an initially stratified lunar mantle might explain the existence and timing of an early lunar dynamo. Using a three-dimensional spherical convection model6, we show that a dense layer, enriched in radioactive elements (a 'thermal blanket'), at the base of the lunar mantle can initially prevent core cooling, thereby inhibiting core convection and magnetic field generation. Subsequent radioactive heating progressively increases the buoyancy of the thermal blanket, ultimately causing it to rise back into the mantle. The removal of the thermal blanket, proposed to explain the eruption of thorium- and titanium-rich lunar mare basalts7, plausibly results in a core heat flux sufficient to power a short-lived lunar dynamo.

Nothing in there about the universe being less than 10,000 years old.

Hans-Peter Bunge, Mark A. Richards, and John R. Baumgardner, "The effect of depth-dependent viscosity on the planform of mantle convection," Nature, 379, 436-438, 1996.The abstract:

LITHOSPHERIC plate motions at the Earth's surface result from thermal convection in the mantle1. Understanding mantle convection is made difficult by variations in the material properties of rocks as pressure and temperature increase from the surface to the core. The plates themselves result from high rock strength and brittle failure at low temperature near the surface. In the deeper mantle, elevated pressure may increase the effective viscosity by orders of magnitude2â5. The influence of depth-dependent viscosity on convection has been explored in two-dimensional numerical experiments6â8, but planforms must be studied in three dimensions. Although three-dimensional plan-forms can be elucidated by laboratory fluid dynamic experiments9,10, such experiments cannot simulate depth-dependent rheology. Here we use a three-dimensional spherical convection model11,12 to show that a modest increase in mantle viscosity with depth has a marked effect on the planform of convection, resulting in long, linear downwellings from the upper surface boundary layer and a surprisingly 'red' thermal heterogeneity spectrum, as observed for the Earth's mantle13. These effects of depth-dependent viscosity may be comparable to the effects of the plates themselves.

Once again, this is not a YEC paper. Please support your claim that the Baumgardner's computer modeling used in this published research is "based on the global Flood recorded in Genesis." If Baumgardner is doing credible science in a legitimate field, this does not legitimize his YEC activities, which are scientifically questionable.

Major Problems with John Baumgardnerâs Runaway Subduction Model for the Biblical Flood

These types of fluidic systems can be modeled by any of several computer codes using finite element difference equations. A good one called TERRA was developed by Baumgardner for his dissertation and can be used successfully to model slow geological processes. However, if certain a-physical assumptions are made about the properties of the earthâs crust and mantle, this model shows ocean crust sinking rapidly into the earth, and literally, all hell breaking loose. Overall, it is enough to say that Baumgardnerâs use of the model plays very free and loose with the most basic concepts of thermodynamics, heat flow and dissipation rates, and the physical properties of the Earthâs crust and mantle. The computer code itself is accepted within the geophysics community; however, the input variables Baumgardner uses bear no relation to physical reality. Garbage in, garbage out.
The fact that TERRA is a computer model lends some defacto credibility for audiences that may not understand that such computer models can be made to do almost anything depending on the variables used. In order to get TERRA to produce rapid geological motions, Baumgardner uses variables that differ from physical values by many orders of magnitude! Essentially, this is equivalent to making a pig lighter than air in a computer model, then claiming that your model proves pigs really can fly.

Baumgardner states in his paper entitled Runaway Subduction As The Driving Mechanism For The Genesis Flood, presented in 1994 to the Third International Conference on Creationism that:...

So Baumgardner's Genesis-compatible models have not been presented in Nature, they have been presented at Creationist conferences instead? This seems rather different than the impression James M gave us.

Today's required reading

tqa — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 08:54:34 +0000

Today's required reading

If you're going to read anything today, you should read Amy Harmon's article on teaching evolution in Florida. I haven't taught high school, but I've had similar experiences teaching evolution in an introductory level college course.

Evolution shouldn't be this hard a subject to teach, but it is. It could be worse, of course. Keeping it from getting worse is the reason we spend so much time trying to deal with the narrow-minded bigots who fight so hard to keep our children in the dark.

tqa Sun, 08/24/2008 - 04:54

Tags

Anti-Evolutionism

It's a bought and paid for bragging point, but it's still a bragging point.

tqa — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:27:24 +0000

It's a bought and paid for bragging point, but it's still a bragging point.

On Sunday, Chris Mooney and Randy Olsen both tried to make the case that Ben Stein's "Evolution Caused the Holocaust" movie was a success at the box office. Both of them have been rather spectacularly condemned for calling Expelled a success, but I'm not sure that they're entirely wrong. I just don't think that they took a hard enough look at some of the issues involved.

Let's start with the basic facts. Expelled hit theaters on Friday. It was aggressively marketed prior to release, and opened on 1,052 screens - the most ever for any documentary. On Sunday, estimates suggested that the movie would bring in well over $3 million for the weekend, but the actual figures were not quite that high. That's probably because (Randy Olsen's assertion notwithstanding) ticket sales fell off rapidly over the course of the weekend. (Expelled brought in $1.2 million on Friday, but only $990,000 on Saturday, making it the only movie in the top 50 in theaters this weekend to drop from Friday to Saturday. The slide continued on Sunday, when the movie brought in $775,000.)

$3 million is a lot of money, and Expelled is one of the highest-grossing documentaries ever. Both of those things are facts, and we ignore them only at our own risk. Both Chris and Randy are right to point that out. They are also right when they call a movie that has opening statistics like that a "success" - because that is exactly how other people will spin those figures.

There are, of course, other things that they don't point out. Despite the box office figures, the movie can charitably be described as a critical laughingstock. The opening weekend box office totals, although significant, came in a full order of magnitude below what the producer claimed was possible, and a full order of magnitude below the most successful documentary opening ever.

The level of success that Expelled managed to achieve came as a result of a very aggressive marketing campaign. Television ads for the movie appeared in prime time on at least two cable networks (CNN and Comedy Central) during the week before release. Incentive programs have been established that promise awards and kickbacks to schools and churches that bring lots of people to see the movie. A traveling road show of private screenings (no scientists allowed) for "faith" groups was held before the public release. In short, a hell of a lot of money was spent to try and put butts into seats this weekend.

Chris and Randy are the professionals, and they might have a different take on things than I do, but to me all of this indicates that Expelled's producers, and the anti-evolution movement as a whole, got exactly as much of a victory from the release of the movie as they were able to buy, and nothing more. They demonstrated that if you are willing to spend a huge amount of money, you'll be able to show something for it - even if it's a lot less than what you were hoping for.

If that's the case, I'm not sure what we could have done to keep any of that from happening.

tqa Tue, 04/22/2008 - 05:27

Tags

Anti-Evolutionism

Public Perception of Science

Preaching Expelled to a bought and paid for choir is not a success. I think that Randy and Chris know this; I do not know why they do not want to admit it.

Once the Church Buses stop bringing the True Believers(TM) to the seats, this turd will be flushed faster than a dodo with a good haircut.

Well-written.

Most of the arguments about this seem to derive from different people looking at different indicators of success: money (divided into opening, and subsequent), critical reaction, or overall social impact.

In this short piece, you've managed to cover them all (wisely waiting to assess social impact), briefly and civilly.

I wonder what the box office take is if you exclude the contribution from committed fundamentalists (the population that's already lost to reason). Given the number you state (less than 3 million total for the opening weekend), I would guess that it's pretty meager. If the goal was to reach the undecided, I suggest that this movie is a dismal flop.

I don't know much about the movie biz but I do know a few things about finance in general. Per Variety.com, the movie did $3 million on 1,100 screens, or about $2800 per screen. That puts it #6 on the per-screen revenue for the weekend for films open on more than 100 screens, beating Horton Hears a Who (which is clearly winding down) and a few other "legit" movies. That's not bad at all.
To get a sense of how fast Expelled is going to go away, wait for the full week numbers in Variety on Thursday or Friday, and see how much incremental revenue they've been able to capture on weekdays where the kiddies are presumably busy with their Bible Study and Falwell Youth group activities. If the revenue number stalls, then look for it to close fairly quickly.
The second major point of interest would be to try to figure out what the cost of the film is and what the promo budget might have been, to figure out just how much money they're losing. The good news is that if they've spent $8 million on a film that captures $4 million in box office and takes a few more years to reap the same amount on DVD, then that means they don't have any additional funding for a sequel or another project... It would be very painful if they were able to throw off enough money to keep making sequels and turn out an endless stream of this stuff. Keep your fingers crossed.

So, the implication is that this Sunday drop off is because it was a church growing crowd that was going (in large part) to begin with, yes?

Pretty much every movie had a drop off in sales from Saturday to Sunday, and I'd guess that's perfectly normal. Friday and Saturday nights are "have fun" nights. Sunday night is a "work tomorrow" night. The lack of any gain on Sunday - or even just a leveling out - shows that the "after church" crowd that people were talking about simply didn't materialize.

The drop from Friday to Saturday, which was experienced by no other movie in the top 50, is different. To me, that indicates that most of the people that the producers got interested ahead of time showed up on Friday, but that there wasn't much (if any) real buzz generated to get anyone other than the firmly committed to plop down their dollars and pay to see the train wreck.

It really bugs me that box office is reported in terms of dollars, not tickets: 100 people showing up for a $6 matinee comes out the same as 60 people at a $10 show.

There's a lot of reason to expect many of the butts in the seats at Expelled were transported there and back again in church buses and given group discounts, so the eyeball count may be significantly higher than the dollar totals indicate.

This is a well thought-out analysis of the opening. It had a huge bankroll and that had to show up in the box office results. I'm not sure it's a victory for them since they did a lot of work showing the religious connection to ID. That will no doubt help the side of reason in the next court battle.

I think a lot of people had problems with Chris saying "I'm merely reporting the facts" and then neglecting all facts that pointed to the opening as a disappointment.

Mike, as usual you are bending over backwards to be fair, and way too far in this case.

Expelled has been a flop beyond my wildest dreams (and I have some wild ones). Clearly what has happened is it played in front of the bussed-in choir, some masochists like Rosenhouse, and few others. It persuaded no one, fooled no one, and made even more people aware of what a lying snake pit the ID crowd is. Even Fox news panned it.

Of course the faithful showed up, and of course this would translate into a deceptively large box office gross compared to other documentaries (and I'd argue it shouldn't even be called that). So what? We knew the creationist population already, we knew from Ken Ham's experience (now there's a financial success) that there is a lot of creationist money to go around. Financially, gross means nothing, it is NET that matters. They spent $10M to make $3M. This is a commercial flop of grand proportions.

Expelled met 0% of its goals that can be currently measured. They took in 1/4 of what they prdicted/hoped. Anyone calling this movie a success is playing semantic games.

I like Chris Mooney a lot, but his obsession with PZ and the whole framing thing seems to be driving him a bit nuts on Expelled. This is the second time he's tried to spin a blatant PR disaster for the film as a coup, and it doesn't wash this time either. There's no way Expelled is going to make money on those numbers. 1,052 venues means 1,052 prints, and prints are extremely expensive. The cost of prints alone might eat up the net revenue from the opening weekend, and that's before we get into production costs, marketing costs, the huge numbers of subsidised tickets/bribes, and other overheads. It will probably end up in the black once they sell DVDs to fundie churches, but it's definitely a box office flop. $1,000 per screen is terrible box office. An average cinema expects to take about $1m revenue per screen each year. If a cinema were relying only on films with the pull of Expelled, it would go bust in months.

More to the point, the whole point of Expelled, if it had any point at all, was to spread the "Darwinism=atheism=Nazism" beyond the people who already believed that. It needed to get Farenheit 9/11 type numbers to do that. There's no point selling tickets only to the committed. They hoped their massive pre-marketing and bribe campaign would spread the word of mouth, and they failed.

Mike Dunford said,

Despite the box office figures, the movie can charitably be described as a critical laughingstock.

That the movie did as well as it did despite being a "critical laughingstock" redounds to the movie's credit, not discredit.

A huge number of theatres -- 1052 opening theatres for "Expelled" -- hurts the per theatre averages because many of the theatres are competing in the same market areas.

You Darwinists are crowing that "Expelled" is a "flop," but you are mainly comparing "Expelled" to the documentaries of Michael Moore -- whose name alone can attract big audiences -- and not to the many documentaries that did not do as well as "Expelled." And what is more important than how many people actually see "Expelled" is the effect of the movie on the thinking of people who will never see it. "Expelled" has made a lot more people aware of censorship of criticism of Darwinism, persecution of critics of Darwinism, and the Darwin-to-Hitler connection. I have personally experienced such persecution and censorship -- my ideas about co-evolution have been banned on the Panda's Thumb blog and the Florida Citizens for Science blog -- see
http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2008/04/co-evolution-theory-censor…

Also, it seems that the movie statistics might be misinterpreted. It was reported that Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 opened with $23.9 million on 868 screens. That works out to an average of $27,534 per screen. At an average admission of $10, that works out to an average of 2,753 viewers per screen. Does such an average seem realistic, considering that many of those 868 screens were competing for viewers in the same markets? Assuming an average of 15 showings per screen over the three days of the weekend, that means an average of 184 viewers per showing, including matinees and late shows. Many modern theatres are multiplexes with small projection rooms, and viewers might have to be standing on heads to pack that many into each screening room. Are those figures for Fahrenheit 9/11 just for opening weekends, or for the entire runs in the first-run theatres?

Also, some movies open early in the week instead of on weekends. Is it fair to compare the opening revenues of those movies with the opening revenues of movies that open on weekends? Also, the strength of the competition when a movie opens can be a very important factor -- it is a big disadvantage to open when several blockbusters are being shown. I think that there is too much emphasis on the opening statistics.

As for the Darwin-to-Hitler idea: it is one thing to say that any connection between Darwin and Hitler has nothing to do with the scientific merits of Darwinism, and another thing entirely to say that the Darwin to Hitler connection does not exist.

"As for the Darwin-to-Hitler idea: it is one thing to say that any connection between Darwin and Hitler has nothing to do with the scientific merits of Darwinism, and another thing entirely to say that the Darwin to Hitler connection does not exist.

Considering that Hitler also claimed to be a Christian you could equally say that there is a Hitler to Jesus connection. It would be stupid but then that fits you.

*Hands Larry Fafarman a calculator*

Now, 2700 divided by three days is...

Hands Larry Fafarman a calculator*
Now, 2700 divided by three days is...

I don't need a calculator. I assumed an average of 5 shows per day (two matinees plus three evening shows) -- or 15 shows over three days -- to come up with the average of 184 viewers per show.

The numbers Larry cites for Fahrenheit 9/11 are indeed for the opening weekend only.

184 per showing? That few? Even a small projection room can fit 150. When you figure in the large 350+ seating rooms, the average theater occupancy is over 200.

I think Larry is also way off-base in his assumption that the theaters were competing for viewers in the same market. Theaters go to great pains to avoid overlapping with other theaters in the same market (a close relative works at a theater, so I get to hear all about it). It should be noted that the market area is based on population density, so a metropolitan area can support quite a few markets without significant competition.

So, yes, 184 per showing sounds quite reasonable.

"I have personally experienced such persecution and censorship -- my ideas about co-evolution have been banned on the Panda's Thumb blog and the Florida Citizens for Science blog"

That's because you're a nutter. And you forgot Ed's blog. If the best example of "persecution and censorship" you can come up with is an annoying loon being kicked off some people's blogs, I really don't think the creationists have to fear an incipient holocaust.

Kevin Vicklund said,

184 per showing? That few? Even a small projection room can fit 150.

Well, I think that projection rooms today tend to be small because so many theatres are multiplexes (16-screen theatres are not uncommon). As I said, imagine packing an average of 184 people per showing into 868 projection rooms, including matinees and late-night shows (I assumed 15 shows over a three-day weekend).

I have seen some new tables that explain the exact meanings of the statistics and so I now see the 184 viewer per showing figure as realistic. But it never hurts to be skeptical. You are just never skeptical about anything that is not a criticism of evolution and not one of my legal theories.

think Larry is also way off-base in his assumption that the theaters were competing for viewers in the same market.

When a movie is shown on a huge number of screens, around 1000 or more, some competition for viewers is inevitable. People don't always go to the theatre closed to home -- they may go to a theatre close to work, go to a theatre during a shopping trip, etc.. Theatres sometimes even compete with themselves -- a movie might be shown on two or more screens in the same theatre. Anyway, my point is that showing a movie on several screens in the same movie-marketing area is likely to reduce the per-screen revenues.

Ginger Yellow driveled,

That's because you're a nutter. And you forgot Ed's blog.

And you are a stupid crackpot.

No, I haven't forgotten the blog of unscrupulous BVD-clad blogger Fatheaded Ed Brayton. He kicked me off his blog permanently when he disagreed with my literal interpretation of a federal court rule. I didn't get a single chance to respond to his disagreement -- he kicked me off immediately because he saw that my arguments were too persuasive.

On the blogs of unscrupulous BVD-clad bloggers, only the most persuasive dissenting comments are arbitrarily censored and unpersuasive dissenting comments are retained for the purpose of trying to give the false impression that the opposition is weak.

"I'm always kicking their butts -- that's why they don't like me."
-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

"But it never hurts to be skeptical. You are just never skeptical about anything that is not a criticism of evolution and not one of my legal theories."

Shame on us for not thinking there might be a conspiracy to inflate the box office of a documentary, a conspiracy so incompetent as to be physically impossible. All the while not thinking there's a conspiracy to inflate the box office of another documentary. I've torn up my official skeptic card in self-loathing.

"On the blogs of unscrupulous BVD-clad bloggers, only the most persuasive dissenting comments are arbitrarily censored and unpersuasive dissenting comments are retained for the purpose of trying to give the false impression that the opposition is weak."

At last we have an explanation for the continued censorship on your own blog and why your "Association of Non-Censoring Bloggers" has no members.

Larry likes to bleat the "Best Butter" story over and over. It is a classic case of projection. He just doesn't understand who the hare represents.

We are always kicking Larry's butt. That's why he doesn't like us.

"He (Ed Brayton) kicked me off his blog permanently when he disagreed with my literal interpretation of a federal court rule."

You have never come up with a literal interpretation of anything in your life and the reason that you were kicked out has been covered many times. There is no reason to repeat it.

"he saw that my arguments were too persuasive."

If you have persuasive arguments, why don't you use them here, or for that matter, on your own blog? All you do is repeat the same old discredited crap.

Ed had several threads that were just on you and your entertainment value. He finally dropped them because he said he didn't think it was right to mess with the clinically insane.

Look at the trolls' lack of originality. All they can do is just repeat my witticisms.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

"All they can do is just repeat my witticisms."

Witticisms?
Repetition?

Richard Sternberg, Casey Luskin, and Gross Dishonesty

tqa — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:36:34 +0000

Richard Sternberg, Casey Luskin, and Gross Dishonesty

Casey Luskin is currently in the middle of a multi-part "rebuttal" to Michael Shermer's review of Expelled. In the latest installment of his whine, Casey (again) brings up the case of Richard Sternberg. Sternberg, some of you might remember, orchestrated the publication of a pro-Intelligent Design paper near the end of his term as editor of Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.

As punishment for this heinous crime, Sternberg suffered the indignity of not getting fired from the unpaid editorship that he had quit months before the paper actually appeared. His punishment further included the cruel and unusual steps of not dismissing him from his unpaid position as a Smithsonian Research Associate, not declining to renew the unpaid position when the term expired, and not firing him from his paid job at NIH. The draconian nature of the consequences that he ultimately suffered - some of his colleagues said bad things about him - obviously makes him the ideal example of an open-thinking scientist railroaded by the Darwinian Inquisition.

I'm not going to deal with the vast majority of Casey's attempt to obfuscate the real events that surrounded the whole Sternberg affair. He raises absolutely no new points, and all of the points that he does raise have been rebutted before. Instead, I'm going to focus on two points in Luskin's post where he massively misrepresents things that other people wrote.

The first example comes very early on in the post. Casey wrote:

The editor who oversaw the publication of that film was Dr. Richard Sternberg, who subsequently was harassed, intimidated, and demoted because he broke ranks with the unwritten (or sometimes written) rule among Darwinists that you must keep ID out of the journals.

The link in the quote does not take you to a page where a journal explicitly says that pro-ID papers will not be accepted. For that matter, it does not take you to a page that implicitly says that a journal won't take any pro-ID papers. The link does not actually have anything to do with journal articles at all. It's a link to a page that contains an AAAS resolution on Intelligent Design that talks about why it's not appropriate for ID to be taught in the schools. As Casey is well aware, there are substantial differences between a scientific journal and a secondary school. (For starters, one of them usually consists of words that are printed on paper and bound in some form or another, while the other is typically some sort of building.) There is simply no way that the statement can remotely be construed as a "written rule" that "you must keep ID out of the journals."

The second example comes not long after that point. Casey quotes from a Biological Society of Washington statement that was issued shortly after the publication of the Meyer paper. For clarity, I'll highlight Casey's selective quoting with boldface.

To attack Meyer's article, Shermer cites the NCSE-inspired statement from the BSW stating that, "Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process. The council, which includes officers, elected councilors and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." Shermer should have applied some of his famous skepticism here, because that statement is in fact a falsehood: Eugenie Scott herself admitted that "other editors have not always referred all articles to the Associate Editors, and because editors justifiably have discretion," and therefore the BSW should not "come down too hard on Dr. Sternberg for errors in the procedure followed in accepting this article." (See Report, pages 25-26.) Shermer conveniently spares the BSW from skepticism over Eugenie Scott's behind-closed-doors concession, which contradicts the BSW's public statement.

There are actually multiple problems with what Casey said. The first is that Casey somehow managed to miss a fairly basic point: saying that other editors sometimes also failed to have an associate editor review a paper does not contradict a claim that this was the usual ("typical") practice. I'm not going to be too hard on Casey for that one, though. He might not have tried to claim that the statement was a "falsehood" simply because he's a pathetic little twit who would deny the identity of his own mother if he thought it would advance the anti-evolution cause. He could merely have a such a massive reading comprehension deficit that he is unable to recognize the difference between the words "typically" and "always".

The second problem with Casey's statement is more substantial. Casey truncated the quote at a point that makes it appear that the council was claiming that it would have ruled the paper out because Sternberg did not have an associate editor review the paper. He accomplishes this feat by adding a period to the quote where one does not exist in the original:

Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process. The Council, which includes officers, elected councilors, and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings because the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history. For the same reason, the journal will not publish a rebuttal to the thesis of the paper, the superiority of intelligent design (ID) over evolution as an explanation of the emergence of Cambrian body-plan diversity.

As it turns out, the council actually said that they would have turned down the paper because it dealt with a subject that was far outside what the journal normally publishes. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington is a journal that publishes systematics papers. These are papers that basically deal with how organisms get sorted. The vast majority of the papers published in this journal consist of the description of new species of organisms - usually living, but occasionally fossil. The issue of the journal that the Meyer paper appeared in is (with that one glaring exception) typical for the journal. As you can see from just a list of the titles, his paper stands out like a sore thumb:

Pseudopaguristes shidarai, a new species of hermit crab (Crustacea: Decapoda: Diogenidae) from Japan, the fourth species of the genus
A new species of Procambarus (Crustacea: Decapoda: Cambaridae) from Veracruz, Mexico
Brackenridgia ashleyi, a new species of terrestrial isopod from Tumbling Creek Cave, Missouri (Isopoda: Oniscidea: Trichoniscidae)
New species and records of Bopyridae (Crustacea: Isopoda) infesting species of the genus Upogebia (Crustacea: Decapoda: Upogebiidae): the genera Orthione Markham, 1988, and Gyge Cornalia & Panceri, 1861
Three new species and a new genus of Farreidae (Porifera: Hexactinellida: Hexactinosida)
The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories

If you look at the table of contents for the issue before, the issue after, the current issue, or (as far as I can tell) any other issue, you're going to see a lot of papers that deal with things like describing new species and genera, and absolutely nothing that has to deal with anything that bears even the faintest resemblance to the things Meyer was writing about. Simply put, this is not a journal that you would expect to find the Meyer paper in.

That, of course, brings us to the very obvious question: why did Meyer submit his paper to a journal that had never, ever published anything remotely like it? Casey, Ben Stein and the rest of the Expelled propagandists, Meyer, and Sternberg have been avoiding this question like the plague, probably because they are painfully aware that there is no good answer to that question.

tqa Thu, 04/17/2008 - 05:36

Tags

Anti-Evolutionism

As Casey is well aware, there are substantial differences between a scientific journal and a secondary school. (For starters, one of them usually consists of words that are printed on paper and bound in some form or another, while the other is typically some sort of building.)

Not while I'm drinking hot coffee Mike!

I beg to differ with the answer you give to that last question: there is a good answer to why the Meyer paper got published in PBSW. It involves a massive subversion of the scientific process, publication of which does not look good for its perpetrators, but inasmuch as truth is good, it is still a good answer.

Sorry, I could not resist picking the nit. I really really liked your summary of the consequences of Sternberg's actions.

probably because they are painfully aware that there is no good answer to that question.

More accurately, it's probably because there IS in fact an excellent answer to this question, but it's an answer they don't wish to make explicit. Surely it's stone obvious to everyone that Sternberg, having nothing to lose and strong religious motivations, took the opportunity to Witness For His Faith. What a fabulous opportunity to insert a "peer reviewed" pro-ID article into a fairly well respected science journal. It didn't need to be peer reviewed because this was in fact an editorial option, it didn't need to be on topic, it didn't need to include any science. It needed only to be published.

And so Sternberg played the same role as the creationists on Leonard's thesis committee at Ohio State - ready, willing, and able to trash the hard-earned reputations of their employers, circumvent the responsibilities they had been entrusted with, and connive off the record to achieve a PR Coup For Jesus. This seems to be what creationism DOES to people.

And this is why these questions are avoided. If you are a Believer, you already understand. If you are not, no answer can satisfy you.

He accomplishes this feat by adding a period to the quote where one does not exist in the original:

While i agree about truncation of the quote, I wouldn't make too big a deal about the period. The usage guides (e.g. Strunk & White) say to put the comma or period inside the quotation marks; so it would be proper to do so even if the period were Luskin's, in indication of the end of Luskin's sentence. Certainly an ellipsis to indicate truncation would have been helpful and honest.

That, of course, brings us to the very obvious question: why did Meyer submit his paper to a journal that had never, ever published anything remotely like it?

Probably for the same reason Michael Behe published an article on population genetics in a journal which typically handles protein structure and chemistry.

That, of course, brings us to the very obvious question: why did Meyer submit his paper to a journal that had never, ever published anything remotely like it?

I thought we knew the answer to that - because Sternberg suggested that he submit it. I don't see anything wrong in this - I've had an editor suggest I submit papers to his journal, and it makes sense that an editor should be allowed to try and get papers they consider to be good published in their journals.

But given this, and given the controversial nature of the paper (which should have been obvious to Sternberg), he really should have given it to an associate editor to handle. If nothing else, to protect himself from accusations of underhand dealing.

Reginald Selkirk wrote

Certainly an ellipsis to indicate truncation would have been helpful and honest.

"Helpful"? No, required, because truncating the sentence to delete the reason the Society gave when Luskin is arguing for a different reason is deceptive and misleading.

All of this is moot because it never makes the pages of the media! For example, I refer you to the 4/17/08 Seattle Times guest editorial crap by Bruce Chapman (DI):

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004353967_chapman17.html

Maybe the evo ratheads can read english.

http://www.rsternberg.net/OSC_ltr.htm

...and unlike the trolls, we can understand English.

Mike,

You quote C. Luskin as stating:

Dr. Richard Sternberg, who subsequently was harassed, intimidated, and demoted

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the claim that Sternberg was demoted false as well? If so, I think saying something that's demonstrably false is far worse than adding periods or intentionally confusing editorial practices. IOW, Luskin is simply a flat-out liar.

In fact you can read the official majority party document AND the appendix which contains the actual emails on which the document relies.Ironically the investigation does not seem to be much correlated to the actual emails as it makes clearly erroneous assertions. But that of course requires one to have actually read the full report and not the Cliff Notes. Thanks for pointing this out Keith. Your comments as usually serve a useful educational purpose.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the claim that Sternberg was demoted false as well?

Luskin probably refers to the fact that Sternberg's sponsor had died and thus his title was appropriately changed to take this into consideration. He went from "Research Associate" to "Research Collaborator" for the simple reason that he did not have a sponsor anymore.

From the website

Research Associate: Research Associates are professional scholars who formally and actively collaborate with NMNH scientific staff through collaborative projects, proposal submission, co-authored publications, etc. including regular use of the NMNH research and collection facilities. Research Associates have achieved a degree, usually a doctorate, and have professional status within their academic community; they are generally affiliated with a recognized academic institution as active (sometimes retired) staff and have an active publication record, including at least one scholarly publication within the past two years. Most appointments are for three years and may be renewed.

Collaborator: Collaborators (aka Research Collaborators) are those professionals working independently within the National Museum of Natural History research and collection facilities or informally collaborating with members from the NMNH community on scientific endeavors. Collaborators have achieved an academic degree and hold professional status within the scientific community. Collaborators must contribute to the professional community through regular scholarly publication and presentation at professional meetings. Most appointments are for three years and may be renewed.

Of course if the DI can call ignorance "information" then they surely can use the term demotion would you not agree?

The Biological Society of Washington's statement is on line for all to see:

http://www.biolsocwash.org/id_statement.html

Don't forget, as well, that this was a literature review. No new data was presented.

PVM,

Even though I followed the case closely and have debated it online countless times, this is the first I've heard of Sternberg going from "Research Associate" to "Research Collaborator". Thanks for posting that.

Exactly when was his title changed?

Where is Sternberg employed these days? He does not seem to be at NIH.

I believe he used to be listed as a fellow on the DI site. However, it appears he's no longer listed because a) he couldn't make muster as a creationist, b) his martyrdumb (sic) required he not be directly associated with those who were martyrdumbing him, c) it's to hide these people so there's no explicit association with the DI and ID, which he clearly supports (both).

His personal web site only tells of his martyrdumb, but there doesn't appear to be any indication of where he currently is. Liberty college?

Curiously, Michael Shermer's review contains the exact same truncated quotation about the Meyers paper. I don't know where Shermer got it from -- maybe he truncated it himself for some reason? -- but if Luskin was just copying Shermer (which seems pretty likely) then his only sin here is failing to check his references.

The old saw about not assuming malice when stupidity is a sufficient explanation is pretty unreliable when dealing with creationists, but I'm inclined to think Luskin hasn't been quite as sleazy here as you suggest. For once.

That list of articles sums up the difference between science and ID perfectly.

Science: data, new knowledge
ID: waffle

At one time, I considered joining the Biological Society of Washington so as to have a timely outlet for descriptions of new species, genera, etc. That is is, in fact, the purpose of the journal, as shown above. The journal has page charges. So if I had submitted a paper and had it accepted for publication, I would have paid page charges, and had an expectation of timely publication. If my paper had been delayed so the ID paper could be published, and I had, as a result, been scooped by someone publishing in a German monthly aquarium magazine (it has happened, not to me), I would have been irritated and might have, because I paid money and thus had a contract, considered legal action. All hypothetical, but interesting to consider, I think.

As Casey is well aware, there are substantial differences between a scientific journal and a secondary school.

Are you certain that Casey understands this difference?

Exactly when was his title changed?

From Wikipedia: In 2004 he was given a 3 year appointment as an unpaid research associate.[3] On 15 November 2006, he received a further three year appointment as an unpaid 'research collaborator' at the NMNH

His sponsor had died although the email thread shows that others were willing to volunteer for a sponsorship

Anyway, the core point, I obviously am not going to be able to find a sponsor for Sternberg, yet his official status is as a research associate for the next three years. If you dont want to make a martyr of him, I'll sponsor him.

I believe this was an email sent by Codington but I have to check the appendix

A while ago Coddington who was Sternberg's supervisor after his original supervisor died, left the following comments at Pandastumb

Although I do not wish to debate the merits of intelligent design, this forum seems an apt place to correct several factual inaccuracies in the Wall Street Journals Op Ed article by David Klinghoffer, The Branding of a Heretic (Jan. 28, 2005). Because Dr. von Sternberg has filed an official complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, I cannot comment as fully as I would wish. 1. Dr. von Sternberg is still a Research Associate at the National Museum of Natural History, and continues to have the usual rights and privileges, including space, keys, and 24/7 access. At no time did anyone deny him space, keys or access. 2. He is not an employee of the Smithsonian Institution. His title, Research Associate, means that for a three year, potentially renewable period he has permission to visit the Museum for the purpose of studying and working with our collections without the staff oversight visitors usually receive. 3. I am, and continue to be, his only supervisor, although we use the term sponsor for Research Associates to avoid personnel/employee connotations. He has had no other since Feb. 1, 2004, nor was he ever assigned to or under the oversight of anyone else. 4. Well prior to the publication of the Meyer article and my awareness of it, I asked him and another Research Associate to move as part of a larger and unavoidable reorganization of space involving 17 people and 20 offices. He agreed. 5. I offered both individuals new, identical, standard Research Associate work spaces. The other accepted, but Dr. von Sternberg declined and instead requested space in an entirely different part of the Museum, which I provided, and which he currently occupies. 6. As for prejudice on the basis of beliefs or opinions, I repeatedly and consistently emphasized to staff (and to Dr. von Sternberg personally), verbally or in writing, that private beliefs and/or controversial editorial decisions were irrelevant in the workplace, that we would continue to provide full Research Associate benefits to Dr. von Sternberg, that he was an established and respected scientist, and that he would at all times be treated as such. On behalf of all National Museum of Natural History staff, I would like to assert that we hold the freedoms of religion and belief as dearly as any one. The right to heterodox opinion is particularly important to scientists. Why Dr. von Sternberg chose to represent his interactions with me as he did is mystifying. I cant speak to his interactions with anyone else.

Mike Dunford said,

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington is a journal that publishes systematics papers.

So why isn't "systematics" or a synonym in the title of the journal? Does the journal contain a notice that it is just about systematics? Is there a long-established official statement anywhere that says that the journal is just about systematics?

If you look at the table of contents for the issue before, the issue after, the current issue, or (as far as I can tell) any other issue, you're going to see a lot of papers that deal with things like describing new species and genera . . . .

The articles are mostly about newly-discovered species or genuses. Is there any reason to believe that the contents of all of these articles are solely or even mainly about systematics? And why aren't there more articles that discuss systematics without introducing new species or genuses?

. . . and absolutely nothing that has to deal with anything that bears even the faintest resemblance to the things Meyer was writing about.

You are looking at only three issues here. How can you be sure that none of the other issues in the 122-year history of the journal contain "anything that bears even the faintest resemblance to the things Meyer was writing about"? You are not sure -- all you can say is "as far as I can tell." And why can't the Meyer paper be unique? Why does it have to have a precedent?

Simply put, this is not a journal that you would expect to find the Meyer paper in.

According to the title of the journal, I would expect to find anything related to biology. And finding the Meyer paper would be easy by searching a journal article index.

James F said,

Don't forget, as well, that this was a literature review. No new data was presented.

So a literature review can never be useful? And even if ID is false, does that make a literature review of it bad?

Keith said (April 17, 2008 12:51 PM) --

Maybe the evo ratheads can read english (with link to letter from US Office of Special Counsel)

NJ said (April 17, 2008 1:00 PM) --

...and unlike the trolls, we can understand English (with link to article by Ed Brayton)

Unlike unscrupulous BVD-clad blogger Fatheaded Ed Brayton, who arbitrarily censors visitors' comments on his blogs, the Office of Special Counsel has no ax to grind.

So why isn't "systematics" or a synonym in the title of the journal?

The Society started out as a general biology society, but over time "evolved" into a society on systematics, made official in the 1970 revision to the Society's constitution.

Does the journal contain a notice that it is just about systematics?

From the journal's official website:

"CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION: Authors wishing to submit a manuscript should consult Information for Contributors (also available on the inside back cover of each issue of the Proceedings)."

"INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Content.-The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington contains papers bearing on systematics in the biological sciences (botany, zoology, and paleontology), and notices of business transacted at meetings of the Society. Except at the direction of the Council, only manuscripts by Society members will be accepted. Papers are published in English (except for Latin diagnoses/descriptions of plant taxa), with an Abstract in an alternate language when appropriate."

Is there a long-established official statement anywhere that says that the journal is just about systematics?

From the Society's official website:

"THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

CONSTITUTION AND BYLAWS

Adopted 3 December 1884
(As amended August 2004)

Article 1. Name. The name of this Society shall be the Biological Society of Washington.

Article 2. Purpose. The purpose of this Society shall be for the furtherance of taxonomic study of organisms and for the increase and diffusion of biological knowledge among interested persons.

Article 3. Membership. Membership in this Society shall be open to persons and organizations interested in the promotion of systematic biology."

The articles are mostly about newly-discovered species or genuses. Is there any reason to believe that the contents of all of these articles are solely or even mainly about systematics? And why aren't there more articles that discuss systematics without introducing new species or genuses?

The description of new species and genera are the core of systematics, Larry. That would be the point of publishing a paper in the Proceedings.

You are looking at only three issues here. How can you be sure that none of the other issues in the 122-year history of the journal contain "anything that bears even the faintest resemblance to the things Meyer was writing about"? You are not sure -- all you can say is "as far as I can tell." And why can't the Meyer paper be unique? Why does it have to have a precedent?

The Society specialized on systematics. It was the official position for almost 35 years before Meyer's paper was published, and the de facto position for about 50 years before that. In the dim depths of time, it wasn't, but that is not of much import.

Smaller publications survive on offering niche markets. They can't compete with the larger general journals.

The articles are mostly about newly-discovered species or genuses. Is there any reason to believe that the contents of all of these articles are solely or even mainly about systematics?

Two things:

1: The plural of "genus" is "genera" not "genuses".

2: Any paper that describes a newly-discovered species, genus, family, or any other taxonomic grouping is, by definition a paper that is describing work in the field of systematics.

So a literature review can never be useful?

As Mike said. it does not contain any new data. Nothing new is presented. It only attempts to put a spin on what has already been presented.

Unlike unscrupulous BVD-clad blogger Fatheaded Ed Brayton, who arbitrarily censors visitors' comments on his blogs

You have been challenged, and have always failed, to show where Ed Brayton has arbitrarily censored anything. At the same time, you continue to practice arbitrary censorship on your own blog.

Please don't blow your credibility further by claiming that you only censor "personal gossip".

It's the famous Fafarman! I didn't know someone could nitpick so poorly, but there it is right on my screen (I'm a charmer).

The point of describing the journal's usual papers was to establish that this is outside of the paper's norm. That's it. Not every small snippet of an article must be a full refutation of ID or its merits... although I really shouldn't need to say that.

Mucho thanks PVM!!

(http:// prefixes have been removed to prevent the comment from hanging up -- links must be copied and pasted. Limiting comments to a maximum of one link each is stupid, but what is to be expected of ScienceBlogs?)

Kevin Vicklund said,

The Society started out as a general biology society, but over time "evolved" into a society on systematics, made official in the 1970 revision to the Society's constitution.

So why weren't the names of the society and the journal changed to reflect the specialization in systematics?

The description of new species and genera are the core of systematics

Not necessarily. The classification of a new species/genera could be obvious and the rest of a paper about a new species/genera could be about other things. Also, cladistic taxonomy involves a lot of classification of known organisms, not just classification of newly discovered organisms. So why doesn't the journal have more papers that discuss systematics without introducing a new species or genus? And someone could present a paper proposing, for example, that cetaceans be reclassified as fish because cetaceans are aquatic, are shaped like fish, have fins or flippers instead of legs and/or arms, and have no hair or fur. BTW, cetaceans were classified as mammals before introduction of the idea that they are descended from land animals, showing that evolution is not "the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" after all.

The Society specialized on systematics. It was the official position for almost 35 years before Meyer's paper was published, and the de facto position for about 50 years before that.

The society's statement about Meyer's paper does not talk about just a 35-year or 50-year history of specializing in systematics -- the statement speaks of "the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history."
-- from www.biolsocwash.org/id_statement.html

Smaller publications survive on offering niche markets. They can't compete with the larger general journals.

Then why weren't the names of the society and the journal changed in order to help attract people who have a special interest in systematics?

BTW, I noticed the following provision in "INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS": "Except at the direction of the Council, only manuscripts by Society members will be accepted." Was Meyer a member of the society? If not, then accepting his paper without the approval of the Council was a real violation of the rules. Anyway, anyone can join the society, even Ed Brayton: "Membership in this Society shall be open to persons and organizations interested in the promotion of systematic biology."

Mike Dunford said,

The plural of "genus" is "genera" not "genuses".

My printed Webster's New World Dictionary -- Third College Edition -- but not the Merriam-Webster online dictionary -- says that "genuses" is an acceptable alternate spelling. Thanks for pointing out the preferred spelling.

Any paper that describes a newly-discovered species, genus, family, or any other taxonomic grouping is, by definition a paper that is describing work in the field of systematics.

See my response to Kevin above.

ViU said,

So a literature review can never be useful?
As Mike said. it does not contain any new data.

It was James F -- not Mike -- who said that.

Nothing new is presented. It only attempts to put a spin on what has already been presented.

Nothing new is presented in your statement. You don't even attempt to put a spin on what has already been presented.

You have been challenged, and have always failed, to show where Ed Brayton has arbitrarily censored anything.

This is getting old. Here is a description of where Fatheaded Ed banned me -- it is the first comment under the following post --

im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2007/03/comments-censored-elsewhere-new-feature.html

-- and here is where Brandon Haughty banned discussion of co-evolution on the blog of the so-called Florida Citizens for Science:

im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2008/04/co-evolution-theory-censored-by-florida.html

Shirakawasuna driveled,

It's the famous Fafarman! I didn't know someone could nitpick so poorly, but there it is right on my screen (I'm a charmer).

"I'm always kicking their butts -- that's why they don't like me."
-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

The point of describing the journal's usual papers was to establish that this is outside of the paper's norm. That's it.

I didn't read any of the papers, so I don't know whether Meyer's paper deviates from systematics to a greater extent than any of the other papers.

Larry Brayed,

Nothing new is presented in your statement. You don't even attempt to put a spin on what has already been presented.

I was just correcting your misstatement, which attempted to spin what has already been presented.

Here is a description of where Fatheaded Ed banned me

It is your spin on why Ed, and many others, have banned you. Always for cause, never arbitrarily. While I am sure that arbitrary censorship does occur on the net, the only example that stands out is your own blog.

Of course you have set up the "Association of Non-Censoring Bloggers" of which you are the only member and don't practice what is supposed to be the purpose of that one man "association".

"I'm always kicking their butts -- that's why they don't like me."
-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Has anyone seen where Larry has ever won an argument here or on any blog? I have been following his bleatings on his own blog for two years and all I see is him losing every case, like he does here and in his legal career.

I didn't read any of the papers

It is obvious that your rarely, if ever read any of the papers and other documents on which you present an opinion.

the Office of Special Counsel has no ax to grind.

Hilarious Farfamania.

Scott Bloch is the infamous Bush appointee who runs the place. Right-wing Catholic, ex-fellow of the Claremont Institute, made some legal bones crusading against "religious persecution", promptly hired fleets of graduates from the reactionary Ava Maria Law School (see Tom Monaghan). See stunts like:
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=458
Meanwhile the OSC has become a joke in most other areas of its mission: whistleblower protection. Check out the cases of Sibel Edmonds, Adam Finkel, Bogdan Dzakovic, Sandalio Gonzalez, Richard Levernier, Russ Tice, and Joe Darby.

Larry Fafarman:

"I didn't read any of the papers, so I don't know whether Meyer's paper deviates from systematics to a greater extent than any of the other papers."

--- Of course you don't. You seem to only seek abuse - surely you recognize how inane your points are. If you weren't, you know, exceedingly lazy, you could find the last four years' worth of extremely obvious paper articles here.

My older second edition of Websters has in small print, "sometimes genuses". If the third edition gives more credibility to the term, then we have an excellent example of the ongoing deterioration of western culture. In any case, I can't picture a taxonomist using any thing but genus and genera, even after many beers.

"Genuses" does not appear in the 7th or 9th editions of Webster's. As usual, Larry is relying on old, outdated sources (when he actually relies on sources at all).

Hilarious PettiFogggermania said,

Scott Bloch is the infamous Bush appointee who runs the place.

A Congressman's office also issued a report. And the government reports are thoroughly substantiated with references -- Fatheaded Ed Brayton's report in Skeptic magazine has a lot of material that is not substantiated with references -- see www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-04-17.html#part2

Fatheaded Ed Brayton is an unscrupulous BVD-clad blogger who pulls many of his "facts" out of thin air and who arbitrarily censors comments and commenters on his blogs. Here is an example of his lies -- this concerns the question of whether the Dover School Board could have mooted the Kitzmiller v. Dover case by repealing the ID policy prior to judgment:

Board president Reinking noted that legal counsel advised the board that the trial is over and can not change the outcome of any vote.

This is the same position, by the way, that was taken by everyone involved in the case, including the attorneys for both sides. It's the same position taken by the Judge in the case. It's the same position taken by every legal scholar who addressed the issue. There was virtually no chance that the case would be mooted.

-- from

scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/04/francisco_discovers_weasel_wor.php

Ed is just plain lying here. Only the Dover defendants' lead attorney said that repealing the ID policy immediately could not moot the case, and he was biased because he wanted the case to be appealed, which the new school board was unwilling to do. The judge -- improperly giving legal advice -- only said that the school board election results would not affect his decision. An attorney hired by a former board member wrote a report advising the new board that repealing the ID policy immediately could moot the case. Other attorneys opined that immediate repeal of the ID policy could have mooted the case.

Anyway, Fatheaded Ed's arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters means that he has no credibility. That's all there is to it.

Jim Thomerson said,

My older second edition of Websters has in small print, "sometimes genuses". If the third edition gives more credibility to the term, then we have an excellent example of the ongoing deterioration of western culture.

My edition does not say "sometimes" and the "genuses" form is not in small print, and I guess that could be interpreted as meaning that my edition gives more credibility to the term. I personally prefer "genuses" because I think it is more recognizable to laypeople -- "genera" is reminiscent of "generate," "general," etc.. In contrast, "octopi" and "cacti" are readily recognizable to everyone (my dictionary actually gives "octopuses" and "cactuses" as the preferred spellings). However, in the interest of uniformity, I will use the high-falutin spelling "genera" in the future. But if you see "genuses" in print, it is not a misspelling and won't be for at least a few decades if ever (Kevin Vicklund reported that the "genuses" spelling is not in the latest dictionaries and I am assuming that this spelling will stay out of dictionaries).

Shirakawasuna said:

"You seem to only seek abuse - surely you recognize how inane your points are."

No he doesn't. He actually believes that he is winning these points with his brilliant debating skills. After having his ass kicked over the goal posts time after time, he will walk off with the belief that he has won yet again. On another blog he got the name "Scary Larry" which he interpreted to be a complement. He thought people were in awe of his brilliance. The atmosphere may be toxic on his planet.

Larry bleated:
"The judge -- improperly giving legal advice -- only said that the school board election results would not affect his decision."

You see! The dolt thinks that is giving legal advice!

"Anyway, Fatheaded Ed's arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters means that he has no credibility. That's all there is to it."

As we have seen, Larry believes that Ed's blocking him due to endless ad hominem attacks and repeated sock puppetry is "arbitrary censorship". The only arbitrary censorship that I have seen is on Larry's own blog.

The header of Larry's blog begins:
"My biggest motivation for creating my own blogs was to avoid the arbitrary censorship practiced by other blogs and various other Internet forums. Censorship will be avoided in my blogs -- there will be no deletion of comments..."

Yet he often censors arbitrarily when he has no answer or his lies have been exposed. He excuses this by claiming that he is deleting "gossip about his personal affairs". One thing he has considered to be such gossip was mention of his unbroken record of failures in his legal cases.

He further says:
"Comments containing nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks are discouraged."
Yet, as here, his own comments often have little else.

"Anyway, Fatheaded Ed's arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters means that he has no credibility. That's all there is to it."

Says it all about Larry's credibility, doesn't it?

Shirakawasuna drivels,

"I didn't read any of the papers, so I don't know whether Meyer's paper deviates from systematics to a greater extent than any of the other papers."

--- Of course you don't. You seem to only seek abuse - surely you recognize how inane your points are. If you weren't, you know, exceedingly lazy, you could find the last four years' worth of extremely obvious paper articles here.

My point is that the titles of the papers do not show how closely the papers concentrate on systematics. Has the blogger or any commenter in this thread read all of the papers in several editions? And if once in a while there is a paper that doesn't really belong, is that the end of the world? Meyer's paper was not, after all, about underwater basketweaving.

Also, Sternberg apparently had the authority to do what he did -- otherwise, how did he do it? I don't see anyone saying that he didn't have the authority to do what he did.

ViU driveled,

Larry bleated:
"The judge -- improperly giving legal advice -- only said that the school board election results would not affect his decision."

You see! The dolt thinks that is giving legal advice!

You stupid fathead, that is giving them legal advice -- he was insinuating that it would not do them any good to repeal the ID policy prior to release of the decision. And Ed Brayton claimed that the judge expressly told them that it would not do them any good.

The Cretin said...
"My point is that the titles of the papers do not show how closely the papers concentrate on systematics."

In other words, you have not read them but felt qualified to comment anyway.

"You stupid fathead, that is giving them legal advice -- he was insinuating that it would not do them any good to repeal the ID policy prior to release of the decision. And Ed Brayton claimed that the judge expressly told them that it would not do them any good."

No, Cretin. He was not insinuating anything. Stating the fact that he would follow the law, rather than election results, is not giving legal advice by any stretch of the term. If they base their decision not to have a picnic in twelve hours because someone has told them that the Sun will be down by then, that doesn't mean that they have been advised not to have a picnic at that time. They are making their own decisions based on a statement of fact.

You should stay off of matters of law. You are particularly inept in that subject.

No, Cretin. He was not insinuating anything.

You mentally challenged beetlebrain, he was insinuating that it would not do them any good to repeal the ID policy prior to judgment. Judges are not allowed to give any legal advice, regardless of whether that advice is good or bad, or right or wrong. It was not just a question of how he was going to decide -- there was also the question of how judges in higher courts might decide, and he could not speak for other judges. If the new school board had repealed the ID policy prior to judgment and Judge Jones then ruled against them anyway, they might have appealed the judgment.

If they base their decision not to have a picnic in twelve hours because someone has told them that the Sun will be down by then, that doesn't mean that they have been advised not to have a picnic at that time. They are making their own decisions based on a statement of fact.

Except that no one knew whether the picnic area had lighting for night-time picnics.

The correct analogy is this: they must either (1) decide to hold their picnic in twelve hours and hope that the picnic area has night lighting or (2) lose their picnic food.

Under the Social Darwinism that you love so much, you would be among the first to be euthanized for the purpose of vastly improving the overall intelligence of the human race.

Sorry -- I missed this one in my last comment.

ViU driveled,

"My point is that the titles of the papers do not show how closely the papers concentrate on systematics."
In other words, you have not read them but felt qualified to comment anyway.

Just like you, the blogger, and the other commenters here.

The Cretin said:

"he was insinuating that it would not do them any good to repeal the ID policy prior to judgment."

Mindless repetition as always. He was insinuating nothing of the kind. He was only stating that he would be deciding the case according to the lawm as it was his job to do.

"The correct analogy is this: they must either (1) decide to hold their picnic in twelve hours and hope that the picnic area has night lighting or (2) lose their picnic food."

What people decide to do based on their recently revealed new discovery that the Sun will rise and set over the period of a day cannot be blamed on an astronomer.

"Under the Social Darwinism that you love so much"

You would have lost on two counts. In addition to murdering every Jew they could find, they also did in the mental defectives. You would have gone up the chimney with your relatives.

My experience is that we taxonomists make our titles as representative of the paper content as we can. Editors demand it. The literature is huge, and much literature search is just scanning titles, so a misleading title could mean that your very important publication might not be as widely read and appreciated as it deserves.

A Congressman's office also issued a report.

A similar slanted story from Mark Souder, the far-right christianist congressman. Why didn't Souder hold hearings, Mr. Farfromsane? He ran the committee, the R's controlled the House.
Because there was nothing there for the sane Republicans to support. Thus a propaganda "report" for witless saps like you to wave around was Souder's only alternative.

Meanwhile... the statement from the Council of Biological Society of Washington which publishes the Proceedings:
http://www.biolsocwash.org/id_statement.html

The Council... would have deemed the [Meyer] paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings because the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history.

But Larry, who has not read the Proceedings, doubts its 122 years of "nearly purely systemtic content" and thinks the Society is clueless or lying about its own journal's contents.

ViU groaned,

He was only stating that he would be deciding the case according to the lawm as it was his job to do.

I don't understand why Mike Dunford doesn't kick you off for cluttering up his blog with frivolous comments and obliging others to waste even more space by answering them. For the umpteenth time, Judge Jones told a newspaper that the election results would not affect his decision. Fatheaded Ed Brayton even went beyond that by falsely claiming that Judge Jones expressly said that repeal of the ID policy would not affect his decision.

Your tactic is to bury my refutations of your arguments by endlessly repeating those arguments. So here again is my refutation of your argument, and I will repeat this refutation as many times as necessary:

Judges are not allowed to give any legal advice, regardless of whether that advice is good or bad, or right or wrong. It was not just a question of how he was going to decide -- there was also the question of how judges in higher courts might decide, and he could not speak for other judges. If the new school board had repealed the ID policy prior to judgment and Judge Jones then ruled against them anyway, they might have appealed the judgment.

What people decide to do based on their recently revealed new discovery that the Sun will rise and set over the period of a day cannot be blamed on an astronomer.

And if people are given a choice between (1) scheduling their picnic for nighttime and hoping that the picnic area has night lighting and (2) losing their picnic food, rational people will choose the former option.

Jim Thomerson said,

My experience is that we taxonomists make our titles as representative of the paper content as we can.

The titles of the papers have no indication that the papers are primarily about systematics.

much literature search is just scanning titles

A lot of literature searches scan contents as well -- even a Google search scans contents.

PettiFoggger said,

A similar slanted story from Mark Souder, the far-right christianist congressman.

I know nothing about Rep. Souder or the Office of Special Counsel. What I do know from unpleasant personal experience is that Fatheaded Ed Brayton is an unscrupulous BVD-clad blogger who arbitrarily censors comments and commenters on his blogs. Fatheaded Ed has no credibility -- so why should I believe his report of the Sternberg affair?

I am glad that the "Expelled" movie is giving the Smithsonian fascists more than they bargained for.

But Larry, who has not read the Proceedings, doubts its 122 years of "nearly purely systemtic content" and thinks the Society is clueless or lying about its own journal's contents.

The Society is either clueless or lying! Kevin Vicklund showed that the focus on systematics papers officially began in 1970.

Also, note the statement "nearly purely systematic content" -- so it's not "absolutely purely systematic content."

And as I said, all or most of the folks here have not read the proceedings. Physician, heal thyself.

I will admit that I have not looked at the journal since retirement, other than to do a scan of several year's titles when this first came to my attention. Previous to that I looked at the journal and read some of the papers on a regular basis. Several of the members publish papers that are of professional interest to me. I did not join the society because a new journal which fit my interests much better came into being. I would also confess that the bulk of my literature searches were done before I ever heard of google. I've been working in systematics since the late '50's.

"So here again is my refutation of your argument, and I will repeat this refutation as many times as necessary:"

As I said and Larry has proven, he believes that if he repeats a lie or a failed argument often enough it will become true.

"For the umpteenth time, Judge Jones told a newspaper that the election results would not affect his decision."

Yes, Cretin. And telling a newspaper that he would follow the law and do his job the way he is supposed to is not giving legal advice no matter how many times you repeat it.

ViU, I'll make this easy for you. I am only asking you to answer yes or no to the following questions.

(1) Did a newspaper report that Judge Jones said that the election would not affect his decision, or not?

(2) Did that statement by Jones imply that repeal of the ID policy would not affect his decision, or not?

(3) Did Ed Brayton claim that Jones expressly said that repeal of the ID policy would not affect the decision, or not?

(4) Is it considered appropriate for judges to give legal advice to litigants, or not?

(5) Does Jones have the right to speak for other judges, or not? If the board had repealed the ID policy prior to judgment and Jones ruled against them anyway, the decision probably would have been appealed and other judges would have ruled on the effect of the repeal.

(6) So far as attorney fee awards are concerned, the school board had nothing to lose by repealing the ID policy prior to judgment. Is that statement true or not?

(7) By not repealing the ID policy prior to judgment, the school board forever lost an opportunity to try to moot the case by repealing the ID policy. Is that statement true or not?

(8) Not that it matters, but did the Supreme Court say the following, or not?

Numerous federal statutes allow courts to award attorney's fees and costs to the "prevailing party." The question presented here is whether this term includes a party that has failed to secure a judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree, but has nonetheless achieved the desired result because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defendant's conduct. We hold that it does not. (emphasis added)
From Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health & Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598 (2001)

-- from
http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2006/05/two-timing-new-members-of-…

(9) Not that it matters, but in Buckhannon, did the state legislature promise to never again re-enact the challenged statute, or not?

Remember, ViU, I am only asking you to answer yes or no. No other response is requested or expected.

Thank you.

Barely a week after throwing a conniption fit over a snide comment over an off-topic conversation started by himself, Larry again injects an off-topic discussion for the purpose of making personal attacks. If it weren't what Larry always does, it'd be ironic - here it's just hypocritical. But I'll indulge Larry.

(1) Did a newspaper report that Judge Jones said that the election would not affect his decision, or not?

Yes. This has already been answered numerous times.

(2) Did that statement by Jones imply that repeal of the ID policy would not affect his decision, or not?

No. This has also been answered numerous times, and defeats the remainder of your questions. However, an "unscrupulous BVD-clad" reporter made that insinuation in a poorly written article.

(3) Did Ed Brayton claim that Jones expressly said that repeal of the ID policy would not affect the decision, or not?

Yes. Like everyone else involved, including Larry and myself, he was fooled by the false implication of the reporter.

(4) Is it considered appropriate for judges to give legal advice to litigants, or not?

The answer is situationally dependent. For example, the Circuit panel in Selman gave a number of suggestions to the litigants on what it would like to see in the event of a re-trial. However, you are begging the question. You are insinuating that the judge in fact gave legal advice, when that conclusionhas net been reached. You failed to ask certain other questions which are directly relevant to the discussion (answers in bold):

4a) Is it considered appropriate for judges to answer a reporter's question about court procedure? Yes. According to Canon 3(A)(6) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, "A judge should avoid public comment on the merits of a pending or impending action, requiring similar restraint by court personnel subject to the judge's direction and control. This proscription does not extend to public statements made in the course of the judge's official duties, to the explanation of court procedures, or to a scholarly presentation made for purposes of legal education."

4b) Was Judge Jones explaining court procedure? Yes. According to Rule 25(d)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, "When a public officer is a party to an action in his official capacity and during its pendency dies, resigns, or otherwise ceases to hold office, the action does not abate and the officers successor is automatically substituted as a party."

(5) Does Jones have the right to speak for other judges, or not? If the board had repealed the ID policy prior to judgment and Jones ruled against them anyway, the decision probably would have been appealed and other judges would have ruled on the effect of the repeal.

Yes. All judges are bound by the FRCP. Since Jones's statement was neutral with regard to repealing the policy, Larry's fantasies about appeals have no bearing on the question. It should be noted that prior to the election, the new board members announced that they would wait until the judge ruled and that they would not appeal.

(6) So far as attorney fee awards are concerned, the school board had nothing to lose by repealing the ID policy prior to judgment. Is that statement true or not?

(7) By not repealing the ID policy prior to judgment, the school board forever lost an opportunity to try to moot the case by repealing the ID policy. Is that statement true or not?

Yes. Of course, if they successfully mooted the case (not that they would have), they would forever lose the opportunity to prevent future boards from enacting the policy. And they would have been going back on their campaign promise to let the case run its course.

(8) Not that it matters, but did the Supreme Court say the following, or not?

Numerous federal statutes allow courts to award attorney's fees and costs to the "prevailing party." The question presented here is whether this term includes a party that has failed to secure a judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree, but has nonetheless achieved the desired result because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defendant's conduct. We hold that it does not.

From Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health & Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598 (2001)

-- from
http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2006/05/two-timing-new-members-of-…

Yes. Thank you for pointing out that the scheme proposed by the outgoing board member and his pet real estate attorney would have still resulted in attorney fees being paid, since the scheme involved getting a consent decree ("In addition to judgments on the merits, we have held that settlement agreements enforced through a consent decree may serve as the basis for an award of attorneys fees.") It should also be noted that Buckhannon unequivocally stated that mootness is not available for voluntary cessation when damages are claimed ("And petitioners fear of mischievous defendants only materializes in claims for equitable relief, for so long as the plaintiff has a cause of action for damages, a defendants change in conduct will not moot the case.") The Supreme Court had previously ruled that nominal damages are still considered damages, and Third Circuit precedence is that voluntary cessation does not induce mootness when nominal damages are claimed.

(9) Not that it matters, but in Buckhannon, did the state legislature promise to never again re-enact the challenged statute, or not?

No. However, the courts ruled that there was no indication that they would ever re-enact the challenged statute. It was quite clear that there was a significant portion of the population determined to re-enact the policy in the Dover case, large enough to make the elections quite close.

[cue temper tantrum by Larry]

I apologize for the formatting error in my previous post.

As usual Larry asks questions that have already been answered and Kevink, as usual, exposes Larry's ignorance.

The bottom line is that saying that you will decide a case according to the law is not giving advice to those who would wish that the decision would be based on an upcoming popularity contest.

I will make this easy for you, Larry. I have one yes or no question: Are you so stupid that you can't understand that saying you will go by the law is not giving legal advice? It appears that the answer is yes.

Systematics is one of those slippery terms which people use with different definition which can only be divined by context. The broadest definition is "comparative biology". A narrower definition is "study of phylogenetic (evolutionary) relationships". Taxonomy is the naming of organisms, and is often considered a part of systematics. I tend to think of systematics as the process and taxonomy as the product. The Washington journal is more about the taxonomic end of systematics than anything else: new species definitions, revision of genera, etc.

There is a journal "Systematic Biology" which consideres more the cosmic theoretical aspects of systematics. I was a member of that association for some 30 years and never submitted a paper, because most of my work has been more toward the taxonomic end of systematics. In spite of journal names, the Washington Journal would have been appropriate for my systematics work; Systematic biology would not have been. If the ID paper in contention had been published in Systematic Biology, I think it would have been OK in that it discussed systematic theory on a cosmic level. Actually a paper of such cosmic concern should have been submitted to Science or Nature, where it would have gotten maximum readership.

But Larry, who has not read the Proceedings, doubts its 122 years of "nearly purely systemtic content" and thinks the Society is clueless or lying about its own journal's contents.

The Society is either clueless or lying! Kevin Vicklund showed that the focus on systematics papers officially began in 1970.

Also, note the statement "nearly purely systematic content" -- so it's not "absolutely purely systematic content."

I also showed that for the super-majority of their existence, the focus on systematics and the related fields of taxonomy and biogeography (as Jim would put it, process, product and location) was the de facto position. In fact, the official centennial history of the BSW, published Dec 1, 1980, stated:

It became increasingly apparent over the years that the central interest of the Biological Society of Washington was in systematic biology and taxonomy. Practically all of the papers published in the Proceedings, especially in later years, were of that nature or in the related field of biogeography.

-John W. Aldrich, "The Biological Society of Washington: A Centennial History 1880-1980" Bulletin #4 BSW (p. 29)

If "[p]ractically all of the papers published in the Proceedings" were of that nature only 10 years after the position was made official, 24 additional years of exclusively publishing systematics should certianly qualify as "nearly purely systematic content."

Larry's claim that the BSW is either clueless or lying has absolutely no basis in fact. It's just something he pulled out of thin air.

Pettifogger Kevin Vicklund strikes again.

Kevin Vicklund said,

(1) Did a newspaper report that Judge Jones said that the election would not affect his decision, or not?
Yes. This has already been answered numerous times.

The question has not been answered by ViU, and the question was directed at him, not you. He still won't answer it.

(2) Did that statement by Jones imply that repeal of the ID policy would not affect his decision, or not?
No. This has also been answered numerous times, and defeats the remainder of your questions.

Wrong. The election results were an issue here because of the question of whether the new school board members -- who had campaigned on promises to repeal the ID policy and try to save the school district money on the lawsuit -- would repeal the ID policy prior to judgment in the hope that the case would thus be mooted. That question was a big topic of discussion at the lame-duck meeting of the old Dover school board. The question was raised again -- but not discussed -- at the first meeting of the new school board. As for Judge Jones, there are only two possibilities -- either he was aware of that question (whether the new school board would repeal the ID policy prior to the decision) or he is even dumber than I showed him to be.

Here is the news article about the meeting:

http://ydr.inyork.com/doverbiology/ci_3223198

The article said, "Judge John E. Jones III said the election results don't figure into his ruling." The only way the election results could possibly have affected his ruling would have been by a repeal of the ID policy by the new school board. So by saying that the election results would not figure into his ruling, he was essentially saying that a repeal of the ID policy would not figure into his ruling.

However, an "unscrupulous BVD-clad" reporter made that insinuation in a poorly written article.

Fatheaded Ed Brayton has a habit of writing poorly written articles containing wild claims that he just pulls out of the air. He also censors comments that correct him.

(3) Did Ed Brayton claim that Jones expressly said that repeal of the ID policy would not affect the decision, or not?
Yes. Like everyone else involved, including Larry and myself, he was fooled by the false implication of the reporter.

What false implication? And I wasn't fooled.

4) Is it considered appropriate for judges to give legal advice to litigants, or not?

The answer is situationally dependent. For example, the Circuit panel in Selman gave a number of suggestions to the litigants on what it would like to see in the event of a re-trial.

I have not been able to retrieve a copy of the appeals' court ruling that vacated and remanded Selman, but as I remember, that ruling only instructed the district court judge about his choices: either find the missing evidence or hold a new trial from scratch.

4b) Was Judge Jones explaining court procedure? Yes. According to Rule 25(d)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, "When a public officer is a party to an action in his official capacity and during its pendency dies, resigns, or otherwise ceases to hold office, the action does not abate and the officer?s successor is automatically substituted as a party."

No, he was not explaining court procedure. Rule 25(d)(1) has nothing to do with what effect a repeal of the ID policy prior to judgment might have had.

Since Jones's statement was neutral with regard to repealing the policy

No, it was not neutral with regard to repealing the policy. He was insinuating that it would do them no good to repeal the policy.

It should be noted that prior to the election, the new board members announced that they would wait until the judge ruled and that they would not appeal.

You have shown no evidence that they made such an announcement prior to the election, and it is doubtful that there was such an announcement because voter concern about the costs of the lawsuit was supposed to have been a big factor in the election, and the way to try and save on those costs would have been to repeal the ID policy immediately if not sooner.

Here is what the above news article said:

Several incoming board members, including Patricia Dapp, Terry Emig and Judy McIlvaine, said they want to hear what the judge has to say in the case. Some believe it will help bring closure and healing to the community.

They didn't say they would not appeal, but because they opposed the ID policy, it was doubtful that they would appeal. Anyway, they could have changed their minds about wanting to hear what the judge had to say. A former school board member used written advice from an attorney to try to persuade them to repeal the ID policy immediately. His effort to persuade them was undermined by Jones' statement that the election results would not affect his decision.

"Closure and healing to the community" -- haha -- what bullshit.

And they would have been going back on their campaign promise to let the case run its course.

As I noted above, you have shown no evidence that there was such a campaign promise, and such a campaign promise was doubtful.

Thank you for pointing out that the scheme proposed by the outgoing board member and his pet real estate attorney would have still resulted in attorney fees being paid, since the scheme involved getting a consent decree

You're not welcome. No attorney fees were paid in Buckhannon and there was no consent decree in Buckhannon.

As for "his pet real estate attorney" -- the legal question was of a general nature and no kind of specialized knowledge of a particular area of the law would have been of any benefit. And the attorney wrote a report -- it wasn't just off-the-cuff advice. And how are you better qualified to give legal opinions than he was?

It should also be noted that Buckhannon unequivocally stated that mootness is not available for voluntary cessation when damages are claimed ("And petitioners? fear of mischievous defendants only materializes in claims for equitable relief, for so long as the plaintiff has a cause of action for damages, a defendant?s change in conduct will not moot the case.") The Supreme Court had previously ruled that nominal damages are still considered damages, and Third Circuit precedence is that voluntary cessation does not induce mootness when nominal damages are claimed.

Kevin, you are so full of living crap that it is coming out of your ears. According to your line of reasoning, any plaintiff could prevent any case from being declared moot just by requesting nominal damages. That's absurd. Nominal damages are just a symbolic token of vindication -- they are like declaratory relief. Nominal damages are not intended to be a loophole for preventing cases from being mooted. And the defendant could end the claim to nominal damages just by paying them out of court.

However, the courts ruled that there was no indication that they would ever re-enact the challenged statute.

There was no such ruling. The courts don't have crystal balls.

[cue temper tantrum by Larry]

There is no need for a temper tantrum when your own statements show that you are just a stupid sack of ^%#$#@*.

I also showed that for the super-majority of their existence, the focus on systematics and the related fields of taxonomy and biogeography (as Jim would put it, process, product and location) was the de facto position.

You showed nothing of the kind. And you continue to show nothing of the kind.

Kevin, your arguments are almost always ridiculous and the only reason I answer you at all is for the benefit of readers who are unfamiliar with the facts.

Larry eructs:

"The question has not been answered by ViU, and the question was directed at him, not you. He still won't answer it.

I have answered it many times as those on this blog, other than you, can easily see. You still seem to have a reading comprehension problem.

"Fatheaded Ed Brayton has a habit of writing poorly written articles containing wild claims that he just pulls out of the air. He also censors comments that correct him."

No. Ed Brayton only blocks continued ad hominem attacks and sock puppetry, as in your case. He has never blocked your posts for other reasons since, as here, you make a perfect foil.

"Is it considered appropriate for judges to give legal advice to litigants, or not?"

A moot question since Judge Jones did not give legal advice. Please don't pretend that he did. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

"He was insinuating that it would do them no good to repeal the policy."

More mindless repetition in the hopes that a false statement will become true.

"His effort to persuade them was undermined by Jones' statement that the election results would not affect his decision."

Reading the date from a calendar is not advice that we are no longer in the nineteenth century.

[cue temper tantrum by Larry]
:There is no need for a temper tantrum when your own statements show that you are just a stupid sack of ^%#$#@*."

That looks like a temper tantrum.

"Kevin, your arguments are almost always ridiculous"

They look pretty good to the sane.

"and the only reason I answer you at all is"

The hope that readers are unfamiliar with the facts.

ViU driveled,

I have answered it many times as those on this blog, other than you, can easily see.

If you answered the question, your answer is far back in this comment thread and I am not going to go on a wild goose chase trying to find it, so I am asking you to answer it again here.

"Is it considered appropriate for judges to give legal advice to litigants, or not?"
A moot question since Judge Jones did not give legal advice.

It is not a moot question. Fatheaded Ed Brayton said that Judge "Jackass" Jones gave legal advice to the new school board members, i.e., Fatheaded Ed said that Jones told them that repealing the ID policy prior to judgment would not do them any good. So either Fatheaded Ed lied or Jackass Jones did something wrong -- take your pick.

I'm always kicking ViU's butt -- that's why he doesn't like me.

Regarding Kevin Vicklund's crazy notion that nominal damages alone prevent a case from being mooted, the opinion in Alpha Iota Omega Christian Fraternity v. Hamm said on page 29,

"...... the court in its discretion will not allow the continuation of a lawsuit merely to allow Plaintiffs to seek nominal damages, which, even if proven, would be limited to one dollar."

-- from http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2006/05/ed-brayton-wrong-again-on-…

Try to read this time, Larry. I know that you generally comment without reading.
(1) Did a newspaper report that Judge Jones said that the election would not affect his decision, or not?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Judge Jones said properly that the election would not affect his decision. What you fail to realize is that saying that he would make his decision according to the law and not from a popularity contest, is not giving legal advice.

Now prove as always that you don't understand this.

"I am asking you to answer it again here."

I just did again and you will still not understand it.

"Fatheaded Ed Brayton said that Judge "Jackass" Jones gave legal advice to the new school board members"

Another Fafarmanism - repeating a falsehood in hopes that it will become true.

"i.e., Fatheaded Ed said that Jones told them that repealing the ID policy prior to judgment would not do them any good."

That is not what Ed said. You are paraphrasing incorrectly, as always.

"So either Fatheaded Ed lied or Jackass Jones did something wrong -- take your pick.

No. Fatheaded Larry lied and Judge Jones did nothing wrong.

"I'm always kicking ViU's butt -- that's why he doesn't like me."

I have never seen you win an argument with anyone on the net. You are living in a dream world as all can see.

ViU driveled,

Judge Jones said properly that the election would not affect his decision. What you fail to realize is that saying that he would make his decision according to the law

And what you fail to realize is that the only way in which the election might have affected his decision would have been by a repeal of the ID policy by the new school board. In what other way might the election have affected his decision? So by saying that the election would not affect his decision, he was essentially saying that repeal of the ID policy would not affect his decision. That's improperly giving legal advice to the defendants.

"i.e., Fatheaded Ed said that Jones told them that repealing the ID policy prior to judgment would not do them any good."
That is not what Ed said. You are paraphrasing incorrectly, as always.

Sigh. Here again is what Fatheaded Ed said:

Board president Reinking noted that legal counsel advised the board that the trial is over and can not change the outcome of any vote.

This is the same position, by the way, that was taken by everyone involved in the case, including the attorneys for both sides. It's the same position taken by the Judge in the case. It's the same position taken by every legal scholar who addressed the issue. There was virtually no chance that the case would be mooted.

from --

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/04/francisco_discovers_weasel_w…

I am not responsible for the poor, inaccurate wording of Fatheaded Ed's statement, "Board president Reinking noted that legal counsel advised the board that the trial is over and can not change the outcome of any vote," but in the context of that statement, it is obvious that Fatheaded Ed meant what I said he meant.

ViU, you are just wasting my time and cluttering up this blog with needless discussion of issues that have long been settled in my favor.

I have really kicked ViU's and Kevin Vicklund's pettifogging butts through the goalposts this time. Field goal.

"So by saying that the election would not affect his decision, he was essentially saying that repeal of the ID policy would not affect his decision."

What a twisted amount of illogic. Let's try again Cretin. What he was saying was that he would go by the law in making his decision. If the law goes against your people, no amount of mindless repetition would make his statement giving legal advice.

"That is not what Ed said. You are paraphrasing incorrectly, as always."

"Sigh. Here again is what Fatheaded Ed said:

Board president Reinking noted that legal counsel advised the board that the trial is over and can not change the outcome of any vote."

Thank you for proving my point.

"it is obvious that Fatheaded Ed meant what I said he meant."

Sorry. Ed said what he said, not what you misinterpreted.

"ViU, you are just wasting my time and cluttering up this blog with needless discussion of issues that have long been settled in my favor."

Have you ever won an argument? Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. You don't seem to meet even that standard.

"I have really kicked ViU's and Kevin Vicklund's pettifogging butts through the goalposts this time. Field goal."

The idiot actually believes that his mindless repetition and ignoring the conclusive arguments against his position means that he has won his argument. Does anyone wonder why he has an unbroken record of failure in the courts?

ViU, how many times do I have to kick your lousy butt through the goalposts before you give up? Kevin Vicklund surrendered a long time ago. Probably most readers -- including the blogger -- have just gotten bored with your mindless repetition of frivolous comments and left this comment thread a long time ago.

What he was saying was that he would go by the law in making his decision.

You keep repeating that mantra over and over again like a broken record. Of course a judge should follow the law or what he thinks is the law -- that goes without saying. What Jones actually said, according to the newspaper article, was that the election results would not affect his decision. Also, you didn't answer my following question:

. . .the only way in which the election might have affected his decision would have been by a repeal of the ID policy by the new school board. In what other way might the election have affected his decision?

"it is obvious that Fatheaded Ed meant what I said he meant."
Ed said what he said, not what you misinterpreted.

You stupid fathead, Fatheaded Ed meant to say that a vote (of the board) could not affect the outcome of the trial, not that the trial "cannot change the outcome of any vote." Anyway, according to Ed, Judge Jones agreed with what Ed meant to say and therefore Ed indicated that Judge Jones improperly gave legal advice to the defendants.

Have you ever won an argument?

I have won this argument several times over and have won every other argument against you Darwinist trolls.

The idiot actually believes that his mindless repetition

Who is making "mindless repetition" here? Who is repeating over and over again like a broken record, The judge said that he would go by the law in making his decision -- The judge said that he would go by the law in making his decision -- The judge said that he would go by the law in making his decision -- The judge said that he would go by the law in making his decision -- click - click -- this is a recording -- even though that is not what the newspaper reported that he said?

Does anyone wonder why he has an unbroken record of failure in the courts?

I lost my cases because judges are as stupid and dishonest as you are -- see

http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-i-lost-my-smog-fee-law…

ViU, there is no more reason for me to waste my time answering you here, because all sensible readers have left this discussion after getting tired of your drivel.

ViU is just a sore loser -- that's what he is.

"ViU, how many times do I have to kick your lousy butt through the goalposts before you give up?"

Perhaps if you ever did it once we might find out. All we see is them showing you to be a fool.

"Kevin Vicklund surrendered a long time ago."

I certainly didn't see that. He left after he had shot your arguments to rags and realized that you would never learn. ViU has shown that he likes to pick the wings off of flies, so he continues.

"Of course a judge should follow the law or what he thinks is the law -- that goes without saying."

Yet you still believe that saying that he will do so is "giving legal advice"?

"Also, you didn't answer my following question:"

He has answered it repeatedly. The answer seems to go over your head, simple as it is.

"Fatheaded Ed meant to say..."

Exactly what he said. You seem to be particularly inept at determining what anyone meant to say.

"I lost my cases because judges are as stupid and dishonest as you are"

No. You lost your cases because you are incompetent. Kevin has shown that repeatedly.

As the saying goes, don't feed the trolls. I have fed the trolls here for too long already. Trolls are sore losers who just keep repeating the same refuted arguments over and over again.

All I need to do now is just refer the readers to my previous comments where I completely demolish the trolls' arguments.

Here we see the usual antics from Larry Farfromsane. After having every argument demolished, he repeats them a few more times and then declares victory and runs away.

If there is a point anywhere where you have ever won an argument about anything, pleasse post it here for our enlightenment.

Hectoring Hector drivels,

Here we see the usual antics from Larry Farfromsane. After having every argument demolished, he repeats them a few more times and then declares victory and runs away.

You lousy disgusting sack of *(+%#, I didn't "run away" -- I left my comments here to do the job for me. Those comments are going to keep kicking your lousy butts through the goalposts until the end of time.

The other trolls couldn't even get their facts straight after I repeatedly corrected them. Some trolls just kept droning, "The judge said that he would go by the law in making his decision."

That lousy jerk Judge "Jackass" Jones showed extreme prejudice by saying in his Dickinson College commencement speech that his Dover decision was based on his notion that the Founders based the establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions. Court precedent required him to show neutrality towards organized religions. But did I keep repeating over and over again that he actually said that he "did not go by the law in making his decision"? No, I only quoted or paraphrased what he actually said.

Under the Social Darwinism that you trolls love so much, you trolls would be among the first to be euthanized for the purpose of making a tremendous improvement in the overall intelligence of the human race.

"I left my comments here to do the job for me."

Yes those comments will be showing your failure until the end of time.

"The other trolls couldn't even get their facts straight after I repeatedly corrected them."

Your mindless repetition was not "correction". You still are imagining that Judge Jones gave legal advice despite the fact that your misinterpretation has been shown to be due to your demonstrated problem with reading comprehension.

You still are imagining that Judge Jones gave legal advice

I said that I wouldn't comment any more here but the temptation to kick Darwinist troll butt is irresistible.

It's not just a matter of whether Judge Jones gave legal advice, jackass, it's also a matter of whether you trolls got your facts straight. You can't even get straight what the newspaper actually reported as Judge Jones' statement. It's like me saying that Jones literally said in his Dickinson College commencement speech that his Dover decision did not follow judicial precedent. In denouncing his speech, I started with what he actually said and then proceeded from there.

The trolls' comments here are so asinine that I am afraid readers suspect that they are planted by myself or a straight man.

"I said that I wouldn't comment any more here but the temptation to kick Darwinist troll butt is irresistible."

So far you have only been able to do that in your dreams.

"It's not just a matter of whether Judge Jones gave legal advice"

So you finally admit that he didn't.

"You can't even get straight what the newspaper actually reported as Judge Jones' statement.

You rarely cite anything verbatim. You give your insane interpretation of what was said.

"I started with what he actually said"

And then pulled an outrageous misinterpretation out of your ass.

As I said, kicking Darwinist troll butt is just too much fun.

"It's not just a matter of whether Judge Jones gave legal advice"

So you finally admit that he didn't.

You stupid fathead -- stating a question is not the same as answering it.

"You can't even get straight what the newspaper actually reported as Judge Jones' statement.

You rarely cite anything verbatim. You give your insane interpretation of what was said.

What a brazen-faced varlet thou art to accuse me of doing the exact dishonest thing that you do. You stupid sack of &%*$@, here is the newspaper article --

http://ydr.inyork.com/doverbiology/ci_3223198

The article said, verbatim, "Judge John E. Jones III said the election results don't figure into his ruling." The newspaper did not say, "Judge John E. Jones III said that he would go by the law in making his ruling."

So, if we start with his true statement that the election would not figure into his ruling, the next question is how the election results could possibly affect his ruling. The answer is that the only way the election results could have possibly affected his ruling would have been by repeal of the ID policy prior to judgment. So by saying that the election would not figure into his ruling, Jones was implicitly saying that a repeal of the ID policy would not figure into his ruling. That was improperly giving legal advice to the Dover school board. It doesn't matter if the advice was good or bad, it was still legal advice, and judges are not supposed to give legal advice to litigants. The "best" legal advice from a judge is like the "best butter" story about the March Hare who put butter in his watch in Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll certainly had jerks like you in mind when he wrote that story). That is the only conclusion a sane person could reach. All of your crap dodging what the newspaper actually said is just an attempt to avoid that line of reasoning.

"I started with what he actually said"

And then pulled an outrageous misinterpretation out of your ass.

You can't get the right answer if you don't start with the facts -- and you don't start with the facts.

ViU, you are just a sore loser -- that's all there is to it.

I think I finally did it -- ViU has finally shut up. I think it was the "best butter" argument that did it.

I have perhaps been a bit dogmatic about scientific journals following their editorial guidelines. Here is a counter example. At the time, Copeia, the publication of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, had, and still has, a prohibition on accepting papers which only report range extentions. However, the editors thought this paper of sufficient general interest to justify suspension of editorial policy in this one instance.

"The Bull Shark, Carcharhinus leucas, from the Upper Mississippi River near Alton, Illinois. Jamie E. Thomerson, Thomas B. Thorson, and Ronald L. Hempel. Copeia 1977, No. 1, 166-168.

I observed "You rarely cite anything verbatim. You give your insane interpretation of what was said."

To which the Cretin ranted:

"...verbatim, "Judge John E. Jones III said the election results don't figure into his ruling."

Following this he went on to prove my point:

"So, if we start with his true statement that the election would not figure into his ruling,..."

After which he pulls his insane interpretation out of his ass.

"That is the only conclusion a sane person could reach."

Unfortunately for Larry, he has no way of knowing what a sane person would think.

He further brays:

"You can't get the right answer if you don't start with the facts"

Yet he has just given an example of where he takes Jones' actual statement and then gives his wild misinterpretation. Usually he doesn't even begin with the acutal statement, just his misinterpretation.

Then he crows:
"I think I finally did it -- ViU has finally shut up."

Actually my absense of three days was due to a business trip. Larry wouldn't know about such things since he was fired from his last job more than a decade (or has it been two) ago.

I drifted away from the thread, because Larry was devolving into his usual mindless off-topic repetition. I saw Jim made a post, and then saw that Larry brought up a point that I feel should be addressed, as it has some general implications that could be harmful to readers that may be involved in litigation in the future.

Regarding Kevin Vicklund's crazy notion that nominal damages alone prevent a case from being mooted, the opinion in Alpha Iota Omega Christian Fraternity v. Hamm said on page 29,

"...... the court in its discretion will not allow the continuation of a lawsuit merely to allow Plaintiffs to seek nominal damages, which, even if proven, would be limited to one dollar."

What Larry isn't telling the reader is that the Plaintiffs were seeking to amend the complaint after the potentially mooting action had already occurred. The threshold for amending a complaint is higher than the one for making an original complaint, for good reason. If it weren't, mendacious litigants could continuously throw amendments at a defendant, tying the courts up for years and costing the defendants millions in excess attorney fees that wouldn't have been needed had the amendments been included in the original complaint (of course, there are times when an amendment is appropriate, so there are rules allowing for them). In the case at hand, the District Court in its discretion decided that the attempt to amend a claim for nominal damages was merely a ploy to extend the litigation, not an attempt to gain the real benefit normally conveyed by the award of nominal damages (in other words, why didn't they ask for it in the first place?)

Oh, and it should be noted that it isn't just my "crazy notion" - all of the numbered Circuit Courts have precedents stating the nominal damages normally preclude mootness. More in a moment...

Kevin, you are so full of living crap that it is coming out of your ears. According to your line of reasoning, any plaintiff could prevent any case from being declared moot just by requesting nominal damages. That's absurd. Nominal damages are just a symbolic token of vindication -- they are like declaratory relief. Nominal damages are not intended to be a loophole for preventing cases from being mooted.

It is just as absurd as the line of reasoning that "any plaintiff could prevent any case from being declared moot just by requesting" compensatory "damages." Nominal damages are indeed analogous in some ways to declaratory judgment, they also have important differences, and the Supreme Court has acknowledge the importance of the vindication conveyed by an award of nominal damages. That they are underutilized because some people disparage their importance does not mean that they aren't important to the people who do ask for them. Just like healing and closure, where Larry's disdain does not lessen the actual relief felt by many of the citizens of Dover at having a coherent resolution to the case. This disdain merely demonstrates the character of the person, not the value of the relief.

Larry does make a good point - nominal damages should not be used as a loophole. And the courts agree. As in the case Larry noted, the courts are reluctant to permit plaintiffs from amending nominal damages after it appears the case would be mooted, including the Supreme Court.

An astute opserver will have noticed that I didn't directly refute Larry's absurdity claim and that I said nominal damages normally precludes mootness. If said observer were to believe those two to be related, that observer would indeed be correct. In order for nominal damages to preclude mootness, the plaintiff has to be able to establish that he is in fact entitled to request nominal damages (this is known as standing). Some defendants, such as States and their officers, are immune to damage claims. Sometimes damages are barred by statute. Then there's the case of Chapin Furniture:

Chapin contends, however, that even if its claims for declaratory and injunctive relief have been mooted by the Revised Ordinance, its claim for nominal damages yet presents a live controversy.5 Chapin posits that "for so long as the plaintiff has a cause of action for damages, a defendant's change in conduct will not moot the case." Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc v. W. Va. Dep't of Health & Human Res., 532 U.S. 598, 608-09 (2001). This proposition is normally valid, and it has been applied where a plaintiff is only pursuing a claim for nominal damages. See Henson v. Honor Comm. of the Univ. of Va., 719 F.2d 69, 72 n.5 (4th Cir. 1983) (observing that withdrawal of disciplinary charges did not moot claim because plaintiff also sought nominal damages); see also KH Outdoor, LLC v. Clay County, 482 F.3d 1299, 1303 (11th Cir. 2007) (noting that, because nominal damages were requested, changes made to ordinance did not moot claim).

Chapin's assertion of a nominal damages claim alone is insufficient to preserve a live controversy, however, as the Ordinance was never enforced against it and it has not suffered any constitutional deprivation. See Tanner Adver. Group, LLC v. Fayette County, 451 F.3d 777, 786 (11th Cir. 2006) (concluding that "request for damages that is barred as a matter of law cannot save a case from mootness")(citing Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 69 (1997)). The Supreme Court's decision in Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 254 (1978), "obligates a court to award nominal damages when a plaintiff establishes the violation of [a constitutional right] but cannot prove actual injury." Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 112 (1992). As the Supreme Court has observed, "[w]hatever the constitutional basis for § 1983 liability, such damages must always be designed to compensate injuries caused by the [constitutional] deprivation." Memphis Cmty. Sch. Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 309-10 (1986) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, although Chapin need not prove an actual, compensable injury in order to recover nominal damages, it must nevertheless show that a constitutional deprivation occurred. Id. at 308 n.11; see also Reyes, 300 F.3d at 453 ("Nominal damages may be available in a § 1983 case if a plaintiff was deprived of an absolute right yet did not suffer an actual injury."); Williams v. Griffin, 952 F.2d 820, 825 n.2 (4th Cir. 1991) (concluding that "in the absence of a showing of actual injury, [plaintiff] would still be entitled to nominal damages upon proof of a constitutional violation").

In the absence of a constitutional deprivation, Chapin's nominal damages claim does not save this case from mootness. Moreover, the fact that Chapin could have suffered some constitutional deprivation if the Town had enforced the Ordinance does not save its claim for nominal damages - such damages are reserved for constitutional deprivations that have occurred, not those that are merely speculative. See Tanner, 451 F.3d at 786-87 (concluding that claims of appellant could not be saved from mootness by claim for damages where sign ordinance had not caused harm); see also Comm. for the First Amendment v. Campbell, 962 F.2d 1517, 1526 (10th Cir. 1992) (finding that, although adoption of new policy mooted claims for injunctive relief, "the district court erred in dismissing the nominal damages claim which relates to past (not future) conduct") (emphasis in original).

The opinion continues on to contrast a similar case in which it did determine that the nominal damage claim precluded mootness and explained the differences between the cases. It should be noted that this is a 4th Circuit Court opinion - the same circuit as the District Court case Larry cited, and more recent. While Chapin is not itself pecedential, it affirms previous 4th Circuit cases that are precedential.

More importantly, the precedent of the 3rd Circuit is what is binding on Judge Jones. There are a half dozen precedential decisions in the circuit that affirm that nominal damages preclude mootness. One such is Doe v. Delie:

Doe's acquittal has clearly mooted his claims for declaratory and injunctive relief.

Nonetheless, where a plaintiff has requested several forms of relief and some of the requests become moot, the court must still consider the viability of the remaining requests. Jersey Cent. Power & Light Co. v. State of New Jersey, 772 F.2d 35, 40 (3d Cir. 1985). "[T]he availability of damages or other monetary relief almost always avoids mootness." Id. at 41.3 Therefore, we must review the District Court's qualified immunity analysis with respect to Doe's nominal and punitive damages claims.

Although Larry will try to obfuscate by pointing out that there was also a claim for punitive damages, the presence of damages didn't prevent the declaratory and injuctive claims from being mooted.

And the defendant could end the claim to nominal damages just by paying them out of court.

This is a claim Larry invented out of thin air. He has never been able to cite any caselaw that actually supports his absurd claim. A party can not force another party to accept an out-of-court settlement, and the courts can't punish a party for turning down a settlement offer. The closest thing to an exception to this is FRCP Rule 68, in which a defendant may make an Offer of Judgment. If the plaintiff turns the Rule 68 offer down, the case proceeds to trial, and if the relief awarded does not exceed the offer, the plaintiff is charged with the defendant's costs accrued after the offer was made. The tricky part comes in when you consider that costs, including attorney fees where applicable, are included in the equation.

So what happens if the defendant offers the maximum relief possible? The courts have ruled that if the offer is made timely and includes costs, under Rule 12(b)(1) [not 12(b)(6) like Larry claims] the plaintiff is awarded the offer and the case is dismissed. If, however, the offer is made less than 10 days before trial starts, or if the offer doesn't include all possible relief the court could award plus costs, the trial moves forward (though the defendants could simply not show up at trial and have a Default Judgment entered against them). Since attorney fees are part of the relief that could be granted in the Dover case, the maximum possible relief must include attorney fees.

Of course, in the end it doesn't really matter what Larry or I believe. What matters is how the courts actually work, and until Larry can come up with something other than bluster and quotemines, I have confidence that the courts actually do work the way I claim they do. Nor do I necessarily agree with the way the courts work. But my opinion on whether the courts are correct does not alter the way they actually act - something that Larry does not seem to comprehend.

In response to Jim's post, rather than being dogmatic, you have demonstrated that it is very rare for a journal to deviate, and when it does, it does so only after careful consideration by the entire staff. Once in 30 years!

To bring Larry back on-topic (I am done with the off-topic stuff for this thread - unlike Larry, I understand that debates are won by the best argument, not the last word), I would ask him to elaborate on the following statement he made:

The description of new species and genera are the core of systematics

Not necessarily. The classification of a new species/genera could be obvious and the rest of a paper about a new species/genera could be about other things.

I am truly curious as to what Larry thinks would go into a paper describing a new species that wouldn't be considered taxonomy or systematics. In a train wreck sort of way, of course.

Also, cladistic taxonomy involves a lot of classification of known organisms, not just classification of newly discovered organisms. So why doesn't the journal have more papers that discuss systematics without introducing a new species or genus?

Probably because new species and genera are discovered at a higher rate than known organisms need to be reclassified.

I don't have my bibliography at hand. I've done mostly alpha taxonomy, description of new species and revision of genera, some 20+ examples. When describing a new species one has to show how the species is diferent from similar species. This may lead to a generic level revision, and likely include a key for identification of the different species of the genus. I've been involved in description of two new genera. In one case a new species would not fit into any existing genera. In another, a species previously assigned to a genus, on additional information, clearly did not belong there, so a new genus was created. The second case was a generic level revision also involving the description of new species and the synonomizing of old species. Another generic level revision involved the recognition of new species based, in part, on DNA information.

I've been a co-author on only one higher level study; a DNA phylogeny of the killifish family Rivulidae. In scientific work, I use my real first name, Jamie. So you can google me if you care to find some examples of how I do things.

My apologies, Jim. I didn't look closely at the author list, so I misinterpreted your post to mean that you had to look way back to 1977 in that journal to find a counter example. I certainly did not mean to impugn your credentials!

Anyway, the point I was driving at stands, regardless of my faux pas - while going outside of the normal guidelines is permissible, it should be uncommon and undertaken only with due consideration of the whole editorial staff. The reason, of course, is that a journal that deviates too often loses its niche market and will find itself in a losing competition with the big journals.

Pettifogger Kevin strikes again.

What Larry isn't telling the reader is that the Plaintiffs were seeking to amend the complaint after the potentially mooting action had already occurred.

Of course I didn't tell the reader that, because it's irrelevant -- that was not the reason the judge gave for dismissing the case. The reason he gave was, "...... the court in its discretion will not allow the continuation of a lawsuit merely to allow Plaintiffs to seek nominal damages, which, even if proven, would be limited to one dollar."

It is just as absurd as the line of reasoning that "any plaintiff could prevent any case from being declared moot just by requesting" compensatory "damages."

No it's not, because compensatory damages are "real." Nominal damages are not real.

As in the case Larry noted, the courts are reluctant to permit plaintiffs from amending nominal damages after it appears the case would be mooted, including the Supreme Court.

You have not shown that it makes any difference to the courts whether the nominal damages claim is in the original complaint or in an amended complaint.

In order for nominal damages to preclude mootness, the plaintiff has to be able to establish that he is in fact entitled to request nominal damages

The plaintiff is always entitled to "request" nominal damages -- whether the plaintiff is entitled to nominal damages is another issue. The only way the plaintiff would be entitled to nominal damages would be by an award of declaratory relief, injunctive relief, or some other kind of relief. If all other claims -- e.g., claims for declaratory and injunctive relief -- are dismissed, then any claim for nominal damages is moot.

Kevin, your own quotation from Chapin contradicts your theory:

In the absence of a constitutional deprivation, Chapin's nominal damages claim does not save this case from mootness. Moreover, the fact that Chapin could have suffered some constitutional deprivation if the Town had enforced the Ordinance does not save its claim for nominal damages - such damages are reserved for constitutional deprivations that have occurred, not those that are merely speculative.

======================================

The opinion continues on to contrast a similar case in which it did determine that the nominal damage claim precluded mootness and explained the differences between the cases.

You have not cited a single case where a case was continued when nominal damages was the sole surviving claim and there was not some other surviving claim such as a claim for declaratory or injunctive relief. A nominal damage claim is very easy to satisfy -- all the defendant has to do is give the plaintiff $1 out of court.

And the defendant could end the claim to nominal damages just by paying them out of court.
This is a claim Larry invented out of thin air. He has never been able to cite any caselaw that actually supports his absurd claim.

Of course I have not been able to cite any caselaw, because no sane judge (and many are not) would make dismissal of a case conditional upon the defendant's payment of $1 to the plaintiff.

If the plaintiff turns the Rule 68 offer down, the case proceeds to trial, and if the relief awarded does not exceed the offer, the plaintiff is charged with the defendant's costs accrued after the offer was made.

In Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc v. W. Va. Dep't of Health & Human Res., 532 U.S. 598 (2001), the Supreme Court denied attorney fees, even though the lawsuit caused the change in the defendant's behavior (the idea that the plaintiff is entitled to attorney fees when the lawsuit is dismissed because the lawsuit caused voluntary cessation is called the "catalyst rule" or "catalyst theory").

A party can not force another party to accept an out-of-court settlement, and the courts can't punish a party for turning down a settlement offer.

I assert that when a plaintiff turns down a settlement offer that equals or exceeds the maximum relief that could possibly be granted by the court, then the judge may dismiss the lawsuit for "not stating a claim upon which relief can be granted," FRCP 12(b)(6), because the court could not grant more relief than what is offered by the defendant. BTW, unscrupulous BVD-clad blogger Fatheaded Ed Brayton kicked me off his blog permanently because of that statement.

The closest thing to an exception to this is FRCP Rule 68, in which a defendant may make an Offer of Judgment.

The issue in the Dover case was "voluntary cessation" -- whether the new Dover school board would repeal the ID policy prior to judgment. FRCP Rule 68 does not apply to "voluntary cessation" because there is not necessarily any offer, acceptance, or agreed-upon judgment in a "voluntary cessation" -- the defendant could just cease the challenged activity without negotiating with the plaintiff. FRCP Rule 68 says,

Rule 68. Offer of Judgment

(a) Making an Offer; Judgment on an Accepted Offer.
More than 10 days before the trial begins, a party defending against a claim may serve on an opposing party an offer to allow judgment on specified terms, with the costs then accrued. If, within 10 days after being served, the opposing party serves written notice accepting the offer, either party may then file the offer and notice of acceptance, plus proof of service. The clerk must then enter judgment.

=============================

I have confidence that the courts actually do work the way I claim they do.

And I have confidence that the courts do not work the way you claim they do.

Kevin,

I am truly curious as to what Larry thinks would go into a paper describing a new species that wouldn't be considered taxonomy or systematics.

That is a really stupid, stupid question. There can be any number of traits, features, or parts of an organism that have nothing to do with that organism's taxonomic classifications. For example, humans are mammals because we have mammary glands, sexual reproduction, spines, etc., but there is a lot more to us than just the features and traits that make us mammals and primates.

Larry brays:

"Of course I didn't tell the reader that, because it's irrelevant"

As usual you didn't understand what Kevin said. There is no use on elaborating on this because, as with everything else, it would go over your bald head.

"compensatory damages are "real." Nominal damages are not real."

Nominal damages may not be large expenses but they are definitely real.

Kevin stated:

"As in the case Larry noted, the courts are reluctant to permit plaintiffs from amending nominal damages after it appears the case would be mooted, including the Supreme Court."

Which, like the rising of the Sun, was misinterpreted by Larry:

"You have not shown that it makes any difference to the courts whether the nominal damages claim is in the original complaint or in an amended complaint."

Good grief, Larry. Have one of your attendants explain this simple concept to you.

Kevin said:

"In order for nominal damages to preclude mootness, the plaintiff has to be able to establish that he is in fact entitled to request nominal damages"

To which the idiot replied.

"The plaintiff is always entitled to "request" nominal damages -- whether the plaintiff is entitled to nominal damages is another issue."

Yes. People can make any foolish motion that they want. They can even file frivolous lawsuits, like you have done. If they do so, their credibility with the court will go through the floor, as yours has, and they could even be charged with abuse of process. You have not been because nobody has ever taken you seriously.

"Kevin, your own quotation from Chapin contradicts your theory:"

Only if you "interpret" it incorrectly.

"BTW, unscrupulous BVD-clad blogger Fatheaded Ed Brayton kicked me off his blog permanently because of that statement."

Larry, as always, repeats this lie. We all know why you were kicked off of Ed's and many other blogs.

Kevin says:

"I have confidence that the courts actually do work the way I claim they do."

Larry brays:

"And I have confidence that the courts do not work the way you claim they do."

Let's see. Who should we believe? Should we believe Larry, who has had every case he ever filed laughed out of court? My money is on Kevin.

Kevin wisely asks:"I am truly curious as to what Larry thinks would go into a paper describing a new species that wouldn't be considered taxonomy or systematics."

We would all like to know the answer, but Larry has no answer so he says:

"That is a really stupid, stupid question."

Larry. If you don't have a good answer for a question, don't call attention to your ignorance. Don't point out your weaknesses. If you are in a hole, stop digging.

"but there is a lot more to us than just the features and traits that make us mammals and primates.

Us? Well the rest of us are primates. I don't know about you.

Larry is somewhat correct in saying any organism might have traits not useful in taxonomic classification. However any trait is fair game. It is just that some are not useful at a particular level of classification. Because mammals have four-chambered hearts, this is useful in distinguishing them from amphibians. On the other hand, because both humans and chimps are mammals, we already know they have four chambered hearts, so that would probably go unmentioned in a comparison of humans and chimps.

The job of editors and reviewers is to determine if a paper is appropriate for publication in the particular journal, and, if so, the paper is of appropriate quality for the journal. Generally there are two or more experts asked to review the manuscript. Editors ask reviewers to comment on the appropriateness of the paper. Reviewers are also specifically asked if the title is appropriate; and then asked to rank the paper as (1) publishable as is, (2) publishable with minor revision, (3) in need of major revision, or (4) not acceptable for publication. Reviewers suggest revisions, etc. The goal is to provide the journal with the best possible papers, and to help authors submit the best possible papers.

The first paper I was given to review by an editor was an description of a new subspecies of killifish. The description was based on an arithmetic mistake, and the paper never saw the light of day. I was asked to review the paper because I had done a lot of the kind of figuring involved, so the mistake just jumped out at me.

Summary Judgment in California Creationist Case: Behe Shoots, Scores, We Get Point (Part 3 of 3)

tqa — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:50:40 +0000

Summary Judgment in California Creationist Case: Behe Shoots, Scores, We Get Point (Part 3 of 3)

Given that today really is April 1st, let me start by saying that although Behe is a fool, this post isn't a joke. Everything you're about to read is real. This is the third part of my post on the summary judgment decision in the California Creationist Case. Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.

It would seem that Mike Behe has, once again, managed to shoot an own goal in the courtroom. The last time that he was an expert witness, during the Dover case, the judge quoted extensively from Behe's testimony, but not in a way that he particularly liked. Ultimately, it seems that he scored more points for his opponents than he did for his friends. He's also an expert witness in the California Creationism Case, and he seems to have once again managed to put the ball right through the wrong goal.

Behe's contribution to the pro-science side of the case appears on page 40 of the written order:

Plaintiff's evidence also supports Defendants' conclusion that these biology texts are inappropriate for use as the primary or sole text. Plaintiffs' own biology expert, Professor Michael Behe, testified that "it is personally abusive and pedagogically damaging to de facto require students to subscribe to an idea. . . . Requiring a student to, effectively, consent to an idea violates [her] personal integrity. Such a wrenching violation [may cause] a terrible educational outcome." (Behe Decl. Para. 59.)
Yet, the two Christian biology texts at issue commit this "wrenching violation." For example, Biology for Christian Schools declares on the very first page that:

(1) "'Whatever the Bible says is so; whatever man says may or may not be so,' is the only [position] a Christian can take. . . ."

(2) "If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."

(3) "Christians must disregard [scientific hypotheses or theories] that contradict the Bible." (Phillips Decl. Ex. B, at xi.)

Based on the facts, I'm confident that the judge would have been able to reach the decision that the books used by the Christian schools were inappropriate even without Behe's able assistance. Nevertheless, we should probably thank him for (accidentally) helping us out again.

tqa Tue, 04/01/2008 - 09:50

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Q moaned,

Larry asserts The Supreme Court has long since ceased requiring lower courts to use it. (it = the Lemon Test)

Nuh uh.

Wrong -- the answer is uh uh. See the Wikipedia article on the Lemon test. Also, the Supreme Court can hardly expect lower courts to use the Lemon test when the SC itself sometimes does not use it -- see

http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2006/05/aptly-named-lemon-test-suc…

Anyway, the Lemon test is irrelevant here -- it applies only to cases where there appears to be a government endorsement of religion.

Read amendment 1. The constitution says that the government must not establish any religion. It also says that the government cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion. It does not mention accomodate.

The Supreme Court said in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 673,

Nor does the Constitution require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any. -- see http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0465_0668_ZO.ht…

Larry asks UC offers remediation to students with deficient English skills, so why not offer remediation to the fundy students?

Maybe you should check if there are any laws affecting ESL.

The Subject A English requirement dates back to at least the mid-1960's -- I don't think that it has anything to do with ESL laws.

If, as you suggest, those people could take those classes, then they could just as well take those classes in a community college

That is what I call a "let them eat cake" argument. They could also go to a private university or an out-of-state public university. That does not justify denying them admission to UC.

Larry extrapolates If you ever had your lawsuit totally ignored by the courts (obviously you haven't), ...

Obviously? Where did that ESP come from?

As I said, time that the courts spend on high-profile cases takes time away from low-profile cases. Anyone who ever had their low-profile case completely ignored by a court would not want a court to unnecessarily complicate a high-profile case.

Larry reminds the readers Anyway, what I do on my own blog is off-topic here.

And I fully agree. Bringing up stuff from another blog is simply setting up a smokescreen.

Thank you -- at last a voice of reason. ViU is trying to clutter up this blog with a debate about what I do on my own blog, and I don't even censor comments about that on my own blog.

I found that it is online, but requires a subscription to see.

I am able to view the decision without paying a subscription.

Voice in the Urbanness said,

The Constitution does not require religion or mythology to be taught as science.

There is no constitutional separation of bad science and state.

Because your suit was thrown out on other grounds.

No, bozo, there were no grounds. As I said, there was no oral hearing and no written opinion. There is no shred of evidence that Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter ever read the briefs in the case.

> Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter

This from someone who decries personal attacks.

I don't decry personal attacks -- except for some kinds of personal attacks (see below).

I don't consider mention of your total failure in lawsuits to be personal gossip.

I don't consider discussion of my lawsuits to be "personal gossip." By personal gossip, I mean discussions of where I live, how I live, my reasons for leaving former employment, who knows me personally, those kinds of things. Anyway, derogatory comments about my lawsuits are just ad hominem attacks -- it is just a way of dodging the issues here.

Followup to Larry.

Check this copy of a German birth certificate from 1938.

http://www.magazinepublisher.com/family/images/birthcertif.jpg

Notice the term "Religion"?

Here's one for a person born in 1896. Notice the spot for "Religion"
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.anythinganywhere.com/com…

Look at lots of means to identify a person' religion in Nazi Germany, here.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS237US237&q=german…

Gods, I love Michael Behe. Never fails to shoot his own side in the foot, in an amusing way. Let's all chip in and send him flowers.

Actually Behe IS on our side. And he doesn't hide it. Whenever he's pushed, he affirms that evolution is an accurate statement of reality and that he agrees with an ancient earth, common ancestry and evolution. In the meantime he milks the creationists every decade with another book that recycles tired old arguments. When he gets pulled in front of a judge, he make a token effort and either takes a dive or carefully points out the flaws in his own token argument.

His faint support is brilliant. He manages to make a career and good money from creationists while subtly castrating them. If he didn't show up someone else might.

Other choice moments from the decision - seriously if folks have got the time peruse it, it's basically "Plaintiffs argue A and A is proven to be completely totally false and also plaintiffs dont really know what they're doing."

On page 16, lines 17-19:

{
Finally, Plaintiffs futilely attempt to distinguish Forbes by incorrectly characterizing the decision as one involving "a public school prescribing its curriculum." Forbes did not involve a public school, it involved a public television station...
}

It wasn't clear to me that the judge quite understood what Behe was trying to say. The first page of the quoted text is most emphatically NOT a "wrenching violation" of the ideas trained into the students bringing the suit. It is not only entirely consistent and congenial with those ideas, but embodies them as comfortably as one might imagine. It is the judge's understand of science that is violently wrenched by these (quoted) prerequisites.

So contrary to the judge's interpretation, Behe was not offering testimony *against* this text. Behe was saying that IF you believe these things, your belief should not be discomforted by exposure to observed reality, evidence, facts, and other pesky violations of your integrity. Otherwise, you will suffer the "terrible educational outcome" of actually LEARNING something.

What emerges only obliquely from the judge's careful wording, and very little from Dunford's commentary, is that without exception the texts used in these Christian schools had preaching the faith as their primary goal, and only incidentally touched on their nominal subject matters - and then only as leverage to illustrate the sermons.

And so the "science" texts only alluded to "scientificial" illustrations of biblical passages. History texts focused on the glory of the righteous believers of the past and the evil of those who believed differently. Historical events that couldn't be used to underscore the bible didn't make the textbooks. English texts were excerpts of sermons. Comparative religion texts were howlingly doctrinaire extolling of creationism and fulminations against the godlessness of anything else.

Across the board, through and through, these students were exposed to pure religious indoctrination, to which all other topics were subservient and illustrative only. The entire goal was preparation for heaven, not college. The kids lived Jesus Camp 24/7. I fully understand UC's reluctance to remediate these kids into reality.

I know Judge Otero. Another very conservative judge. The Christian Schools Association couldn't have done better. If they lost here, they'd get creamed in any other court.

We should take a collection and send him a VERY NICE gift (think Elliot Spitzer).

Gerardo-- We should take a collection and send him a VERY NICE gift (think Elliot Spitzer).

... Lindsay Lohan?

You want to send Elliot Spitzer to Behe as a gift?

John Marley,

You of all should appreciate that Behe figuratively found another horse head in his bed.

For those of you who haven't a clue of what I mean, check the cast of The Godfather.

His faint support is brilliant. He manages to make a career and good money from creationists while subtly castrating them. If he didn't show up someone else might.

there is a rather large hole in your idea:

ERV has castrated Behe himself on several occasions for spewing utter nonsense about the evolution of various aspects of HIV that if you were correct, Behe himself already would have known none of his target audience would have cared about or understood anyway.

He just made himself look intractable and stupid.

In fact, one can't even make the case he intended to use this episode to play the "victim" card, since he horribly insulted ERV at every turn.

nope.

he's just an intractable old coot that hasn't forgotten EVERYTHING he learned, but whose cognitive dissonance has broken much of his brain.

much like Egnor.

I think this is just another instance of the crafty ID creationist plot to make people feel sorry for them because they're so incompetent.

I think this is just another instance of the crafty ID creationist plot to make people feel sorry for them because they're so incompetent.

Incompetence Apologetics?

yeah, that works.

Is Dr Behe saying that you should never attempt to teach someone a concept that contradicts their religious notions? What's the point of going to school then? Does he grade his students based on how well they defend the beliefs they already have?

It looks like Judge Otero decision indicated that UC's admission policies were Intellegently Designed. I noticed the judge's Nixplanatory Filter weeded out every single argument made by the plaintiff.

It's amazing how bad these guys can be in court. Absolutely amateurish. I have a list a lot of laughable quotes from the decision if any one is interested that doesn't want to wade through 50 pages.

My personal favorite:

"UC is under no duty to employ only those individuals whose religious beliefs coincide with the Plaintiffs"

(http:// prefixes removed from links to prevent comment from hanging up. Comments with more than one link are apparently treated as "spam." Links must be cut and pasted)

This blog has three separate current comment threads on this subject, so I am not sure where to post my comment. I could post it in all three threads, but then I may get responses in different threads, which would further complicate things. For the time being, I will just post in this thread.

I am not sure yet that this whole story is not an April Fools Day hoax. Your link to the decision does not work for me (correction -- I finally got the link to work after trying all day) and I could find neither hide nor hair of the decision on the websites of ASCI, UC, or the court. In particular, the court is supposed to post decisions immediately if not sooner, and here it is Tuesday evening and the decision was supposedly issued on Friday and is still not in the court's list of decisions. That's unforgivable, particularly in a case as closely watched as this one. See
www.cacd.uscourts.gov/CACD/RecentPubOp.nsf/Recently+Issued+Opinions+and…

My blog has several articles about the case, e.g.,
im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2008/03/hearing-held-in-acsi-v-stearns-fundy.html

One of my blog articles says that the fundies reported that at a meeting with UC representatives, the UC representatives admitted that "UC did not have any objective evidence that students from religious schools are deficient in science when they arrive for their freshman year of college":

An article titled "Should Some Students Be Denied College Entrance Because They Used These Textbooks?", by the Association of Christian Schools International, said the following about a meeting between UC personnel, Christian school personnel, and attorneys on both sides of the issue (page 3):

When asked whether poor college performance by students from religious schools prompted the rejection of the textbooks, UC representatives responded negatively. They also acknowledged that UC did not have any objective evidence that students from religious schools are deficient in science when they arrive for their freshman year of college .....
As the discussion continued about the biology books, it became evident that they were rejected because they appeared to state the perspective that the Bible is revelation and along with faith is more authoritative than the observations of science, especially if there were a conflict over a "factual scientific issue."

Has UC ever presented any objective evidence that the fundy students are deficient in science when then arrive for their freshman year of college?

UC apparently does not always enforce the general education requirements. For example, Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy blog received a UCLA BS degree in computer science at the age of 15. Some general education requirements were almost certainly waived in his case.

A lot of the issues in this case have already been covered in the following post and comment thread: scienceblogs.com/authority/2007/09/viewpoint_discrimination_and_t.php

As for Behe and the other expert witnesses, the judge here is making the same mistake that Judge Jones made in Kitzmiller v. Dover: holding a "Monday-morning battle of experts" who advised neither the plaintiffs nor the defendants. In Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), the courts refused to hear such a battle.

Here is a summary of my views so far as the fundy biology text is concerned:

Since the approach of the fundy biology text is unorthodox, students claiming admissions credit for courses using this text should be required to either (1) get a satisfactory score on a standardized biology test such as the SAT II AP biology test or (2) pass a general college course in biology. Requiring these students to apply through special admissions (top 2-4% of high school grads) instead of general admissions (top 12.5-15% of high school grads) is unreasonable.

The courts waste too much time on high-profile cases, with the result that (1) decisions on these cases are greatly delayed (this lawsuit was filed in August 2005), (2) court costs are driven up, and (3) low-profile cases are given short or no shrift. ACSI told me that UC submitted 350,000 pages of materials! So much for the bullshit that ACSI is solely responsible for complicating the case.

Gosh Larry Fafarman, you are full of it!

Yes, courts waste a lot of time on high-profile cases. So the kretinous kristian kreationist kooks should stop initiating them.

UC submitted so much evidence because christian manure makes flowers grow. It requires a mountain of truth to cover a dungheap of lies.

If you were paying attention, you'd realise that the case is nothing to do with whether fundy students are individually adequate for UC courses (although one would hope they might have broken their programming by college age). It's about whether doctrinaire courses centred around textbooks full of haranguing anti-rational drivel can be judged to be OK for the "short'n'sweet" entry path. What UC is saying is this: if it a high school course appears to be a religious course with a splash of abused science when assessed on its description, we don't consider it to be prima facie a proper science course, so students must demonstrate their fitness some other way.

Why do christians lie so much? Life would be so much easier if they started to respect the truth occasionally!

He just made himself look intractable and stupid.

Well, were he really just trying to blend in with the ID crowd for his ownfinancial gain, that would be the perfect disguise.

Christians must disregard [scientific hypotheses or theories] that contradict the Bible...

If you are going to put that in a science book, why are you even trying to do science. It's laughable. If someone had been taught from that book, i wouldn't trust them to tie their own shoelaces never mind hold a test tube.

Since the approach of the fundy biology text is unorthodox, students claiming admissions credit for courses using this text should be required to either (1) get a satisfactory score on a standardized biology test such as the SAT II AP biology test or (2) pass a general college course in biology. Requiring these students to apply through special admissions (top 2-4% of high school grads) instead of general admissions (top 12.5-15% of high school grads) is unreasonable.

According to my reading of the decision, there are multiple ways that an applicant can demonstrate competence in a given subject area. Taking an orthodox, standard high school curriculum and performing adequately is only one way. In fact (concerning Volokh), simply convincing the applications committee that you have a reasonable likelihood of being able to handle the coursework (being a certified genius is persuasive) can itself be sufficient.

However, studying exclusively from texts where the subject matter is ancillary to the goal of religious indoctrination, and where the content of that subject matter is presented totally inadequately (omitted, misrepresented, or plain wrong) to force it to meet religious litmus tests, is what's at issue here. UC is saying that students who suffer this mental crippling MUST use one of the other avenues to demonstrate the development of knowledge and critical thinking skills to qualify for admission.

It's important to emphasize that credit was not denied on religious grounds, and in fact UC grants credit for a great many courses where a single religous viewpoint is emphasized (and the decision lists several of them). Credit was denied when the ONLY "exposure" to the necessary skills and knowledge could not reasonably be expected to impart either one.

I think Larry's religious puppet strings are being pulled here, as usual. UC has many many more applicants than spaces available. They have to apply SOME means of selection. Failure to demonstrate minimally necessary qualifications is surely one such means. I think Larry would have no problem with this, EXCEPT in cases where the students were kept in obvious ignorance for religious reasons. Then he wants to change the rules.

Re Larry Fafarman

Hey Mr. Fafarman, how's your campaign to get Ed Brayton expelled from scienceblogs going? Apparently not well as he's still there.

How about your campaign to join the plaintiffs team suing Mr. Brayton going? Apparently, their threats to file such a law suit are just that, threats.

(http:// prefixes removed from links to prevent comment from hanging up. Links must be cut and pasted.)

Flint said ( April 1, 2008 4:44 PM ) --

It wasn't clear to me that the judge quite understood what Behe was trying to say. The first page of the quoted text is most emphatically NOT a "wrenching violation" of the ideas trained into the students bringing the suit. It is not only entirely consistent and congenial with those ideas, but embodies them as comfortably as one might imagine.

Right on. Unscrupulous Judge Otero quote-mined Behe. Judge Otero had no business twisting Behe's statement to help the defendants. Behe obviously did not intend that his statement be misused in that way, and he had no opportunity to clarify his statement to prevent it from being misused in that way. It could be argued that students who find those statements in the fundy biology text to be a "wrenching violation" of their "personal integrity" do not belong in a fundy school in the first place. Also, there is a fair possibility that the students at Calvary Chapel have the option of taking biology courses that use non-fundy textbooks. A 2006 USA Today article says, "UC has certified 43 Calvary Chapel courses and has admitted 24 of the 32 applicants from the high school in the past four years." -- from
www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-12-christian-school_x.htm

No, Darwinists, you didn't "score." That was a foul.

Flint continued,

What emerges only obliquely from the judge's careful wording, and very little from Dunford's commentary, is that without exception the texts used in these Christian schools had preaching the faith as their primary goal, and only incidentally touched on their nominal subject matters -- and then only as leverage to illustrate the sermons.

I disagree. When UC rejected the biology texts, UC apparently did not claim that these texts do not present the core material adequately. Apparently it was only later that UC made a feeble effort to claim that the textbooks have some factual errors -- see
im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2007/05/dover-aint-over-iii-update-on-fundies-v.html

Correction -- I said,

Apparently it was only later that UC made a feeble effort to claim that the textbooks have some factual errors -- see
im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2007/05/dover-aint-over-iii-update-on-fundies-v.html

Those objections were raised by the Panda's Thumb blog -- not by UC.

Larry is a holocaust denier. Why would anyone take him seriously. Just laugh at him.

It's almost cute that Larry thinks people are listening to him ramble on.

Behe: "it is personally abusive and pedagogically damaging to de facto require students to subscribe to an idea..."

Shorter version: It's wrong to teach people anything.

Okaaaaayyyyyy (backs away slowly).

Unscrupulous Judge Otero quote-mined Behe.

No, I wrote that Otero didn't understand Behe's point. Behe's point was, to be kind, rather unexpected - Behe was literally arguing that students undergoing education should not be exposed to facts, knowledge, or thinking skills which might be contrary to their religious indoctrination. In other words, Behe was arguing that "students" should be deliberately kept ignorant, rather than run the risk that education might upset their delusions.

Otero (as I read it) didn't expect a supposedly expert witness (and tenured professor!) to take that position. Otero mistakenly treated Behe as SANE! Big mistake, but understandable.

When UC rejected the biology texts, UC apparently did not claim that these texts do not present the core material adequately.

Interesting interpretation of a decision that explicitly states that UC put together a committee of qualified people to evaluate the texts, which reported that the texts were inadequate on the merits. The decision goes on to quote several of the evaluators to that effect. And a key part of the decision itself was based on this well-documented evaluation. Which Larry somehow missed. How very typical.

Stephen Wells:
Behe: "it is personally abusive and pedagogically damaging to de facto require students to subscribe to an idea..."

Shorter version: It's wrong to teach people anything.

Okaaaaayyyyyy (backs away slowly).

No...Behe made a valid point here. Requiring someone to subscribe to something is quite different from teaching something since someone can, presumably, debate a taught subject and present an alternate concept. Further, I *taught* concept is one wherein an explanation and examples on why and how something is valid is presented. Requiring someone to subscribe to something on the other hand is dogma. Seems the Judge Otero understood the difference too. :)

(And yes, Stephen, I realize that your tongue was fully planted in your cheek here, but I thought I'd elaborate a bitt for the noodles like Fafarman).

Indeed the whole problem with the Christian schools' approach was noted by the judge -

(2) "If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."

This is not teaching, by definition, and UC is under no obligation to accept such "personally abusive[d]and pedagorically damag[ed]" students.

"Shorter version: It's wrong to teach people anything."

This misses the key point, and misses it badly. Behe is NOT saying it's wrong to teach people anything, he's saying that it's wrong to teach people stuff that undermines that part of their religious indoctrination that Behe happens to agree with.

Maybe this is obvious, but I think it should be made explicit. The fight here isn't for education, the fight here is for souls. Every sentence in every educational text must be vetted for doctrinal purity. The goal isn't really to keep the kids ignorant, but rather to keep them blind members of the creationist flock.

So Behe, like all creationists, is two-faced. He's all for knowledge, critical thinking, good education, EXCEPT when he feels his religious delusions are threatened. Suddenly out comes the non-negotiable double standard.

I suggest that Otero has little exposure to how creationists think; he lacked the context to understand the encodings. He took Behe at his word.

"No...Behe made a valid point here. Requiring someone to subscribe to something is quite different from teaching something"

Here's exactly the place where we went through the looking glass. In creation-land, 24/7 indoctrination, with punishment for failure to swallow it sincerely enough, is deemed by the creationists to be "well-rounded exposure" and good education. Conversely, neutral and non-judgmental exposure to a wide range of viewpoints, especially those based on solid mountains of verifiable evidence, are deemed "requiring someone to subscribe to an idea".

On the creationist side of the looking glass, there is right (their doctrine) and there is WRONG (everything else). There is no useful differentiation possible among different wrong ideas - wrong is wrong. Exposure to wrong ideas may confuse, upset, or even mislead the properly-educated creationist.

Sheer exposure, then, is "requiring someone to subscribe to something" in creation-land. Narrow indoctrination, embedded deeply in all academic subjects including lunch and athletics, isn't "requiring" them to accept anything, it's just saving their immortal souls. Different thing, see?

Robin: "No...Behe made a valid point here. Requiring someone to subscribe to something is quite different from teaching something"

Flint: Here's exactly the place where we went through the looking glass. In creation-land, 24/7 indoctrination, with punishment for failure to swallow it sincerely enough, is deemed by the creationists to be "well-rounded exposure" and good education. Conversely, neutral and non-judgmental exposure to a wide range of viewpoints, especially those based on solid mountains of verifiable evidence, are deemed "requiring someone to subscribe to an idea".

On the creationist side of the looking glass, there is right (their doctrine) and there is WRONG (everything else). There is no useful differentiation possible among different wrong ideas - wrong is wrong. Exposure to wrong ideas may confuse, upset, or even mislead the properly-educated creationist.

Sheer exposure, then, is "requiring someone to subscribe to something" in creation-land. Narrow indoctrination, embedded deeply in all academic subjects including lunch and athletics, isn't "requiring" them to accept anything, it's just saving their immortal souls. Different thing, see?

Oh yes. I'm well aware of the creationist understanding of "teaching" and I'm pretty sure I understand what Behe *thought* he was saying. Thankfully the Judge apparently understands that the "real-world" is not creation-land and that "teaching" Christian doctrine is not education.

***"(And yes, Stephen, I realize that your tongue was fully planted in your cheek here, but I thought I'd elaborate a bit for the noodles like Fafarman)"***

Calling Larry a noodle is an insult to the FSM and thus to all Pastafarians.

I know noodles. I've worked with noodles. Larry Fafarman is no noodle.

Have the IDiots no pride?
It certainly confirms that 'Gegen Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens!'
'Professor' Behe, - my ass.

Right on. Unscrupulous Judge Otero quote-mined Behe.

That didn't take long. Already it's the Judge's fault. I figured Otero would get the "Judge jones" treatment soon enough. It's never the fault of the creationists utter incompetency, it's always the Judge.

That didn't take long. Already it's the Judge's fault. I figured Otero would get the "Judge jones" treatment soon enough. It's never the fault of the creationists utter incompetency, it's always the Judge.

That is Larry's M.O. He hates any judge that has a lick of sense. It must be pretty hard to take the fact that even conservative judges hand picked by G.W. Bush see through the Fundamentalist charade.

That is Larry's M.O. He hates any judge that has a lick of sense. It must be pretty hard to take the fact that even conservative judges hand picked by G.W. Bush see through the Fundamentalist charade.

Yeah, you're right. I'm sure as we sit here the rest of the rationally challenged crowd is feverishly typing away their indignation at Judge Otero completely ignoring his credentials, just as they did with Jones.

Robin: ***"(And yes, Stephen, I realize that your tongue was fully planted in your cheek here, but I thought I'd elaborate a bit for the noodles like Fafarman)"***

Donnie B: Calling Larry a noodle is an insult to the FSM and thus to all Pastafarians.

I know noodles. I've worked with noodles. Larry Fafarman is no noodle.

Apologies to all the noodley enlightened for my insensitivity towards your faith. I will choose my terminology more carefully in the future and avoid terms relating to mein, udon, pasta, or other such delights.

Nevertheless, we should probably thank him for (accidentally) helping us out again.

Perhaps you meant unwittingly? :-)

These creationists (ID'ers) are the Osama Bin Laden's of the christian world and terminators that will never stop until science, particularly evolution, is laid to rest.

Larry is a holocaust denier. Why would anyone take him seriously. Just laugh at him.

Really?? Are there actually people that stupid that are willing to speak up in public?

Larry? Is it true?

Flint said (April 2, 2008 10:09 AM) --

Unscrupulous Judge Otero quote-mined Behe.
No, I wrote that Otero didn't understand Behe's point. Behe's point was, to be kind, rather unexpected - Behe was literally arguing that students undergoing education should not be exposed to facts, knowledge, or thinking skills which might be contrary to their religious indoctrination. In other words, Behe was arguing that "students" should be deliberately kept ignorant, rather than run the risk that education might upset their delusions.

You are reading too much into Behe's statements. You are putting words in his mouth.

AGAIN:
Otero should not have twisted Behe's statements to help support an argument in favor of the defendants. That's quote-mining. Behe had no chance to clarify his statements. That was a very snide thing that Judge Otero did.

Interesting interpretation of a decision that explicitly states that UC put together a committee of qualified people to evaluate the texts, which reported that the texts were inadequate on the merits.

AGAIN:

An article titled "Should Some Students Be Denied College Entrance Because They Used These Textbooks?", by the Association of Christian Schools International, said the following about a meeting between UC personnel, Christian school personnel, and attorneys on both sides of the issue (page 3):

When asked whether poor college performance by students from religious schools prompted the rejection of the textbooks, UC representatives responded negatively. They also acknowledged that UC did not have any objective evidence that students from religious schools are deficient in science when they arrive for their freshman year of college.

-- from
http://www.acsi.org/webfiles/webitems/attachments/007875_1.%20Overview%…

AGAIN:
What is wrong with my proposed solution:

Since the approach of the fundy biology text is unorthodox, students claiming admissions credit for courses using this text should be required to either (1) get a satisfactory score on a standardized biology test such as the SAT II AP biology test or (2) pass a general college course in biology. Requiring these students to apply through special admissions (top 2-4% of high school grads) instead of general admissions (top 12.5-15% of high school grads) is unreasonable.

===================================

"Larry is a holocaust denier. Why would anyone take him seriously. Just laugh at him."

"Really?? Are there actually people that stupid that are willing to speak up in public? Larry? Is it true?"

"It's almost cute that Larry thinks people are listening to him ramble on."

"(And yes, Stephen, I realize that your tongue was fully planted in your cheek here, but I thought I'd elaborate a bitt for the noodles like Fafarman)."

"That is Larry's M.O. He hates any judge that has a lick of sense. It must be pretty hard to take the fact that even conservative judges hand picked by G.W. Bush see through the Fundamentalist charade."

"Yeah, you're right. I'm sure as we sit here the rest of the rationally challenged crowd is feverishly typing away their indignation at Judge Otero completely ignoring his credentials, just as they did with Jones."

"I'm always kicking their butts -- that's why they don't like me."
-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

"These creationists (ID'ers) are the Osama Bin Laden's...."
I personally see them mirrored to the fundimentelist Talaban. Luckily for Americans, they don't have the political power they crave to carry out their twisted agenda that their favored sky fairy demands. It's all about power over others, always has been. History amply demonstrates what happens when these nutcases come to power.

AGAIN:
What is wrong with my proposed solution:

Since the approach of the fundy biology text is unorthodox, students claiming admissions credit for courses using this text should be required to either (1) get a satisfactory score on a standardized biology test such as the SAT II AP biology test or (2) pass a general college course in biology. Requiring these students to apply through special admissions (top 2-4% of high school grads) instead of general admissions (top 12.5-15% of high school grads) is unreasonable.

If you want to know what's wrong with your proposed solution, you're going to have to ask the people who filed the lawsuit. UC's policy on the A-G course requirements has allowed students to demonstrate proficiency in the subjects by passing SAT II or AP exams since before the suit was filed.

You would have known this if you'd ever bothered to actually read any of the legal documents that you moan and whine about on a regular basis.

Larry is a holocaust denier.

Larry? Is it true?

No, it is not true. I am a holocaust revisionist, not a holocaust denier. One of my main arguments is that a "systematic" holocaust of Jews was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews.

No, it is not true. I am a holocaust revisionist, not a holocaust denier. One of my main arguments is that a "systematic" holocaust of Jews was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews.

Yeah, that explains all the dead Jews.

Larry:

You explicitly wrote (and I quoted): "UC apparently did not claim that these texts do not present the core material adequately."

This statement is prima facie false. The decision shows that you are lying in detail, taking several pages doing so. When I pointed out that you were lying, you now try to change the subject. This is known as "lying".

When asked whether poor college performance by students from religious schools prompted the rejection of the textbooks, UC representatives responded negatively.

Yes, you have twice presented this, which you claim is a quote from a creationist source you do not link to. But even if it's accurate (you will surely understand that since creationists cannot help lying, this is a dubious assumption), it is a different topic. Now the (creationist) complaint is that UC has not accepted enough people who can show no evidence of exposure to education, to demonstrate that uneducated people underperform! To correct this, I would suppose, your creationist source would demand that UC accept everyone who passes their religious litmus test, a few of whom would very likely be able to graduate, who could then be used to demonstrate that selection criteria to eliminate low-probability applications are without merit, provided the applicant adheres to the One True Faith. If he does not, then he has unacceptable ignorance, right? Your religious double standard shines through everything you write.

What is wrong with my proposed solution

Only that the UC has already published guidelines laying out alternative means of qualifying, and accepts 18% of their entering class via these alternative means, which remain open to those subjected to academically useless or dangerous indoctrinaton *instead* of education.

The creationists are NOT suing UC because these other avenues don't exist. They are suing in the hopes that applicants uneducated for reasons of religious doctrine not be required to demonstrate compentence by any means whatsoever.

Really, Larry, if you could only take of your religious blinders, you'd see that you are being an idiot. Pretend, just for the exercise (if critical thinking is still possible in there) that there are schools which exist to convince kids that the moon is made of green cheese. The Cheesists might examine every sentence of every (self-published) "textbook" to make sure every one adheres strictly to Cheesist doctrine. In fact, the text might explicitly say "Where reality is perceived to conflict with Cheesism, reality is wrong by definition"

Now, imagine that you are charged with deciding whether Cheesist students have received a well-rounded education and are capable of critical thinking. How can you tell? By interviewing them and being told in no uncertain terms that the moon is made of cheese and reality is irrelevant? By reading texts that make this point to the exclusion of all others?

I would hope you could see that to anyone but a devout Cheesist, these schools would be graduating mobs of ignoramuses. Perhaps a Cheesist would defend his delusions the same way you do: by lying.

But UC is in the business of educating students, not remediating those whose parents refused to give them the necessary academic grounding.

So we finally get to the core issue here: To the UC, the core issue is academic - how to provide the best education they can to those applicants best able to gain it. Religion has nothing to do with UC's position here - they also refuse to accept applicants who dropped out of 9th grade, and applicants who fared dismally on standard tests.

To the creationist, religion is the ONLY issue. Their entire claim hinges on UC using religion, and ONLY religion, as an excuse to persecute them. Academics are entirely irrelevant to the plaintiffs. If their faith requires them to keep their kids as stupid as you, they then attempt to blame someone else, for "reasons" irrelevant to their demands.

Judge Otero is offending you and the other religiously blind victims of the same sort of child abuse, by accepting UC's framing of the issue - that it is academic and not religious. And on academic grounds, schools that don't educate don't qualify. The REASON they don't educate, UC doesn't care about.

Flint, if you expect Larry to change his argument just because you obliterated it. Think again. Larry will just repeat the same argument ad nauseum regardless of how thoroughly you refute it, and claim victory when you tire of the game. Debating Larry is enjoyable the same way that hitting your head against a brick wall is enjoyable. It feels so good when you stop.

Sheesh, Mike, I just got back to Minnesota from Oahu Monday...I was looking for someone knowledgeable to snorkle with and discuss the humuhumunukunukuapuaa I observed while snorkling at Ko Olina and Electric Beach! We could have had a few beers and some chuckles about Behe's idiotic references, too! Maybe next time.

"Pretend, just for the exercise (if critical thinking is still possible in there) that there are schools which exist to convince kids that the moon is made of green cheese."
Flint, great point, but many of them are already doing exactly that at so many other levels. They just hate evolution the most. I personally love the "the earth is 6000 years old" example, which is silly at any level.
Does ANYBODY really think that IF the creationists somehow won the evolution debate, "cause reality hurts my ears" it would stop there? Their stated goal is to revise ALL science to agree the bible, right?

the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews.

Funny, I don't have any trouble, and I'm not even trying to hurt them. The Nazis were probably more motivated than to identify them than I am, and they could be pretty efficient when they were motivated.

"No, it is not true. I am a holocaust revisionist, not a holocaust denier. One of my main arguments is that a "systematic" holocaust of Jews was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews."
-Larry Fafarman | April 2, 2008 3:43 PM

Everyone knows that Nazis would never stoop to using subjective or unreliable methods!
;)

The important point here is that UC is a large diverse organization, composed of members of every major religion and a good many minor ones. Their goal is to teach universal, common human understandings of every subject from language and literature to math and science to sociology and psychology to comparative religion. They aren't out either to convert or deconvert anyone, only to impart both information and the ability to think about it. Religious faith is simply outside their academic frame of reference.

But for the plaintiffs, religious faith is the only possible frame of reference, through which all information must be filtered, and with respect to which all behaviors must be judged. And this striking contrast of orientations explains why Behe's testimony worked against him - because Behe was testifying within the creationist context, and Otero was interpreting his testimony within the academic context.

And so it's amusing to see the plaintiffs "discovering" either support for, or antagonism to, their One True Faith in all of UC's guidelines and policies. Just like they construct or evaluate textbooks, science, history, and every other subject. Compounding this, of course, is the conviction that there is no neutral - that which does not praise and ratify their narrow and irrational, reality-defying superstitions, is ipso facto out to get them, explicitly The Enemy. (And I suppose once a set of delusions gets weird enough, reality can seem pretty damn hostile. Which explains the existence of these schools and texts in the first place. They're an escape out of sheer desperation lest reality erode their childrens' souls.)

So Otero's decision is truly fascinating reading. He points out, on almost every page, that the plaintiffs' claims are inaccurate, inappropriate, or present untenable interpretations of the facts on the ground. Almost like the plaintiffs don't live in the same reality as the rest of us. And he's quite right, as Larry consistently demonstrates. What reality is permitted to pass their demons bears only surreal, nightmarish resemblance to what lies beyond them.

It is nice that there is somewhere where we can debate Larry openly. His own blog which is headed "My biggest motivation for creating my own blogs was to avoid the arbitrary censorship practiced by other blogs and various other Internet forums. Censorship will be avoided in my blogs -- there will be no deletion of comments, no closing of comment threads, no holding up of comments for moderation, and no commenter registration hassles. Comments containing nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks are discouraged."

Larry's blog is heavily censored, is now moderated, and if loaded with ad-hominem attacks, mainly by Larry himself. He also claims to be the founder of the "Association of Non-Censoring Bloggers", an association of which he is the only member and whose principles he does not practice.

Larry's claim is that he is censoring "gossip about his personal life", but few of the posts that have been censored even mention him. They are only posts that point out his hypocrisy and inconsistency.

He does a better job of debate here than on his own blog where his only answer seems to be insults and attack towards anyone who takes an opposing side and repetition of the original failed arguments. He invariably ends up with merangue pie dripping off his face while proclaiming "See. You missed me."

They are always kicking his ass. That's why he doesn't like them.

This is the second time I've seen Mr. Fafarman insist his view of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Edwards v. Aguillard is correct, and that two Republican appointees to the Federal bench have got it wrong. What are the chances? (IAAL, have read the Edwards decision, and can tell you there is no chance at all that Mr. Fafarman's interpretation is correct.)

Mr. Fafarman wrote:

I am a holocaust revisionist, not a holocaust denier. One of my main arguments is that a "systematic" holocaust of Jews was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews.

To make such an argument in the face of the evidence, mere stupidity or thickheadedness will not do; it takes motivation.

For that motivation, sir, on behalf of myself and all the people I have known with concentration camp tattoos on their arms (there have been many, several of whom I have known quite well), may I say that you must be a particularly vile excuse for a human being.

Mike Dunford said,

If you want to know what's wrong with your proposed solution, you're going to have to ask the people who filed the lawsuit. UC's policy on the A-G course requirements has allowed students to demonstrate proficiency in the subjects by passing SAT II or AP exams since before the suit was filed.

So why hasn't UC been emphasizing that solution that I proposed?

Darwinists are more interested in finding fault with the fundy biology texts than in finding a solution to the dispute.

There is no question that the approach of the fundy biology texts is unorthodox, so my proposed solution is an obvious one. Why can't the judge just impose this solution on the parties, instead of wasting everyone's time and money? The time the courts waste on high-profile cases takes time away from low-profile cases -- I know that from sad personal experience.

Larry: Darwinists are more interested in finding fault with the fundy biology texts than in finding a solution to the dispute.

The premise of that claim seems to be built on a false assumption. It isn't the university's responsibility to find a way to compromise with any group. It is the university's responsibility to educate students, and before doing so, to assure that the students have a suitable foundation to receive such education.

Using test scores, as you suggest, is but one means to assess their foundation. A very limited means, in fact. Reviewing the curriculum the students studied under provides other informative data points. That information can be much more valuable, especially if the curriculum didn't provide the information and foundation that the university is interested in for their entering students.

It is, I'm suggesting, up to those wishing to enter the university to meet the requirements.

Jud moans,

This is the second time I've seen Mr. Fafarman insist his view of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Edwards v. Aguillard is correct, and that two Republican appointees to the Federal bench have got it wrong. What are the chances? (IAAL, have read the Edwards decision, and can tell you there is no chance at all that Mr. Fafarman's interpretation is correct.)

The chances are excellent -- in fact, they are 100%. The Edwards v. Aguillard decision expressly rejected a "Monday-morning battle of experts."

Being a federal judge does not mean that one is smart -- Judge Jones is one of the dumbest jerks I have ever seen.

For that motivation, sir, on behalf of myself and all the people I have known with concentration camp tattoos on their arms (there have been many, several of whom I have known quite well), may I say that you must be a particularly vile excuse for a human being.

The holocaust is off-topic here, dunghill. If you want my views on the subject, I invite you to visit my blog, where the sidebar has post labels for holocaust revisionism and Darwin-to-Hitler --
http://im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/

To follow up what Q said, colleges and universities also award more points for the intensity of a course (weighted/AP/Honors). Most of that is based on the rigor of the course materials, whether the books are more difficult or if they are explored in more depth. These students should probably be negatively scored the way "Content Mastery" students should be.

CM, or other alphabet soup phrases generally refer to the students who are underperforming and consistently need help in a certain area.

Larry wrote:

One of my main arguments is that a "systematic" holocaust of Jews was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews.

Impossible doesn't mean they couldn't, and didn't, try.

Do you think actions are only possibly f they are rational?

Also, Larry, it's not really impossible to know your neighbor's religion. I imagine people withhold such information from you, because you're an obnoxious creep, but for the rest of us it's pretty much common knowledge.

If there were a sudden pogrom against Catholics it would not be a difficult task find and "reveal" the whereabouts of a great many of them. Including my friends, neighbors and relatives. I could provide employers, addresses and phone numbers within minutes. I couldn't pick them out of a crowd unless I knew them. In which case I could pick them out of a crowd.

To think that Nazis wouldn't be able to ask around is beyond stupid. Identifying a Jew was probably as simple as asking the neighbors. Just as easy as it would be for us to point to you when and if a government agent were to ask about the presence of annoying jackass holocaust deniers.

So why hasn't UC been emphasizing that solution that I proposed?

UC knew about their policy. I knew about their policy. The judge knew about their policy. The people who filed this idiotic suit, believe it or not, know about this policy. Your stupendous ignorance in this matter is not in any way the fault of the University of California.

There is no question that the approach of the fundy biology texts is unorthodox, so my proposed solution is an obvious one.

Larry, "your" proposal is something that the University of California has been doing since long before the lawsuit was first filed. It's part of their policy. It's part of the policy that the Christian schools are challenging in the lawsuit. What part of this don't you get? You didn't come up with anything that is in any way, shape, or form new.

Why can't the judge just impose this solution on the parties, instead of wasting everyone's time and money?

Larry, you do understand that all that the judge would have to do to make that happen is dismiss the Christian schools case, yes?

One of my main arguments is that a "systematic" holocaust of Jews was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews.

Apparently the existence of census data that identified religious affiliation isn't good enough for Mr. Fafarman. When someone claiming to be a "revisionist" anything conveniently overlooks reams of available and documented data, what you're really seeing is a denier. (Five gets you ten we now hear the whooshing sound of goalposts being moved by a parsec or two.)

In other words, treat Mr. Fafarman's further points with some skepticism, since he's obviously willing to conveniently miss large chunks of factual evidence in order to continue making claims.

That Larry is a holocaust denier/revisionist is certainly evidence that he has problems that go well beyond his views on this issue.

However, I do have to agree with Larry on one - and only one - point. The subject is well and truly off topic here. I would appreciate it if that aspect of the discussion is dropped by everyone.

This includes you, Larry. I would also suggest that you refrain from referring to people as "dunghills", even if they refer to you as a sorry example of a human being first. I just lifted your ban here a couple of days ago, and I won't hesitate to toss your comments into the junk folder in the future if I find it necessary. You have no goodwill to spend here, and I won't warn you a second time.

(http:// prefixes removed to prevent comment from hanging up. Links must be cut and pasted)

Mike Dunford said,

I would appreciate it if that aspect of the discussion is dropped by everyone.

Yes, but you had to get in one last potshot at me before dropping the subject, didn't you.

UC knew about their policy. I knew about their policy. The judge knew about their policy. The people who filed this idiotic suit, believe it or not, know about this policy.

There is a big difference between "knowing" about a policy and doing something about it. This "policy" is usually not part of the discussion -- I am the one who brought it up here. Usually the discussion is just about whether the fundy biology textbook is good or bad -- there is never going to be any agreement on that issue (BTW, even I think that the textbook's philosophy about science v. religion is bad). Also, a lot of people believe that the university is forcing fundies to apply under the special admissions program (top 2-4% of high school grads) instead of under the general admissions program (top 12.5-15% of high school grads).

UC's previous motion to dismiss did call special attention to this policy and even the original complaint suggested the use of standardized tests as an alternative, but I am not seeing much about this alternative now. In the previous motion to dismiss, UC said,

There is a significant additional option -- not mentioned in the Complaint -- for an applicant who wants to become eligible for admission based upon standardized test scores and a-g coursework but who has not, for whatever reason, completed all of the a-g- requirements: The applicant may instead take an SAT Subject Test in any subject for which the applicant has not taken the required a-g class. (pages 3-4 of original document or pages 11-12 of pdf file). -- from www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/ucmotiontodismiss1005…

And the plaintiffs' original complaint said,

Far less burdensome means are available to ensure that graduates of Christian schools, and applicants to University of California, are sufficiently educated using texts and viewpoints of their choice -- those are the means that are already used for out-of-state applicants who do not attend schools with approved a-g courses. Those means are standardized tests (without discriminatory score requirements), which actually demonstrate that the graduates of Christian schools are on average better educated than their public school counterparts who apply to University of California, and study of the academic progress of students at University of California from Christian schools compared to other schools in order to see whether they are sufficiently educated. Such methods would not involve or require regulating the viewpoint and content of Christian schools and texts or disqualifying their graduates from eligibility for the University of California. In addition, far less burdensome means are available to ensure that any deficiency is corrected -- those are the remedial courses or tutoring that the University already offers students in a wide range of subjects such as English and mathematics, which do not involve or require regulating the viewpoint and content of Christian schools and texts or excluding their graduates. -- page 43 from www.acsi.org/webfiles/webitems/attachments/007875_2.%20ACSI%20CA%20Comp…

Under UC's Subject A English requirement, students are allowed to take remedial English courses after enrolling.

This and other issues were discussed under one of your previous posts on the subject:

scienceblogs.com/authority/2007/09/viewpoint_discrimination_and_t.php

Why can't the judge just impose this solution on the parties, instead of wasting everyone's time and money?

Larry, you do understand that all that the judge would have to do to make that happen is dismiss the Christian schools case, yes?

Well, the lawsuit is not just over the biology textbooks or science textbooks -- it is also over other textbooks for courses that might not be covered by standardized tests.

Anyway, so far as the fundy biology textbooks are concerned, he wouldn't have to dismiss the lawsuit completely -- he could rule that otherwise-qualified fundies who flunk the SAT biology test (i.e., get an unsatisfactory score) be admitted upon the condition that they must pass a general college biology course to graduate (similar to the Subject A English requirement). Evolution is a part of the SAT AP biology test -- albeit a relatively small one -- and not studying evolution could cause someone to flunk the test. Here is the breakdown of the SAT AP biology test:

I. Molecules and Cells (25%)

A. Chemistry of Life (7%)
Water
Organic molecules in organisms
Free energy changes
Enzymes

B. Cells (10%)
Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells
Membranes
Subcellular organization
Cell cycle and its regulation

C. Cellular Energetics (8%)
Coupled reactions
Fermentation and cellular respiration
Photosynthesis

===============================

II. Heredity and Evolution (25%)

A. Heredity (8%)
Meiosis and gametogenesis
Eukaryotic chromosomes
Inheritance patterns

B. Molecular Genetics (9%)
RNA and DNA structure and function
Gene regulation
Mutation
Viral structure and replication
Nucleic acid technology and applications

C. Evolutionary Biology (8%)
Early evolution of life
Evidence for evolution
Mechanisms of evolution

=====================================

III. Organisms and Populations (50%)

A. Diversity of Organisms (8%)
Evolutionary patterns
Survey of the diversity of life
Phylogenetic classification
Evolutionary relationships

B. Structure and Function of Plants and Animals (32%)
Reproduction, growth, and development
Structural, physiological, and behavioral adaptations
Response to the environment

C. Ecology (10%)
Population dynamics
Communities and ecosystems
Global issues

-- from
www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/biology/topic.html

My apologies for the off-topic and as part of that, the personal remarks about another commenter.

Back on track: Having read the court's ruling, I actually think it is unfair to give Dr. Behe even partial blame/credit for the decision in favor of UC. Behe's statements, though a bit overwrought ("personally abusive," "wrenching violation," "terrible...outcome") are not in and of themselves incorrect or unreasonable.

The fault, IMO, lies with the plaintiffs and their lawyers, whose responsibility it is to adequately prepare their expert witnesses. Part of that preparation is to give the expert an accurate idea of the relevant evidence and legal contentions of each party, i.e., the context for the expert's evidence.

In this case, the plaintiffs contended they wanted to stop "viewpoint discrimination" by UC, whereby the school would allegedly not accept courses as preparation for admission if the primary texts put forth a religious viewpoint, no matter how academically acceptable the texts were otherwise. However, as the court found, citing numerous examples of courses that UC *had* accepted where the primary texts put forth a religious viewpoint, this contention was simply not supported by the evidence.

It is not Behe's fault that he was given the impression he was supposed to testify against the defendants' "viewpoint discrimination" when in fact it was plaintiffs who wished to use materials that practice such discrimination (as the court's excerpts from these materials show).

It is not Behe's fault that he was given the impression he was supposed to testify against the defendants' "viewpoint discrimination" when in fact it was plaintiffs who wished to use materials that practice such discrimination (as the court's excerpts from these materials show).

Another illustration of how the issue is to be framed. Very clearly, the plaintiffs have positioned "viewpoint discrimination" to mean "presenting viewpoints other than ours". This is why Otero felt it necessary to point out that UC is not obliged to adhere to the plaintiffs' faith.

Ultimately, the case boils down to the question of whether inaccurate and inadequate texts, combined with an educational environment that prohibits rather than teaches critical thinking, nonetheless renders its victims sufficiently well prepared for college to be selected in preference to applicants who in fact HAVE been well educated and have demonstrated this.

When fundy parents have stunted their childrens' minds, the solution isn't to try to sue the world into pretending they didn't do it. If you want to prepare your kids for college, what you need to do is clearly presented in the guidelines. If you refuse to do it, it's nobody else's fault.

To think that Nazis wouldn't be able to ask around is beyond stupid. Identifying a Jew was probably as simple as asking the neighbors. Just as easy as it would be for us to point to you when and if a government agent were to ask about the presence of annoying jackass holocaust deniers.

Forget for a moment that Larry is an idiot, finding a subgroup of people within a society is ridiculously easy - one need only create paranoia, which was already in place and (if you check actual history, not Larry-esque rehistory) was what got Hitler into office and total authority in the first place. Indeed, all the Nazi propaganda machine had to do was instill the paranoid idea that the economic problems in Germany at the time could be traced to Jewish interests and 50 - 75% of the population would immediately begin turning in their neighbors. Funny...that's exactly what happened too.

However, I do have to agree with Larry on one - and only one - point. The subject is well and truly off topic here. I would appreciate it if that aspect of the discussion is dropped by everyone.

My apologies Mike. I didn't see your statment until after I posted. Please remove my post if that is possible.

There is a big difference between "knowing" about a policy and doing something about it. This "policy" is usually not part of the discussion -- I am the one who brought it up here.

I'm not surprised that nobody but you brought that portion of the policy up here, given that it is entirely irrelevant to the lawsuit. The Christian schools knew about the alternative paths for admission when they filed suit. Their entire position is that UC's refusal to accept their courses is unfair and unconstitutional anyway.

Anyway, so far as the fundy biology textbooks are concerned, he wouldn't have to dismiss the lawsuit completely -- he could rule that otherwise-qualified fundies who flunk the SAT biology test (i.e., get an unsatisfactory score) be admitted upon the condition that they must pass a general college biology course to graduate (similar to the Subject A English requirement). Evolution is a part of the SAT AP biology test -- albeit a relatively small one -- and not studying evolution could cause someone to flunk the test.

No, Larry, he can't. As he already ruled, the University of California has the right to set admissions standards. These standards can require that the students have taken certain sorts of class, or otherwise demonstrated a grasp of the material typically covered in those courses. The judge can't simply decide that evolution isn't important enough, and waive or modify that portion of the requirement. He'd be inappropriately substituting his judgment for UC's.

The holocaust is off-topic here, dunghill. If you want my views on the subject, I invite you to visit my blog, where the sidebar has post labels for holocaust revisionism and Darwin-to-Hitler --

So evidently Larry thinks Hitler couldn't possibly have killed all those Jews, but ASSUMING HE DID, it was all Darwin's fault.

Wow.

No, Larry, he can't. As he already ruled, the University of California has the right to set admissions standards.

The judge has the power to declare UC's behavior legal or illegal - NOT to dictate to them some new set of policies. OK, the ruling is that UC can legally set their own standards. Now, whether or not the standards themselves are legal is another issue. UC is requesting that each disallowed application for credit be considered separately, each in its own trial. This request was granted. The fundies can STILL argue their points on a case-by-case basis. They just can't make it illegal for universities to have admissions policies.

I sincerely doubt that Larry would care to have any individual judge attempt to set admissions policies for all schools (including private religious schools). I should think it would be obvious that having judges attempt to micromanage academic policies and their detailed application is both inappropriate and dangerous. To whom would Larry appeal if he didn't like the way the judiciary was managing and administrating the California school system?

Jud said (April 3, 2008 7:34 AM) --

The fault, IMO, lies with the plaintiffs and their lawyers, whose responsibility it is to adequately prepare their expert witnesses. Part of that preparation is to give the expert an accurate idea of the relevant evidence and legal contentions of each party, i.e., the context for the expert's evidence.

Behe's statements were written, not oral. It is possible, even probable, that the plaintiffs and their lawyers reviewed and/or approved Behe's statements prior to release. The problem is that the judge quote-mined Behe.

However, as the court found, citing numerous examples of courses that UC *had* accepted where the primary texts put forth a religious viewpoint, this contention was simply not supported by the evidence.

All the evidence showed was that UC did not invariably discriminate on the basis of religion -- the evidence did not show that UC did not ever discriminate on the basis of religion.

It is not Behe's fault that he was given the impression he was supposed to testify against the defendants' "viewpoint discrimination" when in fact it was plaintiffs who wished to use materials that practice such discrimination.

What is inherently wrong with materials that practice viewpoint discrimination? Teaching Darwinism and official holocaust history dogmatically is practicing viewpoint discrimination.

Flint said (April 3, 2008 8:27 AM) --

Another illustration of how the issue is to be framed. Very clearly, the plaintiffs have positioned "viewpoint discrimination" to mean "presenting viewpoints other than ours".

See my preceding statement.

Mike Dunford said (April 3, 2008 10:44 AM) --

I'm not surprised that nobody but you brought that portion of the policy up here, given that it is entirely irrelevant to the lawsuit. The Christian schools knew about the alternative paths for admission when they filed suit.

My proposed solution is -- or should be -- a central issue in the lawsuit. As I said, a lot of people may have the impression that UC is excluding the fundy students entirely or is forcing them to apply under the much more demanding special admissions programs.

Their entire position is that UC's refusal to accept their courses is unfair and unconstitutional anyway.

It is natural that the plaintiffs would prefer to have the fundy courses accredited, but the plaintiffs'complaint suggested that they would find my proposed solution acceptable (see my comment of April 3, 2008 6:20 AM).

No, Larry, he can't. As he already ruled, the University of California has the right to set admissions standards.

Of course UC has the right to set admissions standards -- UC sets admissions standards all the time. Duh. But the judge said that those admissions standards are subject to court approval.

The judge can't simply decide that evolution isn't important enough, and waive or modify that portion of the requirement.

There is no evolution "requirement" -- there is not even a biology requirement. Students can take other lab sciences instead.

The judge would not have to say anything at all about evolution -- he could just say that the fundy texts' approach to the science v. religion issue is unorthodox, and that that alone justifies requiring the fundy students to either pass a biology test or take a college biology course.

He'd be inappropriately substituting his judgment for UC's.

The courts have the authority to substitute their judgment for UC's.

As for evolution, the courts should rule that the evolution issue is non-justiciable.

Poor Larry. He's such a legal expert and reality keeps refusing to confirm his brilliance.

Teaching Darwinism and official holocaust history dogmatically is practicing viewpoint discrimination.

Discriminating against extreme stupidity (and antisemitism) is a good thing, Larry.

Only an irrational individual would conclude that viewpoint discrimination is not a good thing for educational institution to practice.

"As for evolution, the courts should rule that the evolution issue is non-justiciable."

Just stop practicing California law, Larry. You don't ocmprehend the concept of justicability.

It may come as an odd surprise to you that science in many forms is adjudicated daily in courtrooms across the nation.

Evolution, AKA DNA evidence, both acquits people and sends people to death row in courts in every state in the union.

I can't imagine you saying a more stupid thing, but my imagination has its limits.

All the evidence showed was that UC did not invariably discriminate on the basis of religion -- the evidence did not show that UC did not ever discriminate on the basis of religion.

And the effort to mis-frame the issues here marches on. What the evidence showed was that UC accepted course material that met minimum standards even if that material was clearly organized around a religious viewpoint, and that UC did NOT accept course material that failed to met minimum standards even though such material may have no religious content at all.

So UC's argument was, religious content or lack of it was irrelevant to the merits of the material. Bad material, no credit. Good material, credit. Yes, UC surely discriminates. But the basis has never been religious, it has been pedagogical. The a-g guidelines spell it out pretty plainly. Religion is irrelevant.

But Larry is just like the plaintiffs - religion isn't everything, religion is the ONLY thing. I imagine Larry interprets ball and strike calls in baseball games pretty much strictly on the grounds of the religions of the ump, batter, and pitcher. WHERE the pitch was located (the UC focus) simply cannot penetrate...

(http:// prefixes removed to keep the comment from hanging up. Links must be copied and pasted)

Flint said (April 3, 2008 3:16 PM) --

The judge has the power to declare UC's behavior legal or illegal -- NOT to dictate to them some new set of policies.

Well, duh, if the judge declares UC's behavior to be illegal, isn't that dictating to them a new set of policies?

Joe Mc Faul said ( April 3, 2008 6:59 PM ) --

Just stop practicing California law, Larry.

This is not just California law -- this is the law, period.

You don't ocmprehend the concept of justicability.

Wrong -- you are talking to an expert here. My following blog articles discuss the issue of the justiciability of scientific questions --

im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2007/12/justiciability-of-scientific-questions.html

im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2008/01/justiciability-of-scientific-questions.html

im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2006/09/there-is-no-constitutional-separation.html

im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2006/12/cornelia-dean-on-scientific-disputes.html

It may come as an odd surprise to you that science in many forms is adjudicated daily in courtrooms across the nation.

No, it is no surprise to me, odd or otherwise.

Evolution, AKA DNA evidence, both acquits people and sends people to death row in courts in every state in the union.

DNA evidence has absolutely nothing to do with evolution.

Flint said ( April 3, 2008 8:35 PM ) --

And the effort to mis-frame the issues here marches on. What the evidence showed was that UC accepted course material that met minimum standards even if that material was clearly organized around a religious viewpoint . . . . .

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. The court has not yet determined whether the fundy biology texts meet minimum standards. What the opinion says is,

Defendants have raised a genuine issue of material fact as to whether their rejection of the Plaintiffs' biology courses was reasonable. (page 40 of original, page 42 of pdf file) -- from

www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/msjruling_033108.pdf

But Larry is just like the plaintiffs -- religion isn't everything, religion is the ONLY thing.

More bullshit. I previously said in this thread, "even I think that the textbook's philosophy about science v. religion is bad."

Larry is a retired mechanical engineer according to his blogger profile... and that makes him an expert on the law, science and biology... I can't make any comments on the law - I don't have a law degree - I do know something about science and biology and it is clear he knows little about either. What do you propose to replace evolution, Larry?

michaelf said,

Larry is a retired mechanical engineer according to his blogger profile... and that makes him an expert on the law, science and biology

If we are going to talk about credentials, let's talk about Ed Brayton. He is a blogger on ScienceBlogs (this blog is a ScienceBlogs blog) and a co-blogger on science blog Panda's Thumb but he has no credentials in any technical field. By his own admission, he is not even a college graduate. He is always blogging about the law and science on his own blog, Dispatches from the Culture Wars. He is just a fast-talking storyteller. He gives the appearance that he is always right by censoring comments that rebut him.

You obviously know nothing about the training of mechanical engineers. We take several years of college -- and sometimes postgraduate -- courses in science, mathematics, computer science, and, of course, engineering, most of which is science-related.

I can't make any comments on the law -- I don't have a law degree

To have a general knowledge of the law, one generally needs to be a lawyer or have extensive formal legal training, but practically anyone can quickly become an expert in a narrow area of the law. The term "jailhouse lawyers" refers to prisoners -- sometimes having little formal education -- who have become quite good at representing themselves in court. My own blog has dozens of articles on legal subjects under post labels such as "Expert opinions about Kitzmiller," "Kitzmiller v. Dover," "Establishment clause," and "Selman v. Cobb County," and reading these articles would give you good backgrounds in these subjects. So saying "IANAL" (I am not a lawyer) is often no excuse.

Well, duh, if the judge declares UC's behavior to be illegal, isn't that dictating to them a new set of policies?

No, of course not. If you rob a bank and the court says it's illegal, does that dictate to you what you must do for a living instead? Nope, not at all. It simply says that robbing banks is one of the things you must NOT do.

The number of possible UC policies is essentially infinite. The number of different legal policies is also infinite. The court isn't dictating any one of them, by disallowing any other. Do you ever THINK?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. The court has not yet determined whether the fundy biology texts meet minimum standards.

The court said, in this case, that UC has the right to set minimum standards. It doesn't say that UC must apply for standards guidance with some judge for every standard. UC set standards saying some of the fundy texts failed to meet the standards UC legally crafted.

Yes, any particular standard's reasonableness can be challenged. But UC's standards are, by this decision granting them the right to create them, presumed to be reasonable.

Wrong -- you are talking to an expert here.

And Larry is saying this to a professional lawyer! Come to think of it, it's exactly this flavor of chutzpah that is causing Larry all his heartache - he presumes himself Lord High Infallible Authority on anything he knows so little about that he can't realize how little he knows. Most of us outgrow this sort of thing in elementary school.

Larry I knew you would rant about Ed - did I bring him up? is he relevant? No. I am not very impressed with libertarians and don't read Ed. I do know plenty about engineers and science - if you understood science you wouldn't be backing creationism and intelligent design. Plus you gave no answer to my question - evade, evade, evade.

Larry says "Wrong -- you are talking to an expert here. My following blog articles discuss the issue of the justiciability of scientific questions --"

These articles actually show that Larry doesn't understand what he is talking about (as usual).

michaelf says "Larry is a retired mechanical engineer according to his blogger profile..."

It is true that he claims to be a retired mechanical engineer. If being fired from every job makes you retired, he definitely is retired. His state engineer's license has been cancelled, no doubt he will have an explanation of how the state is conspiring against him. As for law, he has an unblemished record in his many lawsuits. Every one has been laughed out of court at the earliest possible opportunity. This he ascribes to "crooked judges" and the lawyers and judges conspiring against him. He also says that they feared his legal genius.

I often wonder what color the sky is on Larry's planet?

Flint said ( April 4, 2008 10:10 AM ) --

If you rob a bank and the court says it's illegal, does that dictate to you what you must do for a living instead? Nope, not at all. It simply says that robbing banks is one of the things you must NOT do.

That is a bad analogy. The correct analogy is this:
The court is going to decide whether or not it is OK for UC to rob these particular banks (i.e., reject these particular textbooks). The court is not going to decide whether or not it is OK for UC to rob other banks (i.e., reject other textbooks).

And I have suggested a way that the court could avoid ruling on whether or not it is OK for UC to rob these particular banks: require the fundy students to pass a standardized biology test or take a college biology course after enrolling.

And Larry is saying this to a professional lawyer!

I don't give a shit whether or not he is a professional lawyer -- he is going to have to argue his points here like everyone else. He can't declare automatic victory just because he is a lawyer and I am not. He did not give any reason why the courts should not declare evolution to be nonjusticiable and I referred him to my blog articles which give lots of reasons why the courts should declare evolution to be nonjusticiable.

michaelf said ( April 4, 2008 10:20 AM ) --

Larry I knew you would rant about Ed - did I bring him up?

You brought him up indirectly by attacking my qualifications -- I would not have otherwise brought him up. And you admit that you knew that attacking my qualifications would cause me to bring him up.

if you understood science you wouldn't be backing creationism and intelligent design.

Whether or not I back them is irrelevant here. What I am saying is that because the fundy biology textbooks' approach is unorthodox, there is a question as to whether the fundy students adequately learned the core material, particularly considering that these were the sole or primary textbooks and not companion or supplemental textbooks. Therefore, the fundy students should be required to either pass a standardized biology test or take a college biology course after enrollment.

ViU driveled,

It is true that he claims to be a retired mechanical engineer. If being fired from every job makes you retired, he definitely is retired.

Here we go again with Mike Dunford's double-standard -- he is going to allow other commenters to attack me personally with malicious gossip while denying me an opportunity to respond.

"I'm always kicking their butts -- that's why they don't like me."
-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

LArry says Therefore, the fundy students should be required to either pass a standardized biology test or take a college biology course after enrollment.

Should be? No. They should meet the requirements that were in place, including preparation with approved curricula, and not be requesting to skate by from using inferior materials.

Passing a test is a weak measure of one's skills. The materials being used provide a much more valuable measure of the set of things the people could have even learned.

The "should" lays clearly on the backs of those using mythological books as science textbooks. They "should" have at least used approved materials for their science preparation, even if they used mythological-based texts to get what they want to believe is the "true" story.

BTW, Larry, you are arguing that they should be allowed enrollment and then take biology courses.

Why not encourage them prove their mettle by entering a community college, passing the courses with approved materials, and then entering the university? Hell, if they already know the material, let them challenge the courses and get credentials with almost no additional work.

They really would learn that biology stuff using accepted materials well enough to pass those tests you want them to take, wouldn't they?

Me: "I can't imagine you saying a more stupid thing, but my imagination has its limits."

Larry F.: "DNA evidence has absolutely nothing to do with evolution."

Congratulations, you exceeded my imagination yet again.

"Here we go again with Mike Dunford's double-standard -- he is going to allow other commenters to attack me personally with malicious gossip while denying me an opportunity to respond."

Stating the easily verifiable truth http://www2.dca.ca.gov/pls/wllpub/wllqryna$lcev2.startup?p_qte_code=ENG… is not "malicious gossip" and unlike the situation at your arbitrarily censored and heavily moderated blog, you do have the opportunity to respond.

Q said,

Passing a test is a weak measure of one's skills. The materials being used provide a much more valuable measure of the set of things the people could have even learned.

Nonetheless, the UC rules allow applicants to substitute satisfactory SAT subject test scores for courses that they have not taken.

BTW, Larry, you are arguing that they should be allowed enrollment and then take biology courses.

As I pointed out in my comment of April 3, 2008 6:20 AM, evolution is part -- albeit a small part -- of the SAT AP biology test, so not studying evolution could cause a student to get an unsatisfactory score on the test. Maybe teaching or learning about evolution is against the religious beliefs at some fundy schools -- I don't know. The Bob Jones U. texts have about 15 pages on evolution and I don't know what the A Beka Book texts have. Anyway, allowing fundy students who flunk the SAT test to take a biology course after enrolling could be considered to be just a way of accommodating their religious beliefs. This would in principle be no different from UC's Subject A English requirement, where students deficient in English skills are allowed to take remedial English courses after enrolling.

Maybe the disputes over the other fundy textbooks could be handled in the same way -- I don't know. That is a whole other subject. For example, the fundy students can't claim that it is against their religion to learn about non-Christian factors in American history. The fundy schools' obsession with Christianity has created a real mess. If the fundy students' religious sensibilities are so easily offended, they should not even attend a public university.

Also, my proposal is a permanent solution, at least so far as the fundy biology courses are concerned. If the courts handle this on a case-by-case basis, the same problem may arise in the future in other states and/or with other textbooks.

Why not encourage them prove their mettle by entering a community college, passing the courses with approved materials, and then entering the university?

Where there is a constitutional conflict, the government is supposed to choose the least-burdensome alternative. Requiring the fundy students to attend a community college first is not the least-burdensome alternative so far as the fundy biology courses are concerned.

Joe McFaul said,

Larry F.: "DNA evidence has absolutely nothing to do with evolution."
Congratulations, you exceeded my imagination yet again.

You still have not explained how evolution has anything to do with DNA evidence. Similarities of DNA between species are used to support evolution theory, but that does not mean that evolution theory supports the principles of DNA testing.

I am still waiting to see what Mike Dunford is going to do about the comments that attack me personally.

Larry mentions Anyway, allowing fundy students who flunk the SAT test to take a biology course after enrolling could be considered to be just a way of accommodating their religious beliefs.

Not to be snide, but that is simply a woulda, shoulda, coulda argument. Instead of meeting the admission requirements after admission, as you suggest, perhaps the students could meet the admission requirements before admission.

Larry mentioned Where there is a constitutional conflict, the government is supposed to choose the least-burdensome alternative.

There's no need to accomodate beliefs in a mythology, if the existing accomodations can pass the Lemon test.

Larry says Requiring the fundy students to attend a community college first is not the least-burdensome alternative so far as the fundy biology courses are concerned.

No? It is not UC's responsibility to offer remediation to the fundy students. It is their burden and their responsibility to have a foundation suitable for the university they want to attend. Or, it is their responsibility to attend a univerity suitable for their foundation.

For instance, the students can start a college career at a different university that has different admission requirements - such as at a community college. Then, after they successfully acheive their remediation, they could apply to UC and argue that they do meet the admission requirements.

Larry said: "I am still waiting to see what Mike Dunford is going to do about the comments that attack me personally."

Perhaps you could lead by example and stop attacking everyone else personally on your own blog? There is hardly a post by you there that doesn't include the word that Mike has already asked you to stop using here.

The bottom line is that your "solution" is the most burdensome suggested so far so you fail your own test. Instead, why not just encourage those who want to mix science and mythology to enroll at Oral Roberts University, or many others that do not have UC's requirements?

I have another suggestion. Why not drop the arbitrary censorship and heavy handed monitoring on your own site and perhaps you can have a few of the reasonable discussions that you see here migrate to your own blog? If not, I would encourage you to drop your "Association of Non-Censoring Bloggers" as it has no practicing members.

Larry does have one good point (Apr 2, 1:35am). I also can't find the ruling/order anywhere on the Central District web site, or anywhere else except the UC site. Now, it's not likely that anyone at UC would make up something like this, but it does seem odd not being able to locate it. Then again, the Court site only seems to post "selected" rulings, which suggests that it's normal practice to not post all of them. Maybe??

Scott, would this resolve your queries?

www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/msjruling_033108.pdf

Q said,

There's no need to accomodate beliefs in a mythology

If you consider religions to be mythology, then the Constitution says that the government must accommodate beliefs in mythology.

if the existing accomodations can pass the Lemon test.

The Lemon test sucks. The Supreme Court has long since ceased requiring lower courts to use it.

It is not UC's responsibility to offer remediation to the fundy students.

UC offers remediation to students with deficient English skills, so why not offer remediation to the fundy students? Actually, UC would not have to offer remediation to the fundies -- the fundies could just take regular college courses in biology, history, or whatever subjects they are deficient in because of the fundy orientation of their high school courses.

Then, after they successfully acheive their remediation

UC might not even require biology remediation for transfer students -- the entrance requirements for transfer students may be different from the entrance requirements for freshmen -- I don't know.

This lawsuit was filed way back in Aug. 2005 and is finally getting rolling. ACSI told me that UC submitted 350,000 pages of materials! ACSI told me that the case will likely go to a jury now. Time that courts spend on high-profile cases takes time away from low-profile cases. If you ever had your lawsuit totally ignored by the courts (obviously you haven't), and it takes a hell of a lot of time, effort, and sometimes money (if you hire a lawyer) to sue in court, you would know what I mean. When I sued California and the US EPA in federal court over the flagrantly unconstitutional $300 smog impact fee on incoming out-of-state federally certified vehicles (this fee was eventually thrown out by the state courts), I argued that California had lost its federal-court tax-suit immunity by "leaving the sphere that was exclusively its own" (Parden v. Terminal Railway of the Alabama State Docks Dept.) by basing the fee entirely on the state's special status under federal auto-emissions laws. California did not even attempt to rebut that argument. My lawsuit was thrown out by Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter without an oral hearing and without a written opinion! I was later vindicated when a top former California auto-emissions agency official testified in state court that the fee required the approval of the US EPA! So I am not interested in listening to your crap about how to complicate the ACSI v. Stearns case.

Voice in the Urbanness said,

Larry said: "I am still waiting to see what Mike Dunford is going to do about the comments that attack me personally."
Perhaps you could lead by example and stop attacking everyone else personally on your own blog?

The policy on my blog is to allow personal attacks except gossip about people's private affairs and attacks based on race, sex, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, those kinds of things. I try to avoid making personal attacks myself unless provoked.

Why not drop the arbitrary censorship and heavy handed monitoring on your own site

So censoring gossip about my private affairs is "arbitrary censorship and heavy handed monitoring"! What a jerk.

Anyway, what I do on my own blog is off-topic here.

Scott said,

I also can't find the ruling/order anywhere on the Central District web site, or anywhere else except the UC site.

It is not on the UC website, nor is it on the ACSI website:

www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/

www.acsi.org/web2003/default.aspx?ID=1181

Now, it's not likely that anyone at UC would make up something like this, but it does seem odd not being able to locate it.

April Fools Day ended several days ago. I originally thought it was a hoax, too.

Larry asserts The Supreme Court has long since ceased requiring lower courts to use it. (it = the Lemon Test)

Nuh uh.

Larry suggests If you consider religions to be mythology, then the Constitution says that the government must accommodate beliefs in mythology.

Nuh uh. Read amendment 1. The constitution says that the government must not establish any religion. It also says that the government cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion. It does not mention accomodate. It also doesn't say that maintaining a knowledge of scientific principles interferes with the exercise of religion. Keep in mind, expecting a certain knowledge isn't the same as mandating how religion is excercised.

You seem to be confusing what is really protected by the Constitution from what you want to be protected.

Larry asks UC offers remediation to students with deficient English skills, so why not offer remediation to the fundy students?

Maybe you should check if there are any laws affecting ESL. But, nonetheless, "why not" is simply begging. It doesn't provide a logical argument. The frank answer could quite simply be "they don't want to."

Larry suggests the fundies could just take regular college courses in biology, history, or whatever subjects they are deficient in because of the fundy orientation of their high school courses.

If, as you suggest, those people could take those classes, then they could just as well take those classes in a community college to prove that they truly are capable of learning the material before they are admitted to the university.

Your argument seems to be based on resolving your offense, and not upon anything that the univeristy did wrong that must be changed.

Larry comments UC might not even require biology remediation for transfer students -- the entrance requirements for transfer students may be different from the entrance requirements for freshmen -- I don't know.

UC has transfer requirements too. They are on line here www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/tr…. Google-fu is cool.

Larry extrapolates If you ever had your lawsuit totally ignored by the courts (obviously you haven't), ...

Obviously? Where did that ESP come from? May be true, may not be, but where do you get off?

Larry asserts So I am not interested in listening to your crap about how to complicate the ACSI v. Stearns case.

So?

Larry reminds the readers Anyway, what I do on my own blog is off-topic here.

And I fully agree. Bringing up stuff from another blog is simply setting up a smokescreen. Larry, I'm sugesting, has the freedom to post what he wants there, and what he wants here. If he keeps the claims separate, then linking them easily runs afoul of simply being ad hominim, of the form "Look at what he did over there, so discredit him over here". Pure argumentative bunkum. (Surprise Larry, I'll argue for your position if I agree with it.)

Larry mentions It is not on the UC website, nor is it on the ACSI website: (it being the ruling/order)

I found that it is online, but requires a subscription to see. Are you looking for something other than what is at the link I provided at April 5, 2008 2:31 AM?

Larry said,

>If you consider religions to be mythology, then the Constitution says that the government must accommodate beliefs in mythology.<

The Constitution does not require religion or mythology to be taught as science.

> California did not even attempt to rebut that argument. <

Because your suit was thrown out on other grounds. If a man is brought in to a hospital with his head missing, they rarely check for measles.

> Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter <

This from someone who decries personal attacks.

> I was later vindicated <

No. Having a witness testify that one of your points was valid does not make the rest any more valid. The bottom line is that you had no standing to sue so they did not need to comment further.

> I try to avoid making personal attacks myself unless provoked. <

You must be always provoked. Few of your comments lack personal attacks.

I don't consider mention of your total failure in lawsuits to be personal gossip. It is public information. You have claimed to be an "unrecognized legal genius". If someone claims to be Annie Oakley, the fact that they have failed to hit the ground with a sack of manure in twelve successive attempts is certainly admissable.

Q moaned,

Larry asserts The Supreme Court has long since ceased requiring lower courts to use it. (it = the Lemon Test)

Nuh uh.

Wrong -- the correct answer is uh uh. See the Wikipedia article on the Lemon test. Also, the Supreme Court can hardly expect lower courts to use the Lemon test when the SC itself sometimes does not use it -- see

im-from-missouri.blogspot.com/2006/05/aptly-named-lemon-test-sucks.html

Anyway, the Lemon test is irrelevant here -- it applies only to cases where there appears to be a government endorsement of religion.

Read amendment 1. The constitution says that the government must not establish any religion. It also says that the government cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion. It does not mention accomodate.

The Supreme Court said in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 673,

Nor does the Constitution require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any. -- see www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0465_0668_ZO.html

Larry asks UC offers remediation to students with deficient English skills, so why not offer remediation to the fundy students?
Maybe you should check if there are any laws affecting ESL.

The Subject A English requirement dates back to at least the mid-1960's -- I don't think that it has anything to do with ESL laws.

If, as you suggest, those people could take those classes, then they could just as well take those classes in a community college

That is what I call a "let them eat cake" argument. They could also go to a private university or an out-of-state public university. That does not justify denying them admission to UC.

Larry extrapolates If you ever had your lawsuit totally ignored by the courts (obviously you haven't), ...

Obviously? Where did that ESP come from?

As I said, time that the courts spend on high-profile cases takes time away from low-profile cases. Anyone who ever had their low-profile case ignored by a court would not want a court to unnecessarily complicate a high-profile case.

Larry reminds the readers Anyway, what I do on my own blog is off-topic here.

And I fully agree. Bringing up stuff from another blog is simply setting up a smokescreen.

Thank you -- at last a voice of reason. ViU is trying to clutter up this blog with a debate about what I do on my own blog, and I don't even censor comments about that on my own blog.

I found that it is online, but requires a subscription to see.

I am able to view the decision without paying a subscription.

Voice in the Urbanness said,

The Constitution does not require religion or mythology to be taught as science.

There is no constitutional separation of bad science and state.

Because your suit was thrown out on other grounds.

No, bozo, there were no grounds. As I said, there was no oral hearing and no written opinion. There is no shred of evidence that the Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter ever read the briefs in the case.

> Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter

This from someone who decries personal attacks.

I don't decry personal attacks -- except for some kinds of personal attacks (see below).

I don't consider mention of your total failure in lawsuits to be personal gossip.

I don't consider discussion of my lawsuits to be "personal gossip." By personal gossip, I mean discussion of where I live, how I live, my reasons for leaving former employment, who knows me personally, those kinds of things.

Larry mentions Anyway, the Lemon test is irrelevant here -- it applies only to cases where there appears to be a government endorsement of religion.
It also applies to cases where the govenment prevents free exercise (there are two parts to how the Constitution protects religious isses.)

If, as you say, the Lemon test doesn't apply, then this isn't an issue about religion. It is simply an issue about whether the students were prepared to enter the UC. Their curriculum couldn't have prepared them.

Larry said,

> There is no constitutional separation of bad science and state. <

ID and creationism are not bad science. They are not science at all.

> No, bozo, there were no grounds. <

The judge thought otherwise. This was not an isolated case. All of the cases you have filed have been thrown out.

> There is no shred of evidence that the Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter ever read the briefs in the case. <

The fact that he laughed you out of court is evidence that he did read them.

> By personal gossip, I mean discussion of where I live, how I live, my reasons for leaving former employment, who knows me personally, those kinds of things. <

If you had actually limited your censorship to such things, there would not be a controversy. Please don't pretend that you do.

In the mean time, I would suggest that to keep on track, the use of the terms "dunghill", "bozo", and "Mad Hatter" do not add to your discussions. They only show the frustration that you have had in failing to prove your points.

Dear Q:
I found that it is online, but requires a subscription to see. Are you looking for something other than what is at the link I provided at April 5, 2008 2:31 AM?

I had found the linked site earlier, but thanks.

I'm not looking for something "different". I'm just remembering the Dover trial, where all the rulings/opinions were posted on the Court's website. I can't find anything about this trial on the Central District web site: http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/

Am I looking at the wrong site? Or, are you saying you need a subscription to this site? I couldn't find anything on the site itself about a "subscription".

Just curious how this Court runs, or runs differently from Pennsylvania.

Thanks.

Scott, sorry about my bad wording. I found what looked like a copy of the case on a legal site, but it required a subscription. The copy at the UC site looks like what would be on the legal site. But, I wasn't sure if you wanted the imprimatur of cite from a legal site, or if collecting the case from a college was complete for your cause.

Q: Just trying out "due diligence" in a minor way by trying to track down "original" sources. The comment that a copy could not be found at the Court site piqued my curiosity. Thanks.

Q said,

If, as you say, the Lemon test doesn't apply, then this isn't an issue about religion.

The Wikipedia article about the Lemon test says,

It consists of three prongs:
1. The government's action must have a secular legislative purpose;
2. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
3. The government's action must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion.
If any of these 3 prongs is violated, the government's action is deemed unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

(in recent years, the 3rd prong has often been either ignored or incorporated into the second prong)

I checked a few other Internet references and they agree that the Lemon test is just about the establishment clause. I agree that the Lemon test could be applied to some free-exercise clause cases, but I am not aware of it ever being applied to such a case.

It is simply an issue about whether the students were prepared to enter the UC. Their curriculum couldn't have prepared them.

If that were the only issue, then UC would lose the case. As I pointed out in my comment of April 2, 2008 1:35 AM,

An article titled "Should Some Students Be Denied College Entrance Because They Used These Textbooks?", by the Association of Christian Schools International, said the following about a meeting between UC personnel, Christian school personnel, and attorneys on both sides of the issue (page 3):

When asked whether poor college performance by students from religious schools prompted the rejection of the textbooks, UC representatives responded negatively. They also acknowledged that UC did not have any objective evidence that students from religious schools are deficient in science when they arrive for their freshman year of college .....

As the discussion continued about the biology books, it became evident that they were rejected because they appeared to state the perspective that the Bible is revelation and along with faith is more authoritative than the observations of science, especially if there were a conflict over a "factual scientific issue."

ViU said,

ID and creationism are not bad science. They are not science at all.

OK -- there is no constitutional separation between pseudoscience and state. Whatever.

Yes, I know, ViU, judges are always good and I am always bad. What a stupid idiot.

ViU, the plaintiffs' lead attorney in this case, Wendell Bird, lost his last two big monkey trials, McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education and Edwards v. Aguillard. So tell me why the defendants are not making a big deal about that in court.

Folks, frankly -- who has made a more worthwhile contribution to this thread, ViU or I? His comments virtually entirely consist of personal attacks and breathtaking inanities. I am forced to tolerate his crap on my blog because of my general no-censorship policy, but I wonder what Mike Dunford's excuse is -- Mike has shown willingness to practice censorship at the drop of a hat.

Scott said,

I'm not looking for something "different". I'm just remembering the Dover trial, where all the rulings/opinions were posted on the Court's website. I can't find anything about this trial on the Central District web site

Well, the Dover case had a much higher profile than this case has, but of course that is no excuse for the failure to post this ruling on the court's website. I myself was particularly annoyed because I was checking for the ruling practically every day but first found out about it from some blogs. I have no idea how the bloggers found out about it. There was -- and still is -- nothing about the ruling on the UC and ACSI websites. I didn't see the ruling reported in the general media but a higher-ed news service did have an article about it. Failure of a court to post a ruling promptly is very irresponsible -- for example, maybe someone wants to file an amicus brief and misses a deadline because a ruling was not posted. It was the judge's responsibility to make sure that this ruling was posted and his failure to do so is another strike against him (the first strike was quote-mining Behe). Don't expect the court to follow any rules -- as I said, my lawsuit in this court was thrown out without an oral hearing and without a written opinion, even though I had an airtight argument which defendant California did not even attempt to rebut.

The National Center for Science Education has the best collection of documents on the Dover case -- see

www2.ncseweb.org/wp/?page_id=152

www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/

Q said,

The copy at the UC site looks like what would be on the legal site. But, I wasn't sure if you wanted the imprimatur of cite from a legal site, or if collecting the case from a college was complete for your cause.

The copy from UC is presumably official because it has the stamp of the court at the top. It is probably also the only copy available to the public.

Larry suggests I checked a few other Internet references and they agree that the Lemon test is just about the establishment clause.

Then, I suggest, you have read the references incorrectly.

Read the second point in your own post:
2. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion

The reference to "advancing" corresponds to the 1st amendment's establishment clause. The reference to "inhibiting" corresponds to the 1st amendment's free-exercise clause. Sorry, but your interpretation isn't consistent with legal theory.

This is still a case about unprepared students, and not a case based on one's adherence to a mythology. In other words, this isn't a case about relilgious discrimination. It is, frankly, about people that used materials that leave them as ignormamuses, who want admission to a university that holds standards of admission.

Larry says Folks, frankly -- who has made a more worthwhile contribution to this thread, ViU or I?

Larry, I'll speak out on your behalf regarding ad hominim attacks against you, as I did. But, I'll speak against you when you appeal to the masses as a means to strengthen an argument. It should be strong on its own.

Q said,

Then, I suggest, you have read the references incorrectly.

No, I have not read the references incorrectly. Here is part of my quote from Wikipedia:

If any of these 3 prongs is violated, the government's action is deemed unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. (emphasis added)

It is true that the Lemon test is normally associated with just the establishment clause and is not normally associated with the free exercise clause. However, I agreed that the Lemon test could be applied to free exercise clause cases. I checked the ruling here and it does use the Lemon test, but that is partly because the plaintiffs made an establishment clause claim. The ruling says,

Although Establishment Clause claims typically challenge government action that allegedly benefits religion, the clause also governs "a claim brought under a hostility to religion theory." (citations omitted) (""The government neutrality required under the Establishment Clause is .... violated as much by government disapproval of religion as it is by government approval of religion"). (page 32 of original document, page 34 of pdf file) -- from http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/msjruling_03310…

There have been lots of free exercise cases where the Lemon test has not been used -- that's why the test is not associated with free exercise cases. Also, as I said, the Lemon test has fallen into disfavor.

This is still a case about unprepared students, and not a case based on one's adherence to a mythology.

As I pointed out, UC representatives said at a meeting that they had no objective evidence that the fundy students are unprepared to study science at the college level.

I'll speak out on your behalf regarding ad hominim attacks against you, as I did. But, I'll speak against you when you appeal to the masses as a means to strengthen an argument.

My arguments against ViU don't need strengthening, because he makes no arguments at all -- he just makes unsupported assertions.

Larry said:

> My arguments against ViU don't need strengthening, because he makes no arguments at all -- he just makes unsupported assertions. <

You seem to believe that if you do not understand or agree with an argument, it has not been made. There are endless examples on the net of people giving valid arguments with your only answer being to repeat your original assertion and pretend that no counter argument has been made.

ViU moans,

You seem to believe that if you do not understand or agree with an argument, it has not been made.

And you seem to believe that you make arguments. Consider, for example, your unsupported statement, "The bottom line is that your 'solution' is the most burdensome suggested so far so you fail your own test." What is the most burdensome about my proposal that the fundy students be required to either pass a biology test or take a biology course after enrolling? Why, for example, should the students start at a non-UC college and later transfer to UC if they are deficient only in biology? Transfer students may have problems because the courses at the non-UC school may not be well-coordinated with UC's courses (though transfer-program courses at California community colleges are coordinated with UC's courses). Anyway -- GET THIS -- junior-level UC transfer students are not required to satisfy the a-g high school course requirements by taking college courses in missing subjects! Only lower-division UC transfer students are required to take the missing high school subjects:

Lower division transfer
- - - - - - - - -
If you met the Scholarship Requirement in high school but did not satisfy the 15-course Subject Requirement, you must take transferable college courses in the missing subjects, earn a C or better in each required course and have an overall C (2.0) average in all transferable coursework to be eligible to transfer. --from http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to…

No such requirement is stated for junior-level transfer students, so this transfer proposal would be a way of evading the a-g course requirements entirely.

"I'm always kicking their butts -- that's why they don't like me."
-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Larry comments:
Why, for example, should the students start at a non-UC college and later transfer to UC if they are deficient only in biology?

Because them's the rules, and those are legimitate rules.

You made the observation that junior-level transfer students have different acceptance criteria than lower-level transfer students. So? Are you arguing based on "fairness", or because there is something fundamentally wrong with differing requirements? The basis for your suggestion is important, because as you are mentioning, until those students can prove their mettle in earning an associates degree they are still not junior-level, so the existing rules state that the students are still bound by the lower-level transfer requirements, specifically in "the missing subjects".

Larry, suggesting that they should take a remediation class after isn't the same as presenting a sound argument. It is just making a suggestion - one of many that could be proposed. I'm pointing out that for soundness, you need to show why your suggestion is more proper than the existing rules - i.e. receiving remediation before admission. "Fairness" could be one argument (but extremely weak, since it is so subjective). "Discrimination" could be another, but as you've said on April 5, 2008 3:42 PM , it doesn't apply since religious discrimination isn't the argument. Do you have an objective reason that the legitimate rules should be modified for these ignorant students?

Are we just going in circles on this?

You missed my points entirely.

If teaching or learning evolution in the fundy schools is contrary to religious beliefs and some fundy students flunk the SAT AP Biology Test because of ignorance about evolution, then allowing those fundy students to take a college biology course after UC enrollment would be accommodating religious beliefs. The Supreme Court said that the government should make reasonable efforts to accommodate religious beliefs.

The basis for your suggestion is important, because as you are mentioning, until those students can prove their mettle in earning an associates degree they are still not junior-level, so the existing rules state that the students are still bound by the lower-level transfer requirements, specifically in "the missing subjects".

I can't understand what you are trying to say here. My point is that if the fundy students enter UC as junior-level transfer students, they would not be required to repeat biology, thus defeating the purpose of the proposed transfer solution.

Are we just going in circles on this?

You are the one who is causing us to go in circles.

Larry Fafarman wrote: The Supreme Court said that the government should make reasonable efforts to accommodate religious beliefs.

You certainly have a tortured definition of the word reasonable. Instead of forcing colleges to accept unqualified students, thereby displacing qualified ones, why not just accept the fact that students should be qualified before they are accepted. That would be reasonable.

In his struggle to justify admitting Calvary Chapel students at all costs, whether or not they are the most qualified applicants (or even minimally qualified at all), Larry is overlooking one important fact: UC may not share this priority.

As part of the preparation for its expert reports, UC actually looked at the records of students who graduated from ACSI-affiliated schools. Even though these particular students did meet the minimal standards for admissions that Larry finds so unfair, they were significantly poorer students than public school students from similar backgrounds in many important measures: more likely to drop out, longer time to graduation, lower grade point average, and so on. This is exactly what one would expect from students who received a poor high school education that didn't properly prepare them for the demands of a university education.

UC is in the business of taking the best of the best among all California students and turning them into the best-educated graduates it can. It doesn't do remedial education, and it doesn't have any particular interest in accepting students who are philosophically opposed to so much of what a university education is all about.

Larry mentions:
My point is that if the fundy students enter UC as junior-level transfer students, they would not be required to repeat biology, thus defeating the purpose of the proposed transfer solution.

Larry, by comparing fundy students without even an adequate high-school education to juniors in college you show that you don't really understand the problem. It isn't about UC graduating people with biology training. It is about meeting criteria for acceptance to UC, based upon the curricula that the students have studied. People entering as juniors have demonstrated the ability to study and succeed in building a suitable foundation with accepted curricula. The students in this case have done no such thing.

Do we need to keep circling back to the real issues?

I separated this point, where Larry said:
If teaching or learning evolution in the fundy schools is contrary to religious beliefs and some fundy students flunk the SAT AP Biology Test because of ignorance about evolution, then allowing those fundy students to take a college biology course after UC enrollment would be accommodating religious beliefs.
So, are you arguing that they denied admission because of their religion or their preparation?

The case was ruled that it was because of their preparation. That they did not meet the requirements of admission is indisputable.

Besides, there are many means of accomodating those students. There are even four methods to gain acceptance identified in the case, any one of which can accomodate those students. Methinks you misunderstand the bounds of necessary accomodation.

Regardless of the words you pick to frame your argument, your argument that they should be admitted before being qualified has no backing and still holds no water.

You people just keep wasting my time by raising arguments that are blatantly false, unsupported, or straw men:

tomh said,

Instead of forcing colleges to accept unqualified students,

These fundy students might be "unqualified" in just one small area, knowledge of evolution (I don't know). Some UC entrants do not take high school biology (they can take physics and chemistry instead) and some who do take high school biology do not study evolution.

Mary moaned,

Even though these particular students did meet the minimal standards for admissions that Larry finds so unfair, they were significantly poorer students than public school students from similar backgrounds in many important measures: more likely to drop out, longer time to graduation, lower grade point average, and so on.

And Q quibbled,

People entering as juniors have demonstrated the ability to study and succeed in building a suitable foundation with accepted curricula. The students in this case have done no such thing.

Sigh. For the THIRD time in this thread,

An article titled "Should Some Students Be Denied College Entrance Because They Used These Textbooks?", by the Association of Christian Schools International, said the following about a meeting between UC personnel, Christian school personnel, and attorneys on both sides of the issue (page 3):
When asked whether poor college performance by students from religious schools prompted the rejection of the textbooks, UC representatives responded negatively. They also acknowledged that UC did not have any objective evidence that students from religious schools are deficient in science when they arrive for their freshman year of college. -- from http://www.acsi.org/webfiles/webitems/attachments/007875_1.%20Overview%…

The case was ruled that it was because of their preparation. That they did not meet the requirements of admission is indisputable.

Wrong. This case is not over yet.

This case is not over yet.

How's it going so far?

Larry tried to provide:
An article titled "Should Some Students Be Denied College Entrance Because They Used These Textbooks?", by the Association of Christian Schools International, said ...
Can we stick with the ruling and the facts contained therein?

How's it going so far?

Are you asking about how the case is going along, or why it has lasted so long?

The lawsuit was filed way back in August 2005. ACSI told me that UC alone has submitted 350,000 pages of materials. UC alone has 8 expert witnesses -- see
www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/

BTW, I discovered that I was mistaken when I said that the above webpage does not mention the latest ruling -- it is mentioned at the top. I missed it because it is not in the list of documents at the bottom.

The case is finally starting to roll. ACSI told me that the case will probably now go to a jury.

In the Selman v. Cobb County evolution-disclaimer textbook-sticker case, the appeals court took 16 months just to vacate and remand the decision because of missing evidence. The courts have become slower than molasses at the South Pole in a midwinter cold snap.

BTW, it is noteworthy that "[t]he University did not move for summary judgment on plaintiffs' challenges to several specific course approval decisions." -- see
www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/courtdecisionsummary_0…

UC's decision to not move for summary judgment on those challenges is almost an admission of guilt.

Q said,

Larry tried to provide:
An article titled "Should Some Students Be Denied College Entrance Because They Used These Textbooks?", by the Association of Christian Schools International, said ...
Can we stick with the ruling and the facts contained therein?

No. There is nothing wrong with citing results of an official meeting between representatives of the plaintiffs and UC. Can you show me anything in the ruling or elsewhere that contradicts what I quoted from the ACSI article?

Careful, Larry: you're forgetting the party line.

You imply above that Calvary Chapel's goal in trying to get the disputed classes certified by UC was to protect the religious freedom of its students by allowing them to qualify for college admissions without actually learning anything about mainstream biology, history, literary criticism, or anything else that might challenge their religious training. (It may surprise you that I agree with you that this is precisely what Calvary Chapel was trying to accomplish.)

Unfortunately for their lawsuit, the only way the classes could accomplish this purpose was to omit the objectionable material by choosing textbooks that failed to address the mainstream academic consensus. Now the judge has agreed that UC is perfectly within its rights to fail to certify courses that don't adequately cover (by UC's standards) the mainstream academic consensus.

Or maybe you prefer to argue today that the classes did adequately cover the mainstream academic consensus, after all? In which case, of course, your religious freedom argument for allowing the students to substitute the disputed courses for normal college-prep courses disappears--both courses would be covering much the same material--and the only issue is which course covers it most thoroughly.

As usual, the argument goes on over Larry's head and he just restates his old positions in the false belief that they contain some sort of logical argument. He further pretends that since he can't defeat the arguments that are raised against him, the arguments haven't been made.

"The Supreme Court said that the government should make reasonable efforts to accommodate religious beliefs."

This does not mean that flat earth theories need to be included in geology courses.

"I can't understand what you are trying to say here."

Do you ever?

> If teaching or learning evolution in the fundy schools is contrary to religious beliefs and some fundy students flunk the SAT AP Biology Test because of ignorance about evolution <

Religion often has its costs. Perhaps these students can consider themselves martyrs.

We are always kicking Larry's butt. That's why he doesn't like us.

Mary moans,

You imply above that Calvary Chapel's goal in trying to get the disputed classes certified by UC was to protect the religious freedom of its students by allowing them to qualify for college admissions without actually learning anything about mainstream biology, history, literary criticism, or anything else that might challenge their religious training.

Do you have a serious argument to make? The judge can't just get up there and say that he just hates fundies and rule accordingly.

As for courses other than biology, we don't know enough about them to pass judgment. In regard to such courses as "Christianity in American History," the fundies claim that UC accredited non-Christian courses with a similar narrow focus. I think that one factor that should be considered is how many of the fundy-type courses a particular student takes. One or two may be OK, but several may be bad.

If UC's position is so strong, then why did UC decide to not move for summary judgment on the plaintiffs' challenges to several specific course approval decisions? That decision is almost an admission of guilt.

As usually, ViU just makes some breathtakingly inane comments which illustrate the utter bankruptcy of his position.

When asked whether poor college performance by students from religious schools prompted the rejection of the textbooks, UC representatives responded negatively. They also acknowledged that UC did not have any objective evidence that students from religious schools are deficient in science when they arrive for their freshman year of college.

See, even the plaintiffs admit that UC was not discriminating on the basis of religion.

How this observation is supposed to help the plaintiffs' case is beyond ken.

If the question had been whether students who used these books as primary texts were deficient in science... well, that's a whole nother ballgame.

BTW, it is noteworthy that "[t]he University did not move for summary judgment on plaintiffs' challenges to several specific course approval decisions." -- see
www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/courtdecisionsummary_0…

UC's decision to not move for summary judgment on those challenges is almost an admission of guilt.

No, it's an admission that the two parties can't agree on facts dispositive of the case, such as whether the textbooks meet UC standards. Summary judgment can't be issued under those circumstances. You see, smart lawyers don't file frivolous motions - it tends to piss off the judges. Of course, since you admit to not only having filed frivolous lawsuits, but actually perjuring yourself in the process, I wouldn't expect you to understand.

Larry bleats:

As usually, ViU just makes some breathtakingly inane comments which illustrate the utter bankruptcy of his position.

I want to thank you Larry for giving such a perfect example of my observation about you. If you have no answer, you just pretend that no argument has been made.

Kevin,

Why waste your time? You have proven many times that Larry has no understanding of law and court practices.

Here's a hypothetical situation detailing how summary judgment works:

A traffic camera catches Larry Jones running a red light. Mr. Jones decides to fight the ticket. Larry makes the following claims: the light was not red when he entered the intersection, and that the pictures from the traffic camera violate his constitutional rights and should be inadmissible as evidence. The city claims that the pictures clearly show that he entered the intersection after the light turned red and that they are admissible as evidence.

Larry then files for summary judgment on the basis that if the traffic camera is unconstitutional as a matter of law, the city has no evidence upon which to prosecute and the case would not require a trial to determine the facts. The city can only file for partial summary judgment because even if their evidence is ruled admissible, there is a material issue of fact as to whether Mr. Jones entered the intersection before or after the light turned red.

Kevin Vicklund said,

See, even the plaintiffs admit that UC was not discriminating on the basis of religion.

WHAT? Where in the hell did the plaintiffs say that?

If the question had been whether students who used these books as primary texts were deficient in science... well, that's a whole nother ballgame.

That is -- or should be -- one of the questions.

UC's decision to not move for summary judgment on those challenges is almost an admission of guilt.
No, it's an admission that the two parties can't agree on facts dispositive of the case, such as whether the textbooks meet UC standards.

If they agreed on that, there would be no lawsuit. One of the reasons why they can't agree on that is that the plaintiffs think that UC's standards are wrong.

Summary judgment can't be issued under those circumstances.

Wrong. The part of the definition of "summary judgment" that says that "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact" only means that one side has convinced the judge(s) that there is no such issue and does not necessarily mean that the other side agrees that there is no such issue.

Anyway, what material facts are disputed in the case? I mean facts, not opinions. For example, the dispute over what the UC's standards should be is a dispute over opinion, not a dispute over claims about fact.

You see, smart lawyers don't file frivolous motions - it tends to piss off the judges.

And smart commenters don't post frivolous comments like you do -- it tends to piss off the blogger and other commenters.

Of course, since you admit to not only having filed frivolous lawsuits

My lawsuits against California's "smog impact fee" were not frivolous. The state courts eventually declared the fee to be unconstitutional. A former top California auto-emissions agency official testified in state court that the fee required the approval of the US EPA, showing that I properly filed my lawsuits in the federal courts (a fact which I had already shown in my legal arguments). I am getting really tired of going over this again and again.

Anyway, IMO my proposed solution -- that students claiming credit for the fundy biology course be required to either get a satisfactory score on the SAT AP Biology Test or take a college biology course after enrolling -- is fair and practical. If fundy students can pass the SAT AP Biology Test without knowledge of evolution, then good for them (students from public schools are allowed to pass the test without knowledge of evolution). The court is just wasting time and money by pursuing this further. The court is taking time away from cases that have a lower profile.

ViU says that if he posts a comment saying that bears don't shit in the woods, I am ducking the comment when I don't answer him.

Larry suggests Anyway, IMO my proposed solution -- that students claiming credit for the fundy biology course be required to either get a satisfactory score on the SAT AP Biology Test or take a college biology course after enrolling -- is fair and practical.

Let's suppose, strictly for the sake of argument, that we don't disagree about whether it is a fair and practical solution. But, also suppose that the law doesn't require the solution, and as well, allows for different solutions, like admissions requirements being met before admission.

You'd get your approval of "Yes, Larry, you had a good idea" but still get no victory. Is that what you are really going after - recognition that you had a good idea?

BTW, Larry, you brought up the notion that the students should be allowed to pass the SAT AP test. It is one method specifically provided for in the case. Page 4 of 51: "A student may demonstrate proficiency in an A-G Subject by acheiving a sufficiently high grade or score: (c) on the corresponding SAT II subject test, or (d) on the International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement exams." Also note that the requirement of before admission already exists in the same section "(b) in a college course at an accredited university"

Did they or didn't they pass any of the tests with sufficiently high scores?

Q, you make me repeat myself over and over and over and over. Why can't you just read the comments I have already made in this thread and use your noggin to cobble together my answers to your points and questions. You could take a tip from the Clergy Letter Project:

We believe that among God's good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God's loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris.

So you are rejecting the will of the creator and committing an act of hubris.

Let's suppose, strictly for the sake of argument, that we don't disagree about whether it is a fair and practical solution. But, also suppose that the law doesn't require the solution

The courts often make decisions that are not expressly required by law.

allows for different solutions, like admissions requirements being met before admission.

It has never been established that the fundy students do not meet the requirements before admission. Evolution education is not required for admission. High school biology is not required for admission (students may take physics and chemistry instead). Many public-school graduates get UC credit for high school biology courses that did not include evolution. There is no proof that the fundy students did not study evolution (the BJU textbooks have a section on evolution -- I don't know about the A Beka Book textbooks). If the fundy students claim credit for the biology course and are just deficient in knowledge of evolution (which has not even been proven), it is not fair to force them to either (1) apply through special admissions programs (top 2-4% of high school grads) or (2) start at another university or college and then transfer to UC (ironically, if they transfer as juniors they will not be required to repeat biology).

You'd get your approval of "Yes, Larry, you had a good idea" but still get no victory.

I still get a victory.

BTW, Larry, you brought up the notion that the students should be allowed to pass the SAT AP test. It is one method specifically provided for in the case.

Yes, I know that. However, not studying evolution because it is against the religious beliefs at the fundy schools could cause the fundies to fail the SAT AP Biology Test, and for that reason I suggested that if they fail the test, they be allowed to enroll upon condition that they take a college course in biology.

Did they or didn't they pass any of the tests with sufficiently high scores?

Presumably they have not taken the SAT AP Biology Test because taking this test has not been established as a requirement for UC applicants who claim credit for the fundy biology courses.

Larry eructs:

"And smart commenters don't post frivolous comments like you do

We have seen these exchanges between Larry and Kevin on Larry's blog before Larry went to monitoring and even heavier censorship than before. As we will see, Kevin's weapons are knowledge and facts while Larry's only weapon is endless repetition:

"I am getting really tired of going over this again and again."

I would make a suggestion, Larry. If you don't understand, or can't answer Kevin's arguments, don't make a bigger fool of yourself by repeating the same tired garbage.

I have known Larry over 50 years, which is why Larry doesn't want me on his blog. I am able to point out the difference between what he says he has done and what he actually does. In the smog fee case, for example, Larry has failed to mention the efforts of those on his own side to exclude him and his disruptive efforts from their cause. In one case an advocate asked him to stop emailing. Larry immediately blew up and insisted that the only possible reason that person would ask this was to intentionally annoy him. Larry's answer was to spam the man's email. They eventually won their case despite Larry's efforts.

Larry has never forgiven the public for not recognizing his contributions to their welfare. He once erupted at the patrons in a restaurant for not giving him proper respect for his efforts on their behalf.

You can see why Larry doesn't want anyone who "claims to know him" on his site. One of the specific pieces of information he doesn't want out is where he lives. He didn't seem to have a problem with this until I noted a problem on his blog. Larry's blog is inhabited by a large number of his sock puppets. Some times he has even forgotten this and gotten into heated arguments with himself. One of the features on his blog is the ability to find who has been on and from where. I pointed that a very large number of the "people" posting just happened to be from his area, were all using the same operating system, and even had the same screen setting. It was then that Larry had a problem with his address being known, not before. At the same time, Larry has accused every one who opposes him, including Kevin, of being a sock puppet of Ed Brayton.

Larry seems to have a problem with logic. He states:

"A former top California auto-emissions agency official testified in state court that the fee required the approval of the US EPA, showing that I properly filed my lawsuits in the federal courts..."

Sorry Larry. The opinion of one witness that a part of your filing was accurate does not mean that you had standing to sue, which the judge determined that you did not. I am sure that Kevin will give more details on this as he has time and time again on other blogs.

I don't feel particularly good about jumping on Larry like this and admit to often reading his posts out of a feeling of schadenfreude, but I would really like to see him get well. As long as he fails to realize that he has a problem, he won't get the care he needs.

In the mean time, let's all congratulate PBS. Their coverage of the Kitzmiller trial with its exposure of the creationists' antics has just won a Peabody Award.

Bill Carter driveled,

The opinion of one witness that a part of your filing was accurate does not mean that you had standing to sue, which the judge determined that you did not.

Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter determined nothing, idiot. There was no oral hearing and no written opinion. There was no evidence that he ever read the briefs. Defendant California did not even attempt to answer my argument that the state had "left the sphere that was exclusively its own" (Parden v. Terminal Railway) by basing the fee entirely on the state's special status under federal emissions laws and regulations. It is because the courts waste so much time on high-profile lawsuits such as this one -- ACSI v. Stearns -- that the courts have no time to spend on low-profile lawsuits.

My lawsuits are off-topic here. I brought up my smog impact fee lawsuits only because troll Kevin Vicklund raised the issue of my lawsuits. Where in the hell are you, Mike? Why in the hell aren't you moderating this blog? Why is it that you always jump on me and no one else? If you are going to let these trolls attack me here, then you ought to let me respond here. Otherwise you are just one big lousy hypocrite.

Larry asks
Q, you make me repeat myself over and over and over and over. Why can't you just read the comments I have already made in this thread and use your noggin to cobble together my answers to your points and questions.

Larry I've read your points. I can conclude only that you are wrong. Totally wrong.

And, I don't make you do anything. You get credit for your own actions.

Larry boasts
I still get a victory.

Of the hollow variety.

Q said,

Larry I've read your points. I can conclude only that you are wrong. Totally wrong.

Instead of just referring to my previous comments, I went to the considerable trouble of repeating my arguments, but you have not responded to any of my repeated arguments. And my arguments -- unlike so many of the opposing arguments I have seen in this thread -- are not frivolous. So you lose the debate by default.

My lawsuits are off-topic here. I brought up my smog impact fee lawsuits only because troll Kevin Vicklund raised the issue of my lawsuits.

This is a blatant lie. I first posted on this thread on April 7th. You brought up your lawsuits long before I began posting here. You were the one prattling on about them as if they were on topic. Here's the proof, excerpts of some of the times you brought up your lawsuits.

This lawsuit was filed way back in Aug. 2005 and is finally getting rolling. ACSI told me that UC submitted 350,000 pages of materials! ACSI told me that the case will likely go to a jury now. Time that courts spend on high-profile cases takes time away from low-profile cases. If you ever had your lawsuit totally ignored by the courts (obviously you haven't), and it takes a hell of a lot of time, effort, and sometimes money (if you hire a lawyer) to sue in court, you would know what I mean. When I sued California and the US EPA in federal court over the flagrantly unconstitutional $300 smog impact fee on incoming out-of-state federally certified vehicles (this fee was eventually thrown out by the state courts), I argued that California had lost its federal-court tax-suit immunity by "leaving the sphere that was exclusively its own" (Parden v. Terminal Railway of the Alabama State Docks Dept.) by basing the fee entirely on the state's special status under federal auto-emissions laws. California did not even attempt to rebut that argument. My lawsuit was thrown out by Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter without an oral hearing and without a written opinion! I was later vindicated when a top former California auto-emissions agency official testified in state court that the fee required the approval of the US EPA! So I am not interested in listening to your crap about how to complicate the ACSI v. Stearns case.

Posted by: Larry Fafarman | April 5, 2008 4:13 AM

No, bozo, there were no grounds. As I said, there was no oral hearing and no written opinion. There is no shred of evidence that the Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter ever read the briefs in the case.

Posted by: Larry Fafarman | April 5, 2008 3:42 PM

Don't expect the court to follow any rules -- as I said, my lawsuit in this court was thrown out without an oral hearing and without a written opinion, even though I had an airtight argument which defendant California did not even attempt to rebut.

Posted by: Larry Fafarman | April 6, 2008 2:24 AM

Since you have made it a topic and Mike has not said anything about it, I feel it is fair game.

Larry brays:

> Judge TJ "Mad" Hatter determined nothing, idiot. <

Larry's usual position. If he doesn't agree with something, it just didn't happen. Are you trying to say that the judge didn't even recognize that you were on the calendar? Then how did he render his decision (which is public record)?

> There was no oral hearing and no written opinion. There was no evidence that he ever read the briefs. Defendant California did not even attempt to answer my argument... <

As I said before, if a decapitated body arrives at a hospital emergency room, they rarely check for a pulse, let alone signs of kidney failure.

> If you are going to let these trolls attack me here, then you ought to let me respond here.<

It seems that you are responding. What is your point? Do you want this blog to be as censored as your own?

> Instead of just referring to my previous comments, I went to the considerable trouble of repeating my arguments <

Proving my point. If you are losing an argument, you just repeat yourself.

> but you have not responded to any of my repeated arguments. <

Then why are his responses still on the blog?

And your arguments are frivolous.

I see that Kevin has shot you out of the water, as he always does. Perhaps if you tried to argue your points and respond to others rather than repeat, name call, and pretend that arguments against your position are not made, you might occasionally win. After all even a blind pig occasionally finds an acorn.

If the question had been whether students who used these books as primary texts were deficient in science... well, that's a whole nother ballgame.

That is -- or should be -- one of the questions.

I agree that it should have been - it's not my fault the ACSI lawyers are incompetent. The point is, it wasn't asked, and the question that was asked has no relevancy to the issue. A classic example of begging the question.

UC's decision to not move for summary judgment on those challenges is almost an admission of guilt.

No, it's an admission that the two parties can't agree on facts dispositive of the case, such as whether the textbooks meet UC standards.

If they agreed on that, there would be no lawsuit. One of the reasons why they can't agree on that is that the plaintiffs think that UC's standards are wrong.

No, the question of whether the two parties agree on the textbook meeting the standards is independent of whether the parties agree on the correctness of the standards.

Summary judgment can't be issued under those circumstances.

Wrong. The part of the definition of "summary judgment" that says that "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact" only means that one side has convinced the judge(s) that there is no such issue and does not necessarily mean that the other side agrees that there is no such issue.

While I glossed over the "genuine" part for the sake of simplicity (though it was implicit in the remark on frivolous motions), you are incorrect. It means that one side was unable to convince the judge that there might be such an issue, not the other way around (acknowledging the fact that the opposing party may have brought the flaw to the judge's attention). See Rule 12(b)(6) (Larry's favorite rule to misinterpret) for details.

Anyway, what material facts are disputed in the case? I mean facts, not opinions. For example, the dispute over what the UC's standards should be is a dispute over opinion, not a dispute over claims about fact.

As I already said, one such dispute is whether the textbooks meet UC standards. ACSI claims that they meet the standards and merely added a religious perspective. UC claims that they don't meet the standards regardless of the religious perspective. Since both sides have expert witnesses prepared to defend the respective positions, there is a material issue of fact. It should also be noted that the distinction is between matters of fact and matters of law, not fact and opinion. Larry again shows his striking unfamilarity with legal concepts, belying his claim of expertise.

Anyway, IMO my proposed solution -- that students claiming credit for the fundy biology course be required to either get a satisfactory score on the SAT AP Biology Test or take a college biology course after enrolling -- is fair and practical. If fundy students can pass the SAT AP Biology Test without knowledge of evolution, then good for them (students from public schools are allowed to pass the test without knowledge of evolution). The court is just wasting time and money by pursuing this further. The court is taking time away from cases that have a lower profile.

And I argue that it is less fair than the UC-alternative that the judge has already ruled in favor of. For one thing, requiring students to take an imaginary exam (as Larry has been told numerous times, there is no such thing as the SAT AP Biology test; the SAT II Biology and the AP Biology are separate exams) in order to get in is reprehensible. But that is merely an attack on Larry's stupidity and inability to correct his errors. If we asume that Larry was actually referring to the various possible exams permitted by UC, I would still say it's unfair, because it requires the students to take a specific route, rather than take all the options UC has made available to them. Larry also argues that requiring them to take the college level course after admission is a reasonable accomodation of religion, but that allowing them to take it before admission is not. This is not fair in any means. How does taking the class before admission not accomodate the religious views if taking it after does? What happens if the the student gets straight A's in all the other classes, but fails biology class? They either get thrown out, which isn't fair to the student because it is a major black mark on the academic record, or they are allowed to continue, which means that the "accomodation" merely eliminates one of the admission requirements and is unfair to all the other students who didn't have the advantage of being of that religion (not to mention being unconstitutional, as it acts as an endorsement of religion). It is much fairer to the student going in to know they have met all requirements for admission so as to not have a single class acting as a Sword of Damocles. Larry also makes a big deal over the "least-burdensome alternative." His alternative is not, in fact the least-burdensome alternative. If one's religion does not permit one to learn biology properly, the least-burdensome alternative is to have alternates to taking biology. Thus, the least-burdensome alternative is to allow students to take other classes to satisfy the science requirement - which UC already does. The fact that UC also permits slightly-more-burdensome alternatives is gravy. It should also be pointed out that the standard is actually that the government can't impose a substantial burden. Least-burdensome only arises in the event that the government has a compelling state interest to impose a substantial burden. This is known as the Sherbert Test, and has been codified under US Code 42ï¿½2000bb by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Larry also makes a fundamental error. The issue (from UC's view) is not that the class doesn't teach evolution properly, it's that it doesn't teach biology as a whole (including but not limited to evolution) properly, nor does it teach science properly [this is one of the material issues of fact that the judge found in his ruling]. It is impossible to pass the AP Biology test without knowledge of evolution - evolution makes up 75% of the test, as Larry so conveniently cut-and-pasted. It is possible to pass the test without realizing that you have knowledge of evolution, however, because often teachers avoid acknowledging that they are in fact teaching evolution.

Kevin Vicklund said,

You brought up your lawsuits long before I began posting here. You were the one prattling on about them as if they were on topic.

OK, that was a ways back. But I brought up my smog impact fee lawsuits for an ON-TOPIC purpose, whereas you brought them up for the sole purpose of attacking me personally. I brought them up as an example -- from personal experience -- of how courts ignore low-profile cases because they waste too much time and effort on high-profile cases such as this one. My smog impact fee lawsuits obviously had merit -- the state courts later declared the fee to be unconstitutional and a former top California auto-emissions agency official -- who should know more about the subject than some despicable jackass Jones-type judges, don't you think? -- testified in state court that the fee required the approval of the US EPA, meaning that my lawsuits belonged in federal court. California made no attempt to answer my argument that the state lost its federal-court tax-suit immunity because it "left the sphere that was exclusively its own" (Parden v. Terminal Railway) by basing the fee entirely on its special status under federal laws and regulations, and there was NO oral hearing and NO written opinion. There was not a shred of evidence that the judge ever read the briefs. You think that judges are always right and I am always wrong. I hope that someday you get your sorry ass kicked very hard in court (that goes for you too, Bill Carter) so that you know what it feels like. You and your pal Bill Carter can now slink off with your tails between your legs and crawl back into your holes.

high-profile cases such as this one

Hard to see how this is a high profile case when this recent development has been completely ignored by the media.

Although others have pointed it out you don't seem to realize that this ruling rejected every single claim made by the plaintiffs. The court stopped just short of calling them liars and con men and even used the term "straw man" referring to one of their claims. You really should read the ruling as it was written rather than how you wish it had been written.

It's very possible that the deep pockets who fund this kind of creationist wishful thinking will realize that this case is a complete non-starter and total waste of money and will pull the plug on the whole thing. They haven't even been able to get any publicity so that they could whine about religious discrimination, which is always one of the main reasons for filing suits like these. Of course, the usual suspects like Wendell Bird, Michael Behe, and the rest have already lined their pockets and are, no doubt, ready to move on to Florida, Texas, or wherever the next berry patch is that's ripe for picking.

Kevin Vicklund said,

If the question had been whether students who used these books as primary texts were deficient in science... well, that's a whole nother ballgame.

That is -- or should be -- one of the questions.

I agree that it should have been -- it's not my fault the ACSI lawyers are incompetent. The point is, it wasn't asked,

That question was asked at the pretrial meeting between UC and the plaintiffs -- how do we know that the question wasn't asked in court?

and the question that was asked has no relevancy to the issue

What is that other question?

No, the question of whether the two parties agree on the textbook meeting the standards is independent of whether the parties agree on the correctness of the standards.

Did I ever say otherwise?

It means that one side was unable to convince the judge that there might be such an issue, not the other way around

Whatever. My point was that your statement that a summary judgment may not be issued unless both sides agree on the facts is wrong.

As I already said, one such dispute is whether the textbooks meet UC standards.

No, that is a dispute over opinion, not fact.

Since both sides have expert witnesses prepared to defend the respective positions, there is a material issue of fact.

No, the presence of expert witnesses does not necessarily mean that there is a dispute over fact (though there may be disputes over fact in this case).

And I argue that it is less fair than the UC-alternative that the judge has already ruled in favor of.

What are you talking about? The judge has not ruled in favor of any alternative yet.

as Larry has been told numerous times, there is no such thing as the SAT AP Biology test; the SAT II Biology and the AP Biology are separate exams

I don't know all the details and you might not either, but it doesn't matter. It is a nitpicking distinction that was not raised "numerous times."

But that is merely an attack on Larry's stupidity and inability to correct his errors.

And you are so busy concentrating on trivial details that you miss the big issues.

If we asume that Larry was actually referring to the various possible exams permitted by UC

That is obviously what I was referring to. Duh.

I would still say it's unfair, because it requires the students to take a specific route, rather than take all the options UC has made available to them.

WHAT? How would my proposal prevent the fundies from taking other options?

Larry also argues that requiring them to take the college level course after admission is a reasonable accomodation of religion, but that allowing them to take it before admission is not.

Where did I say that? You are just raising straw-man arguments.

What happens if the the student gets straight A's in all the other classes, but fails biology class?

I am talking about them taking a beginning course in biology in college. And the fundies who took fundy biology in high school are probably even prepared for advanced biology courses in college.

the "accomodation" merely eliminates one of the admission requirements and is unfair to all the other students who didn't have the advantage of being of that religion

How is it unfair? How would other students be harmed?

If one's religion does not permit one to learn biology properly,

Sheeesh -- a lot of biology students in public schools do not study evolution.

The issue (from UC's view) is not that the class doesn't teach evolution properly, it's that it doesn't teach biology as a whole (including but not limited to evolution) properly,

UC's principal complaint is about the way the fundy biology texts treat evolution.

It is impossible to pass the AP Biology test without knowledge of evolution -- evolution makes up 75% of the test, as Larry so conveniently cut-and-pasted.

Wrong -- evolution specifically makes up only a relatively small part of the test -- see my comment of April 3, 2008 6:20 AM.

It is possible to pass the test without realizing that you have knowledge of evolution, however, because often teachers avoid acknowledging that they are in fact teaching evolution.

Wrong -- how could a teacher be teaching evolution without knowing it -- sheeesh. The teacher might be teaching topics related to evolution -- e.g., genetics and population dynamics -- but a teacher could hardly be unaware of those topics' relation to evolution.

You are just making straw man and blatantly false arguments.

Larry snorted:

"But I brought up my smog impact fee lawsuits for an ON-TOPIC purpose, whereas you brought them up for the sole purpose of attacking me personally."

No. It looks like everyone who is discussing it is just trying to get through to you that you are not the legal genius that you imagine yourself to be. You do not even reach the level of total ignorance since most of what you think you know is wrong.

The point is that you can't presume to argue with an appeal to authority because you certainly are not an authority. You certainly have proved that here regardless of your laughable claims.

"I brought them up as an example -- from personal experience -- of how courts ignore low-profile cases because they waste too much time and effort on high-profile cases such as this one."

Bad example. The court did not ignore you. They laughed your pathetic attempts out of court. They will spend more time on valid filings.

"My smog impact fee lawsuits obviously had merit"

Your cause had merit. Your lawsuits did not.

"California made no attempt to answer my argument..."

You can't be that thick. They did not need to answer your argument. Your case had already been thrown out. Why should they try to resurrect it? Your boat, made out of thick lead, was sitting on the bottom of the ocean. Do people have to argue that tiny pinholes would have eventually sunk it anyway?

"and there was NO oral hearing and NO written opinion. There was not a shred of evidence that the judge ever read the briefs."

Do we have to go through this again? The answer to that false claim has been stated here many times.

"You think that judges are always right and I am always wrong."

No. Judges are not always right. They just happened to be in your cases. As for you always being wrong. It appears so.

"I hope that someday you get your sorry ass kicked very hard in court"

Sorry. So far I have always won, although I haven't been in court as often as you. This is probably because judges often bend over backwards for pro se litigants.

"(that goes for you too, Bill Carter)"

I thought that you were telling us that Bill Carter doesn't exist. This is one person that you have singled out. You are willing to believe that "Raging Bee" or "Q" or "Hector" exist but the only two you single out for non-existence are Bill Carter and your brother Dave. Ed Brayton has proven who the real Dave is on his blog and as for Bill Carter, we know from your reaction to him, that he is also real and knows you quite well.

You and your pal Bill Carter can now slink off with your tails between your legs and crawl back into your holes.

Why? We have beaten you as usual. Most everyone does.

Now you have been braying about others drifting off topic. How about you staying on topic, for a change? Try to answer Kevin's arguments without resorting to name calling or repeating arguments that have already been turned into Swiss cheese.

(http:// prefixes removed to prevent comment from hanging up. Links must be copied and pasted)

tomh said,

Hard to see how this is a high profile case when this recent development has been completely ignored by the media.

This latest ruling has not been completely ignored by the media -- it was reported by a higher-ed news service:

www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/01/uc

However, this ruling does appear to have been unreported by the general media, and I think that the reason for that is that this ruling is inconclusive. The ruling has not even been reported on the ACSI website (though ACSI should of course report it).

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, it was reported by big articles in USA Today and the Wall Street Journal:

www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-12-christian-school_x.htm

www.cccsmurrieta.com/secondary/wsj.asp

So I think it can be fairly considered to be a case with a relatively high profile. Anyway, I was just talking generally about the courts giving short shrift or no shrift to some cases because the courts waste so much time on other cases. All litigants pay the same court fees and this gross disparity in the attention given different cases is grossly unfair. Litigants who want special treatment should hire their own judges, and some litigants have been doing precisely that.

Although others have pointed it out you don't seem to realize that this ruling rejected every single claim made by the plaintiffs.

Wrong -- the most important issues have not yet been decided. That's why this ruling was largely ignored by the media.

It's very possible that the deep pockets who fund this kind of creationist wishful thinking will realize that this case is a complete non-starter and total waste of money and will pull the plug on the whole thing.

The plaintiffs appear to be doing fairly well -- UC did not move for summary judgment on the plaintiffs' challenges to several of UC's decisions to disapprove courses.

They haven't even been able to get any publicity so that they could whine about religious discrimination, which is always one of the main reasons for filing suits like these.

As I pointed out, they have already gotten some publicity, and they are going to get more when this case is finally decided.

ViU is wasting space here with blatantly frivolous comments. He does that on my blog too, but I generally can't censor him because of my no-censorship policy (I do prohibit him from gossiping about my private affairs).

Larry Fafarman wrote:
UC did not move for summary judgment on the plaintiffs' challenges to several of UC's decisions to disapprove courses.

You keep bringing this up, but there's no point in trying to get a summary judgment on an as-applied issue, in this case the specific courses. The basic reason is that the opposing party (here the religious schools) only needs to raise a colorable issue of fact, which they can do by telling any old lie, since whatever they say has to be taken as true for purposes of the motion. To spin this as a negative for UC is just silly.

The plaintiffs appear to be doing fairly well

Well, if by doing well you mean having every contested claim rejected, then I guess they're doing well.

tomh said,

You keep bringing this up, but there's no point in trying to get a summary judgment on an as-applied issue, in this case the specific courses. The basic reason is that the opposing party (here the religious schools) only needs to raise a colorable issue of fact, which they can do by telling any old lie, since whatever they say has to be taken as true for purposes of the motion. To spin this as a negative for UC is just silly.

So far as I can see there is no disputed issue of fact in this lawsuit -- the textbooks and UC's policies are out in the open for everyone to see. The only disputes are over opinions. So why didn't UC dispute the plaintiffs' opinion that disapprovals of the textbooks and the courses were not justified? And as I said, a summary judgment can be granted even when there is a dispute over an issue of fact.

Well, if by doing well you mean having every contested claim rejected, then I guess they're doing well.

No, that is obviously not what I meant -- I meant that the plaintiffs are doing fairly well because some of their biggest claims were uncontested in UC's motions for summary judgment even though there is apparently no dispute over the facts concerning those claims.

Larry bleats"

"ViU is wasting space here with blatantly frivolous comments."

In other words, Larry has no answer to the points that I raised.

"He does that on my blog too, but I generally can't censor him because of my no-censorship policy (I do prohibit him from gossiping about my private affairs)."

What total misrepresentation! Larry censors people arbitrarily and the censored posts rarely have anything that could be considered his "private affairs". Now he is monitoring all posts because he is afraid that something will get by that will show that he is unable to answer it, like he has been unable to answer my points here.

Now let's try to stick to the issues:

"I meant that the plaintiffs are doing fairly well because some of their biggest claims were uncontested in UC's motions for summary judgment"

Perhaps because they were irrelevant to those motions? You can't assume anything from what is not mentioned. Ball scores, weather reports, etc. are usually also left out of motions for summary judgement for the same reason. Real lawyers, unlike yourself, do not throw in the kitchen sink on their motions.

ViU drivels,

"ViU is wasting space here with blatantly frivolous comments."
In other words, Larry has no answer to the points that I raised.

No -- in other words, ViU is a stupid jerk.

"I meant that the plaintiffs are doing fairly well because some of their biggest claims were uncontested in UC's motions for summary judgment"

Perhaps because they were irrelevant to those motions?

No, stupid. What makes those claims relevant to UC's motions is the fact that UC's motions did not contest those claims. Those claims are relevant to UC's motions whether UC contests those claims or not. Duh.

You can't assume anything from what is not mentioned.

Wrong again, idiot. It is not necessary to assume anything -- one could read the court documents and see that UC did not contest some of the plaintiffs' claims. However, it is not necessary to read the court documents, because UC says,

The University did not move for summary judgment on plaintiffs' challenges to several specific course approval decisions.

-- from http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acsi-stearns/courtdecisionsu…

The principles "speech is silver, silence is golden" and "you have the right to remain silent" do not apply here. Nothing in the rules says that a judge cannot grant summary judgment on the opposing party's uncontested claims. In fact, a litigant's failure to contest a claim would be a good contributing reason for granting summary judgment on that claim.

I beg indulgence while I address Larry's off-topic discussion of his lawsuit. I will not discuss it here again.

OK, that was a ways back.

While you had brought it up well before I posted on this thread, you continued to bring it up as recently as the day before I posted.

But I brought up my smog impact fee lawsuits for an ON-TOPIC purpose, whereas you brought them up for the sole purpose of attacking me personally.

No, you brought it up as on off-topic (and erroneous) personal attack on the court system, and as an attempt to set yourself up as an authority on the legal system. I was merely returning the favor, and showing that you are not a reliable authority.

I say erroneous, because the ruling was posted on the PACER server by the end of the next business day. No, it wasn't available for free, but most of the district court rulings are listed for free, nor are they required to be. The case is not high-profile enough to be so listed - none of the previous rulings were listed.

I brought them up as an example -- from personal experience -- of how courts ignore low-profile cases because they waste too much time and effort on high-profile cases such as this one.

No, you brought it up because you can't resist the urge to bitch about how you hate the court system - just like how you can't resist the urge to bitch about Ed Brayton. The court system does not ignore low-profile cases. They do, however, refuse to waste time on cases over which they are prohibited from considering, such as yours.

My smog impact fee lawsuits obviously had merit -- the state courts later declared the fee to be unconstitutional

I've never disputed that the fee was unconstitutional, just that you clearly brought it up in the wrong court.

and a former top California auto-emissions agency official -- who should know more about the subject than some despicable jackass Jones-type judges, don't you think? -- testified in state court that the fee required the approval of the US EPA,

The district court judge and the four 3-judge circuit panels never ruled otherwise.

meaning that my lawsuits belonged in federal court.

No, it would have meant that California didn't have the authority to enact the fee, supporting the EPA's claim that the fee was a tax arising under state law, not federal law, and thus not under federal jurisdiction due to the Tax Injunction Act. I would think the EPA's top lawyers would know more about that than a pro se litigant who knows so little about the law that he called his reply briefs "objections."

California made no attempt to answer my argument that the state lost its federal-court tax-suit immunity because it "left the sphere that was exclusively its own" (Parden v. Terminal Railway) by basing the fee entirely on its special status under federal laws and regulations,

They had already cited the Supreme Court decision that overruled your interpretation of Parden. Why should they make the same argument, especially since the EPA did respond, making a similar argument as California? Not only that, you quote-mined Parden. You claim that Parden means that a state loses sovereign immunity when it leaves it's sphere. Here is what it actually says:

But when a State leaves the sphere that is exclusively its own and enters into activities subject to congressional regulation, it subjects itself to that regulation as fully as if it were a private person or corporation.

Parden then goes on to acknowledge that in some instances, "such regulation takes the form of authorization of lawsuits by private parties." Some, but not all. Therefor, it was Larry's responsibility, even under Parden, to identify whether the regulations included implied waiver of immunity. Larry failed to do this. Larry's situation was made worse by the fact that California, the EPA, and (ironically) he himself referenced Supreme Court decisions that specified that congressional regulations must be explicit in their waiver of sovereign immunity. Neither the CAA nor the APA (the two regulations governing the subject matter) have an explicit waiver of immunity. Larry's claim must therefor fail. But it gets worse. The CAA and APA explicitly state that state sovereign immunity is not waived. Larry was therefor barred by congressional regulation from entering a suit against California, even under Parden. To rub salt in the wound, a month after the district court judge made his decision, the Supreme Court overturned the last remnants of Parden.

It should also be noted that California did reply to his Parden argument when it went before the appeals court, which upheld the district court opinion. All in all, Larry's lawsuits were rejected per curiam by four circuit court panels, twice by a district judge, and twice the Supreme Court declined to consider it.

and there was NO oral hearing and NO written opinion.

And according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, oral arguments are discretionary, while written opinions for Rule 12 dismissals are not required. I suggest that you contact the Judiciary Committee if you want to see a rule change. Until then, most cases that are so obviously outside of federal jurisdiction as yours will be dismissed without written opinion.

There was not a shred of evidence that the judge ever read the briefs.

There is no also no evidence that he did not read the briefs, as the results would be the same regardless.

You think that judges are always right and I am always wrong.

No, I think that you are almost always wrong, and that legal professionals know their profession a hell of a lot better than you know it. I do try to point out when you are right, because it is a noteworthy event.

I hope that someday you get your sorry ass kicked very hard in court (that goes for you too, Bill Carter) so that you know what it feels like. You and your pal Bill Carter can now slink off with your tails between your legs and crawl back into your holes.

Well, that's what you get for perjuring yourself by demanding full refund of a fee you never actually paid. You're lucky - if your case actually belonged in federal court, it would have been dismissed as soon as they found out that you didn't have standing and you would be facing possible charges of perjury (and maybe some other charges). You're also lucky you didn't get charged with filing a frivolous lawsuit when you refiled after the Supreme Court dismissed the original appeal.

Kevin, you stupid jerk, try as hard as you might, you can't justify what the courts did to me, so why don't you just give up trying? I am fed up with responding to your stinking crap. You can take your goddam court rules to hell when you go there. As I said, I just hope that you get your sorry ass kicked real hard in court.

Let's forget about me and address the real issue here -- time that courts waste on some cases takes time away from other cases. True or false? In fact, that was a big issue in the recent controversy over the new national federal court rule that requires all federal courts to allow citations of unpublished opinions (though the courts are not required to recognize unpublished citations as precedent). One of the arguments against the rule was that judges would not want to spend the time required to write really good unpublished opinions because doing so would take time away from other cases and so the judges would choose to write no unpublished opinions at all. Time is a limited commodity.

if your case actually belonged in federal court, it would have been dismissed as soon as they found out that you didn't have standing

This was a "citizen suit," dummy. A person can file a "citizen suit" without suffering personal injury.

Anyway, Kevin, what are you trying to prove here with your phony legal arguments? Your arguments are of no significance because as I said, there is not a shred of evidence that the judge read any of the briefs. So I don't need to waste my time responding to your phony arguments. I have better things to do.

Anyway, I brought up my smog impact fee cases here just to illustrate -- from personal experience -- how time that the courts waste on some cases takes time away from other cases.

You are really making yourself look like a stupid jerk.

Kevin, I have an idea. Why don't we move this discussion to my blog where I can call you all the names I want to call you without fear of censorship?

Larry, no please! Keep it here. I don't want to go hopping all around the web to follow this amazing discourse.

And please use the laguage you want to use, if it adds to the value of your presentations.

Larry brays:

"Those claims are relevant to UC's motions whether UC contests those claims or not. Duh."

You can't be as thick as you pretend to be. Just stating that those claims are relevant, with no logic or proof, does not make them relevant no matter how many times you repeat it. Try explaining why they are relevant to the issue at hand, don't just repeat your position in the belief that constituest further proof. No matter how many times you say 2+2=3, it won't be any more true.

"one could read the court documents and see that UC did not contest some of the plaintiffs' claims."

Kevin has shot that down very effectively. The bottom line is that they did not have any reason to contest most of that drivel.

"The University did not move for summary judgment on plaintiffs' challenges to several specific course approval decisions."

For reasons that Kevin already explained.

"Kevin, you stupid jerk, try as hard as you might, you can't justify what the courts did to me" <.i>

He seems to be doing a first class job of explaining what you did to yourself.

"the time that courts waste on some cases takes time away from other cases."

Yes. That's why they have no reason to waste time on your frivolous cases. That is why you have been laughed out of court at the first appearance every time you have filed. I am surprised that you have not been declared a "vexatious litigant".

Kevin, I have an idea. Why don't we move this discussion to my blog where I can call you all the names I want to call you without fear of censorship?

Perhaps because he would be wasting a lot of time typing material that you would censor claiming that it had "gossip about your personal affairs". Also with your moderating every post so you can have the last word, it is an uneven playing field. The discussion is better here where everyone can see both sides.

Congratulations Kevin. You have booted his ass over the goal posts again.

Q moaned,

And please use the laguage you want to use, if it adds to the value of your presentations.

The blogger threatened to kick me off just for using the mild epithet "dunghill" -- I want to use much stronger language.

I could easily demolish Kevin Vicklund's phony legal arguments about my smog impact fee lawsuit, but refuting him would be a big waste of time and would be seen as an admission that those arguments are relevant here. I used my lawsuit just as an example of a case that was ignored by the court -- California did not answer my arguments which even that jackass Kevin conceded had at least a little merit (hey Kevin, if my arguments are so easy to refute, then why didn't California try to do it?), and there was no hearing and no written opinion. Whether my lawsuit was ultimately valid is irrelevant. It was that #$@*&^# so-and-so Kevin who made my lawsuit a big off-topic issue in this comment thread. Even he admitted that it is grossly off-topic -- he promised that he was going to make just one more comment about it and then shut up (of course, if I answer his comment he is not going to shut up). What is relevant here is the issue that the courts' wasting of time on some cases takes time away from other cases.

If it is OK for judges to decide cases with neither oral hearings nor written opinions, then why don't they do it more often? Why couldn't the judge do it in this case, or why couldn't it be done in any number of other cases? You stupid Darwinists, who think that Judge "Jackass" Jones was obligated to rule on the complex ID-as-science question just because both sides asked him to do it, think that expecting a judge to write a short opinion is asking too much. Ironically, an attorney acquaintance of mine told me that the judge in my case, TJ "Mad" Hatter, had a bad reputation for issuing judgments without opinions. As I said, now with the new national rule in place requiring federal courts to allow citations of unpublished opinions, many judges will prefer to write no unpublished opinion at all rather than write one hastily. As one judge (Kozinski?) noted, formerly an unpublished opinion was just an informal letter to the litigants informing them about why the judge decided the way he did. And as big cases like this one take more and more of the courts' time, the courts will have less and less time to spend on other cases.

ViU wheezed,

The bottom line is that they did not have any reason to contest most of that drivel.

Wrong, idiot. By not contesting "most of that drivel," UC risked losing the whole case. The issues were matters of opinion, not issues of fact, and so there was no reason to wait for trial-phase discovery.

The irony is that if this case goes to a jury (ACSI told me that it is likely to go to a jury), the jury's decision will be of no help to judges in deciding similar cases, because juries do not write opinions.

...if this case goes to a jury (ACSI told me that it is likely to go to a jury) ...

Then they really are as dumb as they appear to be. For this kind of case, there is no right to a jury in federal court. And with the judge on top of the issues the way he is, ACSI can just call it a day.

tomh said,

For this kind of case, there is no right to a jury in federal court.

Yes, I know that and told them that. But they still insisted that this case is likely to go before a jury.

Yes, I know that and told them that.

Sure you did. If you knew that much you would have understood when I explained to you why UC didn't bother to ask for the summary judgment that you think is so important, and you would know why ACSI doesn't have a prayer in this case. Or, I guess that's all they have. If you want to understand the case go back and actually read the ruling without trying to make it fit all your preconceived notions.

Sure you did.

Why would I lie to you? Here is the response I got from ACSI's director of legal/legislative issues:

I checked with our attorney, John L. Cooley regarding your jury questions. Here is his response:

Got your voice mail re the California Discrim. case and a jury. While there is no request for a monetary relief and the issues involve constitutional matters, I believe that a jury will be used to decide issues of fact. This may include special interrogatories (questions) presented by the court to the jury to decide. In addition, I would anticipate the jury would likely apply some of those facts to the jury instructions and reach other conclusions, ultimately the court will decide the questions of law. You can check with Wendell to verify, but I expect all or part of the above process will occur at the trial.

Larry says:

Anyway, allowing fundy students who flunk the SAT test to take a biology course after enrolling could be considered to be just a way of accommodating their religious beliefs. This would in principle be no different from UC's Subject A English requirement, where students deficient in English skills are allowed to take remedial English courses after enrolling.

Firstly, do you really think that the fundies wouldn't cry foul if UC required these students to take a college biology course? Wouldn't that also not be unfair discrimination in their eyes since biology is not a required course for any student besides those who need it for their major (any science course would fill the general requirements)?

We'd be back here discussing a new case if that requirement ever came to fruition.

Secondly, remedial English and Math courses are usually the only remedial courses offered in universities. The reason for this is that there are many levels of proficiency and even the introductory level courses are beyond some students. The ability of individual students is assessed through SAT/ACT or college admission test scores. For example, when I enrolled in college (granted this was 13 years ago), I was allowed to start out with College Trig. and Honors English Comp I while my best friend was allowed to start out with College Algebra I and Honors English Comp I (Honors English meaning we were required to write an additional research paper to get Honors credit). The reason this is important in these specific areas is that, even at the introductory levels, a certain skill set is required to move on to the next level. I'm fairly certain that all students must have SAT or ACT or GED or college admission test scores to show where they should be placed. The remedial English and Math courses offered at university don't depend on the high school textbooks used, just the test scores. These skills are pretty well assessed through standardized tests (You can either read or you can't. You can either solve certain equations or you can't.)

However, in areas like Biology and History everyone starts out on the same level (some, obviously, are smarter than others or have more background or a better memory or any number of factors) in that individual class and the "101" courses provide a pre-req to move on if one wishes, regardless of inherent ability or high school knowledge (unless you can demonstrate gifted proficiency and understanding). There really is no "remedial Biology" or "remedial History" course at the college level. Certain skills are needed to do well and the determining factor of success in these courses is the ability to think critically and apply knowledge gained to successive, related topics. This applies to all higher level coursework, including Math and English/Literature. You either have the ability to grasp the concepts and style of thinking required for success in a university setting or you do not. This is very difficult to assess in a standardized test (unless there is a substantial essay or lab component to the test...memorization of facts says nothing except that you have a good rote memory).

The issue that UC has with specific texts is not that they promote a particular religious viewpoint, but that they do not provide sufficient critical thinking skills. That is important to a university because they have a limited amount of slots and they must fill those slots with those students that can show that they have a reasonable chance of thriving in a university setting.

The kids that attend schools which use the disapproved texts have to use other means (which are available and have been) to show that they can thrive because their high school course material doesn't pass muster.

Finally, UC does not have an obligation to accommodate these particular religious students at the expense of all the others. They must meet the same criteria as everyone else. Yes, it is unfortunate that their parents made them attend a fundy school, but if their schools were so concerned about getting their students into UC (which I doubt...I hear they are a hotbed for liberalism and other "evils"), then they would conform to the admission requirements like every other school and/or prepare their students for "alternate" means of entry.

Secular private schools and charter schools must also provide an accredited curriculum in order for their students to be accepted to UC. Home schooled students (religious or otherwise) must also prove their mettle.

I'm not sure about UC, but many universities even allow dropouts to show that they can succeed (with or without a GED or SAT scores) by showing a research or artistic project. If dropouts can do it, why can't fundy school kids?

The Christian persecution complex is really getting wearying. Really.

Larry says:

UC's decision to not move for summary judgment on those challenges is almost an admission of guilt.

Wha???

UC not moving for summary judgment on their specific course requirements means that they want their requirements to be reviewed in detail. That displays confidence, not guilt.

They realized that while the judge can rule that they have the right to have requirements for admission and that the plaintiffs have not proven their case, the specifics should be judged on their constitutional merits on a case-by-case basis and that they should be able to defend their criteria on a case-by-case basis.

Moving for a summary judgment on the plaintiff's challenges, to me, would be more of an admission of guilt because it would imply an unwillingness to have the specifics of their opinion dissected in more detail.

Larry brays:

"I could easily demolish Kevin Vicklund's phony legal arguments about my smog impact fee lawsuit"

Then why have you tried and failed to do so for over a year?

"I used my lawsuit just as an example of a case that was ignored by the court"

It would have been difficult to find a poorer example. Your case received all of the attention that it deserved"

"(hey Kevin, if my arguments are so easy to refute, then why didn't California try to do it?)"

"and there was no hearing and no written opinion."

The answer to those questions have been given in this thread at least a half dozen times by several people. Do you ever read posts before attempting to respond to them?

"It was that #$@*&^# so-and-so Kevin who made my lawsuit a big off-topic issue in this comment thread."

Even though you discussed it long before Kevin appeared on this blog?

"What is relevant here is the issue that the courts' wasting of time on some cases takes time away from other cases."

If you don't want the courts wasting their time I would suggest that you stop filing frivolous cases. At least they didn't waste their time by answering moot points or issuing needless written opinions.

"If it is OK for judges to decide cases with neither oral hearings nor written opinions, then why don't they do it more often?"

Because in many cases there are interesting issues to address. That wasn't the case here.

"Why couldn't the judge do it in this case"

So now you want the courts to waste time? You will have to take one side or the other on this.

The bottom line is that the cases that you filed were like the Wikipedia editors said about your blog "non-notable and crappy".

"Why would I lie to you?

In your case it appears to be pathological. You often have lied when the truth would have better served you.

Getting back to the subject of the UC-Calvary Chapel lawsuit, what I find most incredible is that Calvary Chapel is apparently as clueless about the quality of their legal team as they are about the quality of their academics.

I could understand Larry, who has no legal training, not understanding the difference between the law as it is and his own fantasies about what it should be. However, Calvary Chapel's legal team has been to law school, and presumably makes a living arguing lawsuits for their clients. Why, then, did they annoy the judge by spending some 20 pages of their brief arguing against a strawman "UC policy" that has never existed, rather than framing their argument against UC's actual, published policies? Admittedly, as the judge agreed, UC's actual policies don't require blanket rejection of courses that teach a religious viewpoint, so proving discrimination would be very difficult. However, they might have at least tried to argue interpretation, rather than letting UC's legal team win by default.

The facial challenge was by far the strongest part of Calvary Chapel's not-very-strong case. Now that the judge has ruled that UC is well within its rights to examine high school coursework for content and rigor and base admissions on the courses a student has taken, they're left with trying to prove that their courses were academically rigorous. This will be very difficult, because they have to use UC's definition of academic worth, not their own.

Furthermore, as the case proceeds, they will be risking having their school branded as "that so-called prep school where the academics are so bad the kids can't even apply to a decent college without remedial work". That could be an even worse blow to their budget than the money they're pouring into legal fees.

The amazing thing is that while Larry is a creationist, he doesn't believe in creation in the way that the fundies do. He believes that the creators were the same little green men that he believes write, produce, and distribute the Los Angeles Times and the World Almanac.

Pepper said,

Firstly, do you really think that the fundies wouldn't cry foul if UC required these students to take a college biology course?

If fundy students who claim credit for the fundy biology course flunk the SAT Biology Test, then I don't see how anyone can complain about a requirement that they repeat biology.

Evolution might be the only area of deficiency of the fundy students who took the fundy biology courses -- I don't know. The BJU texts at least have a short section of about 15 pages on evolution.

Secondly, remedial English and Math courses are usually the only remedial courses offered in universities.

UC presumably offers elementary biology courses for students who did not take biology in high school. UC admission requirements allow students to take chemistry and physics instead of biology.

The issue that UC has with specific texts is not that they promote a particular religious viewpoint, but that they do not provide sufficient critical thinking skills.

There is no proof of that. UC said it had no objective evidence that the fundy students are unprepared to study science at the college level.

Possibly the worst thing about the BJU textbooks is the introduction, which says,

Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling. This book was not written for them . . . . .
The people who have prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second . . . . . . . . . To the best of the author's knowledge, the conclusions drawn from observable facts and presented in this book agree with the Scriptures . . . .
The same encyclopedia article may state that the grasshopper evolved 300 million years ago. You may find a description of some insect that the grasshopper supposedly evolved from and a description of the insects that scientists say evolved from the grasshopper. You may even find a "scientific" explanation of the biblical locust (grasshopper) plague in Egypt. These statements are conclusions based on "supposed science." If the conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them.

Pepper said,

UC not moving for summary judgment on their specific course requirements means that they want their requirements to be reviewed in detail.

If UC had a really strong case, there would be no need to review the specific course disapprovals in detail.

Mary moaned,

I could understand Larry, who has no legal training,

What is this "no legal training" crap? That is just an ad hominem attack that has nothing to do with the validity of my arguments.

BTW, do you have any legal training? Not that it matters, but I am just curious.

Furthermore, as the case proceeds, they will be risking having their school branded as "that so-called prep school where the academics are so bad the kids can't even apply to a decent college without remedial work".

How many times do I have to repeat that UC said that it had no objective evidence that the fundy students are unprepared to study science at the college level?

The facial challenge was by far the strongest part of Calvary Chapel's not-very-strong case.

Now you are really talking through your hat. You just criticized the plaintiffs' attorneys for making what you call a "facial challenge" and now you say that this facial challenge was by far the strongest part of their case. You are so dumb that you don't know whether you are coming or going.

As usual, ViU's and Bill Carter's crap is not worth answering.

Larry belched:

"What is this "no legal training" crap? That is just an ad hominem attack that has nothing to do with the validity of my arguments."

Wrong as always. Mary's observation is quite relevant to the point she made. She could explain why a tyro like yourself could make the errors you constantly do but couldn't understand the actions of professionals.

"How many times do I have to repeat..."

You are sticking to your theory that if a falsehood is repeated often enough, it will become true. Please stop repeating. That, along with your need for insults and ad hominyms, is the reason that your blog remains non-notable and crappy.

"As usual, ViU's and Bill Carter's crap is not worth answering."

If you are incapable of answering it, why call attention to that fact?

It appears I forgot that Larry's reading comprehension is not up to UC standards.

Calvary Chapel's best chance in this case was to find a judge that was willing to accept their novel legal theory that it is religious discrimination for UC to withhold its approval from coursework that rejects mainstream academic findings in favor of a religious interpretation: the facial claim.

Now the judge has ruled that UC's standards and policies are not discriminatory as written. Calvary Chapel is left trying to prove that the actual course material met UC guidelines, so they can claim that the rejection was due to discrimination.

How are they going to convince anyone that a brief excerpt in an anthology is the equivalent of a full novel-length work, or that British authors are American?

How are they going to convince anyone that mainstream, secular academic scholars routinely teach "Christian Nation" history or creationist biology?

Oh, and Larry, one of UC's expert reports has a very interesting appendix in which they show that UC students from ACSI schools don't do as well as non-ACSI students from a similar background: they have a higher dropout rate, and lower grade point average and longer time to graduation if they stay. All of these are indicators of a student whose high school education has not properly prepared them for university-level work.

Mary, You are wasting your time. Larry will just respond with a mindless repetition of what he has already posted here, presenting it as if it was new material.

A quicky response:

How many times do I have to repeat that UC said that it had no objective evidence that the fundy students are unprepared to study science at the college level?

No, UC did not say that. The said that they had no objective evidence that religious students were unprepared to study science at the college level. How is this at all relevant to the lawsuit? If their standards accurately assess students, it shouldn't matter whether or not they are from religious or public schools - so long as students from those schools meet the standards set by UC. As I said earlier, this is a classic case of begging the question.

Mary moaned,

It appears I forgot that Larry's reading comprehension is not up to UC standards.

I not only passed the Subject A requirement but I took a full year of regular English courses at UC (a requirement for all students at the Santa Barbara campus at the time), and taking that much college English is very unusual for engineering students (a lot of engineering schools don't bother you about English if you can put together an intelligible sentence). The courses were very hard on me because I did not have good writing skills at the time. I wanted to delay taking the English courses until I was more mature and could write better, but no, the rules said that I had to take the courses as a freshman, even though I did not need good writing skills in my engineering, math, and science courses. So don't give me that crap that my reading comprehension skills are not up to UC standards, you lousy sack of @#$*&^%. That is a real sore spot with me.

Calvary Chapel's best chance in this case was to find a judge that was willing to accept their novel legal theory that it is religious discrimination for UC to withhold its approval from coursework that rejects mainstream academic findings in favor of a religious interpretation: the facial claim.

Actually, I am not even aware that Calvary Chapel made that claim -- I thought that Calvary Chapel's claim here was that it is religious discrimination to reject a course that merely adds a religious interpretation to mainstream academic findings without rejecting those academic findings. But IMO Calvary Chapel is wrong here because the introduction to the BJU biology textbooks advocated rejecting mainstream academic findings in favor of a religious interpretation. Still, though, IMO that just gives the students a bad attitude -- it is still possible that they learned all the core material correctly. But because the textbook and the course are suspect because of the textbooks' introduction, I proposed requiring the fundy students to either get a passing score on the SAT Biology Test or repeat biology after enrolling.

How are they going to convince anyone that a brief excerpt in an anthology is the equivalent of a full novel-length work, or that British authors are American? How are they going to convince anyone that mainstream, secular academic scholars routinely teach "Christian Nation" history or creationist biology?

We haven't even discussed those other subjects here, so we don't know enough to draw any conclusions. Is using an anthology instead of full-length novels bad? What does one learn by reading a full-length novel? Using an anthology has the advantage of covering more territory. As for "Christian Nation" history, the plaintiffs claim that history courses with a similarly narrow focus have been approved by UC. Anyway, maybe the SAT test solution could be applied in those other subjects -- there are SAT tests in English literature and US, world, and European history.

one of UC's expert reports has a very interesting appendix in which they show that UC students from ACSI schools don't do as well as non-ACSI students from a similar background: they have a higher dropout rate, and lower grade point average and longer time to graduation if they stay.

If UC did not raise that issue before, it is too late to raise it now. That is just an after-the-fact attempt to indulge in thoughts that this alleged poor performance of the fundy students might have given UC a good reason to disapprove the courses. It is an attempt to engage in a "Monday morning battle of the experts," which the Supreme Court rejected in Edwards v. Aguillard.

> I not only passed the Subject A requirement <

So you didn't have to take "dumbbell English"? Congratulations!

> but I took a full year of regular English courses at UC <

Which you then admit was a requirement. What is your point?

> The courses were very hard on me because I did not have good writing skills at the time. <

That is easy to believe.

> I wanted to delay taking the English courses until I was more mature and could write better <

sic.

> but no, the rules said that I had to take the courses as a freshman <

You were not a freshman when you went to UCSB. You spent your freshman year at Santa Monica City College.

> you lousy sack of @#$*&^%. <

You got that from a year of English courses?

> If UC did not raise that issue before, it is too late to raise it now. <

They don't have to. They won. It does show that their requirements seem to have a valid basis.

I have a better solution. Why don't the religious schools teach real science? Then there would not be an issue.

I teach biology in the UC system. Larry reminds me of a small subset of students who believe rules do not apply to them. They will use any means necessary to get the courses or grades they want. Some will contact you endlessly hoping you will give in or will go around you hoping someone else will. Their underlying credo is the ends justify the means.

Larry also has the problem that he can never be wrong - no matter how many lawyers correct him about the law or how many historians correct him on history or biologists correct him on biology - he is still knows best. He is an expert in everything on which he chooses to comment.

michaelf driveled,

Larry reminds me of a small subset of students who believe rules do not apply to them.

Exactly how do my comments here show that I think that rules do not apply to me?

Larry also has the problem that he can never be wrong - no matter how many lawyers correct him about the law

Look, you no-good sack of %$(^*#+% -- here again are the facts of my federal lawsuit against the smog impact fee --

(1) The state courts eventually declared the fee to be unconstitutional

(2) A former top California auto-emissions agency official testified in state court that the fee required the approval of the US EPA -- meaning that my suit belonged in federal court

(3) I argued that California lost its federal-court tax-suit immunity by "leaving the sphere that is exclusively its own" (Parden v. Terminal Railway) by basing the fee entirely on the state's special status under federal emissions laws and regulations. California made no attempt to counter that argument.

(4) There was NO oral hearing

(5) There was NO written opinion

(6) There was NO shred of evidence that the judge ever read the briefs

how many historians correct him on history or biologists correct him on biology

Let's see how this sack of #$@%^ answers the following arguments:

In the co-evolution of total co-dependence between two different kinds of organisms, unlike in evolutionary adaptation to widespread fixed physical features of the environment, e.g., water, land, and air, there may be nothing to adapt to because the corresponding co-dependent trait in the other organism is likely to be locally absent. When the co-dependent traits in both organisms are fatal when the corresponding co-dependent trait is absent in the other organism, co-evolution by means of random mutations is virtually impossible.

A "systematic" holocaust of Jews was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews.

You need to be "corrected" by a good hard kick in the teeth, you worthless sack of $#%(##*.

"I'm always kicking their butts -- that's why they don't like me."
-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Larry mistakenly suggests:
A "systematic" holocaust of Jews was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews.

Sure there is. Just ask them. Ask their neighbors. Check the birth cerficates. Check the baptismal records stored in the churches. Check any records at the synogogues indicating membership.

Evidence abounds as to a persons choice of religion. In many countries, from the day they are born.

I suspect you are considering religion to be a non-physical trait. If so, I'd agree. But, nonetheless, it is a social-construct which was considered to be a characteristic of the person. So societal tools can, and could, be used to filter persons of one affiliation from those of another affiliation.

Your thesis fails common sense and actual practices. Please reconsider it.

Reposted followup to Larry.

Check this copy of a German birth certificate from 1938.

www.magazinepublisher.com/family/images/birthcertif.jpg

Notice the term "Religion"?

Here's one for a person born in 1896. Notice the spot for "Religion"
www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.anythinganywhere.com/commerce/documents/ger-doc-12t.jpg&imgr…

Look at lots of means to identify a person' religion in Nazi Germany, here.
images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS237US237&q=german+birth+certificate+picture&um=1&ie=UTF-8

Larry swore at me? I'm shocked.

Sheeeesh. Here we go again -- that no-good so-and-so michaelf brought up the holocaust again, which we are not supposed to discuss here because it is off-topic.

Q, as for birth certificates, that was just in Germany -- what about the other countries that the Nazis occupied? And did Europeans run around with birth certificates in their pockets?

As for getting information from synagogues, the Nazis destroyed all of them.

As for informers, the Nazis couldn't trust them, and there could not have been enough informers to account for more than a tiny fraction of the supposed Jewish victims of the holocaust.

Non-Jews would have been afraid that they would be mistaken for Jews. If there had been an attempt at a systematic holocaust, we would have heard more complaints from people who believed that the Nazis mistakenly identified them as Jews. People would have been worried that their friends and relatives would be identified as Jews.

The Nazis just rounded up people en masse with no attempt at identification, which would have been virtually impossible anyway.

Many of the supposed Jewish victims of the holocaust did not think of themselves as Jews, so how could the Nazis think of them as Jews.

Jews could not be identified by last names because many non-Jewish Germans and Eastern Europeans have Jewish-sounding names.

Identifying Jews would be difficult enough in peacetime conditions, but these were wartime conditions.

Positively identifying Jews and non-Jews is a fundamental requirement for carrying out a "systematic" Jewish holocaust, so why have official holocaust historians almost completely ignored this issue of Jew identification. We don't even know exactly what a Jew is. One holocaust historian claimed that the Nazis identified all the Jews of Europe by using IBM Hollerith machines to process data stored on billions of Hollerith cards, but those primitive machines obviously did not have that capability -- all those machines could do was read, sort or merge just a few cards at a time.

You just find it convenient to ignore all of these facts. Official holocaust history is just full of holes.

And you didn't even try to answer my question about co-evolution.

So, Larry can't comprehend how the Nazis could identify Jews, despite the fact that across Europe, religious affiliation was (and still is) commonly listed on such public documents as tax records, school records, birth certificates, death certificates, passports, school IDs, and so on. The mind boggles.

Next, he'll be telling us that the police have no way to identify people in Los Angeles who drive black Volvos and UC has no way of determining which classes a student has taken or how well they did on their SATs.

Larry, the thing about public records is that the information on them is available to anyone who cares to look it up. Just because you can't be bothered to read documents, especially if you have reason to believe that they show that you're wrong on one of your pet talking points, doesn't mean that it's impossible for someone without your prejudices to do so. It's not even particularly difficult.

"Look, you no-good sack of %$(^*#+% -- here again are the facts of my federal lawsuit against the smog impact fee --"

Not facts, just your bleatings.

"(1) The state courts eventually declared the fee to be unconstitutional"

Due to the actions of competent lawyers who were hindered by your comical suits.

"(2) A former top California auto-emissions agency official testified in state court that the fee required the approval of the US EPA -- meaning that my suit belonged in federal court"

This has been covered before. You are wrong as usual. You seem to be totally unable to make logical inferences with any degree of accuracy.

"(3) I argued that California lost its federal-court tax-suit immunity by "leaving the sphere that is exclusively its own" (Parden v. Terminal Railway) by basing the fee entirely on the state's special status under federal emissions laws and regulations. California made no attempt to counter that argument."

A moot point since you had no standing to begin with and had to commit perjury to file again.

"(4) There was NO oral hearing"

Nor did there need to be.

"(5) There was NO written opinion"

Nor did there need to be.

"(6) There was NO shred of evidence that the judge ever read the briefs"

The evidence was that you were laughed out of court.

"A "systematic" holocaust of Jews was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews."

Larry, since your parents were Jews and your grandparents were Jews, and your great-grandparents were Jews, you would have gone up the chimney. Why do you hate your ancestors?

Perhaps Ed Brayton (Who Larry claims that we all are) has the right idea about Larry. After first engaging him, he dropped further discussion. He believes that it is not good to ruffle the feathers of the clinically insane. Still I can't resist.

We are always kicking Larry's butt. That's why he doesn't like us.

[Sigh.] I promised myself I'd avoid responding to this particular off-topic but oft-raised part of this particular thread, and I wouldn't blame Mike a bit if he just tosses out the last few comments and closes the thread for good, but this is just too much to pass up:

Larry Fafarman wrote: As for getting information from synagogues, the Nazis destroyed all of them.

So let me get this "reasoning" straight: The Holocaust couldn't have happened because the Nazis destroyed all the synagogues?

Wow. The mind reels.

Larry,
You might want to read the comments before you go off...
because didn't even come close to bringing up the holocaust.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary moans,

So, Larry can't comprehend how the Nazis could identify Jews, despite the fact that across Europe, religious affiliation was (and still is) commonly listed on such public documents as tax records, school records, birth certificates, death certificates, passports, school IDs, and so on. The mind boggles.

Mary, you are a stupid moron. You are a particular ignoramus when it comes to holocaust history. You are just out of your league here. You need to be corrected about the facts and then shut up (just like I am supposed to do when I am "corrected" about the law and biology).

You are so ignorant that you don't even know that most people in Europe are very non-religious now -- church attendance is very low in most European countries.

It's not like the Nazis had the records and then went to individual houses to arrest people. The Nazis just rounded people up en masse.

If you wanted to exterminate, say, all of the Presbyterians, or all of the Methodists, or all of the Baptists in America, how would you do it? If you wanted to exterminate all of the Mormons, you could start by killing everyone in Utah, but you would kill a lot of non-Mormons in Utah and you would miss a lot of Mormons who live outside of Utah.

Edwin Black, author of "IBM and the Holocaust," thought that he had found the big secret about how the Nazis identified all of the Jews of Europe -- the Nazis just used extremely primitive IBM Hollerith machines to correlate data stored on billions of IBM cards -- never mind that those machines didn't have such capability even if all that data were available. The book fell flat on its face.

michaelf moans,

You might want to read the comments before you go off...
because didn't even come close to bringing up the holocaust.

No, bozo, you came quite close to bringing up the holocaust -- you said, "no matter how many lawyers correct him about the law or how many historians correct him on history or biologists correct him on biology"

Your mention of history was an obvious reference to my holocaust revisionism.

ViU as usual just clutters up the place with his breathtaking inanities. It is very easy just to say that someone else is wrong without explaining why, you stupid fathead. Anyone can do it.

Jud wheezes,

So let me get this "reasoning" straight: The Holocaust couldn't have happened because the Nazis destroyed all the synagogues?

No, bozo, that is only one of the reasons why the holocaust couldn't have happened.

Larry, You are a particular ignoramus when it comes to holocaust history. You are just out of your league here.

"You are so ignorant that you don't even know that most people in Europe are very non-religious now -- church attendance is very low in most European countries."

You are so ignorant that you don't even know that the holocaust is not happening now. It happened in the last century.

"It's not like the Nazis had the records and then went to individual houses to arrest people."

Yes it is.

"If you wanted to exterminate, say, all of the Presbyterians, or all of the Methodists, or all of the Baptists in America, how would you do it?"

That would seem to be quite easy. First I would go to the church records (before you burn the churches).

Jud points out the irony

"So let me get this "reasoning" straight: The Holocaust couldn't have happened because the Nazis destroyed all the synagogues?"

And Larry shows himself to be in another world with:

"No, bozo, that is only one of the reasons why the holocaust couldn't have happened."

If there were no other exchanges, that one alone would be enough to show that Larry is irretrievably insane.

Larry,
I was referring to the Christian schools case - their text books revising history and science - the holocaust was even in my thoughts.
You are a bit defensive - guilty about something......

UPDATE

On Friday, August 8, the judge issued a summary judgment in favor of UC for the remaining claims. Complete victory!

I summarize the ruling at my long-neglected blog, including a link to the actual ruling.

Summary Judgment in the California Creationist Case: The Lawyers for the Creationists Argue Like Creationists (Part 2 of 3)

tqa — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:56:23 +0000

Summary Judgment in the California Creationist Case: The Lawyers for the Creationists Argue Like Creationists (Part 2 of 3)

(This is Part 2 of a three part post on Friday's summary judgment ruling in the ACSI v. Stearns creationism lawsuit. Part 1 is here; Part 3 will be up later today.)

If you read Judge Otero's ruling on the summary judgment motions in the California Creationist Case, you'll see that he discovered something that most of us already know: if you're looking for dubious argument tactics, you'll almost always find them when you're reading things written by professional creationists. In the case of the California lawsuit, the Christian schools are being represented by the law firm of Wendell Bird. Bird is no stranger to creationism battles - he served as the general counsel for the young-earth creationist Institute of Creation Research, threw a wrench into Arkansas' efforts to defend it's pro-creationsim policies in the McLean v. Arkansas case, and represented Louisiana's interest in promoting religion during the Edwards v. Aguillard case. After so much time spent working on behalf of creationist groups, it probably shouldn't be surprising that Judge Otero spotted many of the same argument tactics in the Christian schools' legal filings that we see when we look at the day to day output of anti-evolution groups such as the Discovery Institute.

There are some real gems scattered through the ruling. I'm just going to hit on a few of the high points.

Let's start with that most common of creationist techniques: the quote mine. Quote mining, if you're not familiar with the term, refers to the practice of hunting through volumes of documentation in search of a few words that, if taken out of context, might appear to support your argument.

For example, Plaintiffs cite the deposition of Defendants' government expert as evidence that "UC follows the policy of rejecting any course in any subject, even if it teaches standard content, if it adds teaching of the school's religious viewpoint." The actual deposition testimony illustrates Plaintiff's error. ...

(page 8)

In addition, the power of Plaintiff's quotation is tempered by their omission of the words "radical" and "fundamentalist." These adjectives suggest the Board's "feelings" concerned extreme views inconsistent with knowledge generally accepted in the relevant academic community rather than antagonism toward religion.

(page 26)

This conclusion is supported by the Broadrick passage from which Plaintiffs selectively quote; it discusses prior restraints. ... Moreover, the four cases the Supreme Court cites in support of Plaintiffs' selective quotation from the Broaderick opinion all involved licensing statutes.

...

The correct interpretation of the Plaintiff's Broadrick quote is not that standardless discretionary power creates a prior restraint, but that standardless discretionary power makes existing prior restraints "virtually unreviewable."

(page 30)

This sort of thing really makes you wonder what Bird and his people were thinking. Have they really failed to figure out that smart people - a group that, popular perception notwithstanding, includes the bulk of the Federal Bench - check the references?

Moving along, we come to another perpetual creationist favorite: the straw man. Although it could reasonably be argued that the whole of the Christian schools' position falls into this category, there was one particular instance that caught the judge's eye:

Plaintiffs spend much of their briefing setting up a "viewpoint discrimination" straw man. But, the analysis in this case is not as simple as Plaintiffs' proffered syllogism: "Viewpoint discrimination is unconstitutional and UC discriminates based on viewpoint, therefore UC's actions are unconstitutional." Accordingly, Plaintiffs' "resounding" success in tearing this straw man down rings hollow. (See Pls.' Reply 3 ("UC's silence is resounding on our 22 pages of facts and argument showing that UC policies . . . discriminate by viewpoint and are content-based in regulation.").)

(page 12, footnote 8)

That last quote is actually almost a buy-one-get-one-free example of bad argument techniques. Besides the strawman, it also contains the "lots of bad arguments must add up to something good" line of defective reasoning.

Bird's crew wasn't content to stop with merely bad tactics. They apparently decided that it was a good to bring the paranoia to the party.

The first example of paranoiac tendencies showed up early on, when the judge noted that Bird and his colleagues seemed to be suggesting that there was an organized conspiracy against them:

Plaintiffs allege that Defendants, in applying the A-G Guidelines, have established a set of binding "A-G Policies" that are used to routinely deny courses submitted by religious high schools. The official-sounding term "A-G Policies" is a label Plaintiffs created to describe what they believe are secret rules by which Defendants deny Plaintiff's courses. (Pls.' Opp.n 3.) The extent to which these "A-G Policies" exist is discussed in Part II.A of this Order.

(page 3).

The judge found that none of the three specific policies that the Christian schools alleged were being used against them actually existed.

The second instance of paranoiac tendencies is a bit more troublesome. The Plaintiffs appear to believe that not being Christian is evidence that you are biased against Christians. They submitted a list of actions and beliefs that they allege demonstrate that UC disapproved of their religion. One of the items that they included as evidence of the official state bias against them is that:

(5) "The senior reviewer is Buddhist, and the reviewer who handled religious school science courses and drafted most policies is Jewish..."

(page 44.)

Asserting that non-Christian religious beliefs is evidence of hostility toward Christianity is quite simply wrong-headed. It relies on the assumption that everyone has the same hostile attitude toward other religious beliefs that they seem to consistently exhibit. It also relies on the assumption that they can only receive a fair hearing from like-minded people. The judge handled that last bit quite well:

Additionally, allegation (5) cannot support a hostility claim. UC is under no duty to employ only those individuals whose religious beliefs coincide with Plaintiffs.

It's fun to look at the logical fallacies that Bird and his colleagues attempted to slip past the judge, but this really isn't all fun and games. It's important that we keep in mind that the more paranoid aspects of the Christian schools' argument probably aren't being advanced purely as a way to push their own views. There are a lot of people out there who really do believe that it is not merely unreasonable for us to insist that they not use the government to push their views on us, but that our attempt to preserve our own religious freedom is an attempt to persecute them. Their viewpoint is so divergent from ours that there is simply no way that this conflict is going to end soon, or nicely.

tqa Tue, 04/01/2008 - 08:56

Tags

Thank you for the post, now I am ready. Bring On The Behe!

I hope he happened to mention that ID is like astrology again.

... something that most of us already know: if you're looking for dubious argument tactics, you'll almost always find them when you're reading things written by professional creationists.

You could go further, y'know. You can generally find dubious argument tactics in creationist writings even if you aren't specifically looking for them. ;-)

IANAL (I Am Not a Lawyer) but I have worked on and off as a paralegal for 3 law firms in Beverly Hills and Pasadena, specializing in Appellate and Supreme Court procedure.

My son, now in his 2nd semester at USC Law School, will be doing paid work this summer in writing a first draft of a book on recent Supreme Court decisions. My son and I, and our lawyer friends, really enjoy reading good court opinions.

Since I am also published in Mathematical Biology, currently doing biomedical research, and often in debate with ID-iots, I consider Judge Otero's ruling on the summary judgment motions in the California Creationist Case to be delightful in several ways.

TINLA (This Is Not Legal Advice).

Asserting that non-Christian religious beliefs is evidence of hostility toward Christianity is quite simply wrong-headed. It relies on the assumption that everyone has the same hostile attitude toward other religious beliefs that they seem to consistently exhibit. It also relies on the assumption that they can only receive a fair hearing from like-minded people.

This is spot on. They are so hostile to all other religions and points of view they cannot even imagine anyone who doesn't feel the same.

There are a lot of people out there who really do believe that it is not merely unreasonable for us to insist that they not use the government to push their views on us, but that our attempt to preserve our own religious freedom is an attempt to persecute them.

This is also very true. It is part of their beliefs that they MUST impose them on others, so stopping them from doing so, in any way, is denying them their religious freedom because it prevents them from practicing their religion they way they want to. The people on the other side of their offensive practices simply do not matter to them.

It's good to see a judge who seems to understand what really going on.

Hey, Mike, you have a typo in the first paragraph. "it's" should be "its" in the sentence "Bird is no stranger to creationism battles - he served as the general counsel for the young-earth creationist Institute of Creation Research, threw a wrench into Arkansas' efforts to defend it's pro-creationsim policies in the McLean v. Arkansas case..."

Thanks for this series of posts. The focus of your last paragraph is very distressing indeed. As much as the creationists' wacky misadventures are such easy targets for the 'point and laugh' strategy, it deserves real attention that a huge group of people truly believe they are being persecuted simply because the state favors the Constitution over the Bible. The court victories may be handy, but the public opinion losses are only increasing.

Summary Judgment in California Creationist Lawsuit: Bottom Line, and What's Next (Part 1 of 3)

tqa — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:30:49 +0000

Summary Judgment in California Creationist Lawsuit: Bottom Line, and What's Next (Part 1 of 3)

On Friday, Judge James Otero of the Central District of California issued a ruling granting the University of California's request for partial summary judgment in the California Creationist Lawsuit. I've written about this case several times before now, but it's been a long time since the last update, so before I get into the details of the ruling, I'm going to quickly review the details of the case.

In 2005, a group of plaintiffs that includes the Association of Christian Schools International, Calvary Chapel Christian School of Murietta, and the parents of several students filed a lawsuit against the University of California. In their suit, they claimed that UC unfairly and unconstitutionally refused to accept a number of courses taught at Christian schools as meeting UC's admissions criteria. The courses in question covered a range of topics, including English, history, religion, and government, but I've mostly focused my attention on the biology courses that failed to make the grade, because that's the area that I know the most about.

One of the specific issues that the Christian Schools are challenging in their lawsuit is UC's decision to reject any course that uses either the A Bekka Books or the Bob Jones University Press biology textbooks as the primary text for the course. As I've said before, this decision makes perfect sense to me. Even the most cursory look at some of the things that these books claim is enough to show that the unfortunate students who are forced to use this text are being taught things that are totally incompatible with science. The Christian schools, it should go without saying, disagree with my assessment.

In their pursuit of their claim that it's unreasonable to reject these books, they recruited noted cDesign Proponentsist Michael Behe as an "expert" witness. He "reviewed" the Creationist books, found them to be fine and dandy, submitted an expert report that said as much, and sat for a deposition last year. (Unfortunately for his employers, the Judge apparently actually listened to what Behe had to say. I'll have more on that in another post later today.)

Last year, both sides in the case asked the Judge to grant them summary judgment. The Christian schools asked the judge to rule that the entire UC policy of rejecting certain courses is unconstitutional both on its face and as it was applied specifically to them. The University of California asked the court to rule that the policy is constitutional on its face. UC did not ask the court to grant judgment on the issue of the specific courses, saying that issue involves questions best settled at trial. In order for the court to grant summary judgment, it has to agree that there are no material differences about the facts of the case, and that the party who is asking for the summary judgment is clearly in the right even if the facts are viewed in the light most favorable to the other side.

In his decision, Judge Otero rejected every single aspect of the plaintiffs' claim, along with their entire motion for summary judgment. He accepted the University of California's arguments, and granted their motion for partial summary judgment.

This means two things: first, the question of whether or not the University of California can reject courses from the Christian schools under any circumstances has been settled in favor of UC. The judge ruled that UC has a compelling reason to pick and choose the "content" and "viewpoints" that they will accept as meeting their admissions requirements: ensuring that the students they accept are qualified. The Christian schools who filed the suit are not entitled to an exemption from that requirement simply because they are religious extremists who fiercely reject reality as part of their faith. Second, the issue of whether or not UC was correct in rejecting the specific courses and textbooks in question will most likely go to trial. The Christian schools asked the judge to rule in their favor on that issue, while UC claimed that the issue involved enough of a dispute about the facts to require a full trial. Here, too, the judge ruled in favor of UC.

A trial date has not yet been set, but I'll keep watching for one and will let you know what's going on when more information is available.

I'll also have two more posts on this ruling a little later today. One of the posts will focus on Judge Otero's discovery of various typical Creationist argument techniques (most notably strawmen and quote mining) in the Christian School's claims. The second will focus on the valuable, but accidental, contribution made by Mike Behe - on behalf of the side of good science.

tqa Tue, 04/01/2008 - 04:30

Tags

I am looking forward to your next post -

let the Behe Bashing Begin!

When are they going to learn that letting creationists like Behe testify in their favor = Doom

all I can say is:

Yay!

'bout time.

this thing was sticking like a festering wound in the back of my head.

If for some odd reason, the Judge HAD ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, it actually might have gotten messy.

Boosterz, I am shocked and dismayed! Surely you know Behe is one of the Chosen of God and as such all he does is Pure and Right!

Only heretics and foul perverts think otherwise, and they're Unamerican(TM). Will nobody think of the Family?
Why do you hate freedom and children Boosterz?

PS Sorry. :p

"The Christian schools who filed the suit are not entitled to an exemption from that requirement simply because they are religious extremists who fiercely reject reality as part of their faith."

I just want to savor this a little.

Mmmmmm, good. Thanks.

Independent of which side is right, when did it become the government's role to determine the best and right education for our children. Last time I checked that was still the fundamental right of the parent guaranteed by the US Constitution. If we keep advocating the government's absolute duty to determine the best education for our children, we will become a compulsory education nation that will mirror that of communist education systems. If the children do well on standardized tests like ACT/SAT, etc, what difference should it make where the child obtained their education? Isn't that what standardized tests are for? Are our universities so intimidated by this avenue of education that they feel it is a threat to their educational community? Surely they understand the power they hold in their educational conditioning techniques and know that statistically they can overcome all parental "programming". What a shame when a people can hand over their children to the government and feel that it is in the best interest of the child.

Independent of which side is right, when did it become the government's role to determine the best and right education for our children.

Well, it's obvious you aren't concerned at all.

Independent of which side is right, when did it become the government's role to determine the best and right education for our children.

This is, of course, not what the case in question is about.

Dr. Michael Egnor, Artificial Selection, and My Dog.

tqa — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:44:55 +0000

Dr. Michael Egnor, Artificial Selection, and My Dog.

Last week, SUNY Stony Brook neurosurgeon and anti-evolution mouthpiece Michael Egnor decided to keep driving on with his "you don't need to understand Darwinian evolution to understand antibiotic resistance" crusade. His post is - predictably enough - a mass of loosely connected logical fallacies. One of the most egregious of these is his attempt to assume one of the points that he wanted to argue:

First, two definitions:

Natural selection is selection in nature, presumably arising without intelligent agency. An example of natural selection would be the differential reproduction of organisms in nature, without the evident guidance of an intelligent agent.

Artificial selection is selection caused by intelligent agency. An example of artificial selection would be the intentional breeding of bacteria by a scientist in a research lab.

The distinction between natural selection and artificial selection is at least matter of definition, and perhaps there are empirical differences as well.

His definition of natural selection is poor - if I saw it on a quiz in an introductory course, I'd have a hard time justifying giving him even half credit - but it's not nearly as troublesome as his definition of artificial selection. If you think back to some of the previous discussion about Egnor's line of argument, you'll remember that many of us don't think that placing bacteria in an environment that contains an antibiotic and allowing them to freely reproduce is actually artificial selection. Egnor's attempting to beg the question by simply making his conclusion part of the definition that he expects us to accept without further argument. And that's where my dog comes in.

That's Ross. As you can tell, Ross is a border collie. The breed was developed in England and Wales, by farmers who valued dogs who were good at helping them herd. To the best of my knowledge, Ross has never been trained as a herding dog, but he certainly has some instinctive skills in that area. He enjoys herding children, and the one time that he managed to get loose in a field with cattle, he attempted to herd a bull - with some success. He's reasonably intelligent for a dog. He's got a good vocabulary, a good memory, and responds very well to voice commands. He also has hip displasia, he's terrified of thunder, and for a hobby he invents new neuroses to suffer from. Absolutely none of the traits I just listed - good or bad - are unusual for a border collie.

The border collie is a clear result of human efforts. Human breeders decided which of their female dogs they would permit to breed. They selected the males that they would allow to father a new generation. They determined which males would be permitted to breed with which females. When undesirable traits were noted in their dogs, they decided whether the bad trait was an inconvenience that was outweighed by the dog's desirable characteristics, or whether the trait was so bad that the animal should be removed from the breed's gene pool. Human input was present to some extent every single step of the way, and plays a continuing role with every new generation of the breed. This is as uncontroversial an example of artificial selection as you'll find.

"Breeding" bacteria is not quite so clear a case of artificial selection. The role that humans play is considerably different. Humans do not hand-select the bacteria that will be allowed to reproduce in each generation. People don't weigh the relative trade-offs that are involved in the process. The role of the biologists in these cases are severely limited. The scientist selects the strain of bacteria to start with, and the environment that the bacteria will be placed in. Nature is then allowed to run its course. Claiming that this is artificial selection is, at best, extremely questionable. It's like claiming that any future changes in the Oahu population of rock wallabies will be the result of artificial selection, because humans were responsible for placing them in that new environment.

In essence, Egnor's claim that raising bacteria in a lab is necessarily artificial selection appears to rest on the claim that picking something up and putting it down in a new location is an act that absolutely requires intelligence. That assumption is extremely dubious. If Dr. Egnor wants to make that argument, I'd suggest that he try to actually present justifications for that claim. Attempting to weasel around that by redefining his terms is not sufficient.

tqa Mon, 03/31/2008 - 08:44

Tags

Anti-Evolutionism

Where do you get this stuff, Keith? How about references?

Here's what I've found on Chain:

"Religion: Jewish"

He raised his children securely within the Jewish faith, arranging much extra-curricular tuition for them. His views were expressed most clearly in his speech "Why I am a Jew" given at the World Jewish Congress Conference of Intellectuals in 1965

Gah, what is it with pseudo-science cranks that they cannot fathom the notion of posting references?

I've been dealing with a cold fusion crank on my blog. Very frustrating.

My comment got send to Mike for moderation, probably because of too many links. Fine. Removing one.

Where do you get this stuff, Keith? How about references?

Here's what I've found on Chain:

"Religion: Jewish"

Gah, what is it with pseudo-science cranks that they cannot fathom the notion of posting references?

I've been dealing with a cold fusion crank on my blog. Very frustrating.

I don't understand how the IDiots can confuse "artificial selection" with "intelligent design". The only difference between artificial and natural selection is that in A.S., the selection criteria is designed -- this doesn't imply that how the species under test adapts to the selection criteria is designed. Such an obvious logical fallacy.

That is, the criteria for selection change, but the response mechanism (evolution) is exactly the same. How the species chooses (I use the word loosely!) to solve the change in environment is not up to the experimenter.

Of course, none of this will stop the DI from insisting that evolution leads to eugenics. Apparently, artificial selection is ID unless it's the Nazis doing it.

To follow up on my original comment, I guess the point I was trying to make is this. As long as the selection criteria (whether it be antibiotic resistance or "good at herding cattle") is based on phenotype, and not genotype, adaptation is clearly the same mechanism regardless of who/what is doing the selection.

Even if a decision were based on genotype, I'm not sure this doesn't stand. Clearly the IDiots don't think that their God simply modified the environment to "mold" evolution along a certain path (which would be similar to artificial selection) -- this is the view of theistic evolutionists such as Ken Miller. Unless God (or man) is directly manipulating DNA to achieve a desired result, it's not design, merely cumulative selection.

Doesn't the term "breeding" imply sexual reproduction? Granted, you can engineer/find bacteria that will swap genes in the test tube, but I'm not sure that's the same as selection for mutants of interest.

Egnor's obsession with intelligent intervention doesn't even help the IDist's traditional argument about irreducible complexity. You can intelligently manipulate the environment in the culture dish all you like, but (according to Behe) that bacterium is still never going to evolve a flagellum.

Good point made here -- euphemism problem:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/drug-resistance-explained/

----excerpt follows------

... I suspect that part of the confusion in the mind of the public lies in the use of euphemisms like develop and change through time, rather than what we really mean, which is evolve.

Bacteria dont develop resistance, as if it were a muscle nurtured by going to a microbial gym. Instead, they had it all along, or more accurately a small proportion of them did. The process of natural selection ... does the rest.

... Antibiotics are highly selective unlike soap and water, which get rid of bacteria indiscriminately, through mechanical means.
------end excerpt-------

There's something about M.D.'s that gives me an unsettling feeling. Don't get me wrong, there are good docs out there, I have one.

But I was recently traveling and met some of the SO's family and friends. One of the friends was an M.D. and a Jesus freak.

I cannot understand how a profession so steeped in science could lead to that kind of behavior.

I suspect he may have gotten his poor definition from a crabbed reading of Darwin's Origin of Species, where Darwin directly contrasts natural selection with artificial selection and selective breeding over and over again.

As Dunford says, this black-and-white definition ignores all of the subtle, nuanced experiments performed in the last 150 years that are not simply selective breeding procedures.

But I think a more important point is, Darwin contrasted natural vs. artificial selection specifically to drive the point home to his readers that the environment and unintelligent species create selective pressure in the same way that humans do. Saying you don't need Darwinian evolution to understand modern changes in bacteria utterly ignores the fact that bacteria exist in different environments, with other competing bacteria, and in both vaccinated and unvaccinated hosts. Bacteria do not evolve *solely* in response to vaccines. Unless Egnor has some other explanation about why bacteria evolve in unvaccinated hosts, for instance, he's going to need natural selection.

Just curious, but since when are humans considered either 'unnatural', 'anatural, 'supernatural', or even 'artificial'? In other words, to further Braxton Thomason's point, on what basis is human selection anything but "natural selection". We are "natural" are we not? Just because we have a given trait goal from our selection as opposed to other environmental changes that place non-preferential pressures on organisms makes no difference to the *process that produces a change*. I can't fathom how anyone can take Egnor's (Ignore's?) argument seriously. Unless Egnor seriously believes that human *intelligence* in breeding programs actually *creates* traits that do not exist. That would seem to me to contradict the whole concept of breeding *for* a given trait, but what do I know?

Humans do not hand-select the bacteria that will be allowed to reproduce in each generation.

IIRC, sometimes we do, but when we do, we call the random variation + selection process "directed evolution."

See - when humans place bacteria in an antibiotic environment, it's artificial selection. When bacteria happen to land on an antibiotic medium and start growing, then it's natural selection. Anything that happens to the first bacterial colony is *completely* different than what happens to the second one. They're so different they can't even be compared. Makes perfect sense!

Now, you ask, what if a human being happens to walk through the room and the movement of the air causes bacteria to land on antibiotic medium? Why, that's artificial selection! On the other hand, if the breeze comes in off the ocean and causes some bacteria to land in an antibiotic environment, that's natural selection -- unless, of course, that air current is caused by human-caused global warming. If that happens, then it's artificial selection. Why don't you darwinists get it?

I have come to a related set of conclusions about Egnor. First, he is abysmally ignorant about Darwinian evolution. That's a simple fact based on a boatload of evidence.

Second, he genuinely believes that his intuitions founded on that ignorance are reliable glosses of evolutionary theory. I infer that from the apparent sincerity in his writing: He really does think he knows something he clearly does not know.

Third, he believes that when he refutes his intuitions (his putative refutations being founded on still more ignorance) he has somehow generated a refutation of real Darwinian evolutionary theory. Again, apparent in his writings.

Fourth, there ain't no damned atheistic evilutionist on earth that can tell him otherwise: He is, after all, a neurosurgeon. This is inferred by the fact that AFAIK, he has never ever admitted to one misrepresentation or mistake. In that, of course, he is right at home with the Disco Dancers of Seattle.

This reminds me of a joke;
What's the difference between god and a doctor?
God doesn't think he's a doctor.

In essence, Egnor's claim that raising bacteria in a lab is necessarily artificial selection appears to rest on the claim that picking something up and putting it down in a new location is an act that absolutely requires intelligence. That assumption is extremely dubious.

I think you're wrong about why Egnor is wrong. It doesn't seem at all "dubious" that (deliberately) picking something up and (consciously) putting it down in a (specific) new location requires intelligence. Egnor's error is that he ignores the fact that everything that occurs after this "artificial" act is natural selection.
I don't expect that Egnor et al. would be content to view the "designer's" job as manipulating the environment so that RM+NS can do its merry nonteleological work.

Why do we continue to inflate this man by referring to him "Dr." Egnor?He deserves the dintinction no more than Dr. PZ Myers, or any of the rest of us with the credential. Or are we going to start referring to "Lawyer" Phillip Johnson?

Simple albeit drastic experiment to show the validity of natural selection with respect to dogs.

Remove all human beings from Earth (as in the though experiment seen in History Channel's Life After People), but set all domestic dogs free into a "dog-eat-dog" world.

Wait a few hundred years and see what evolution by natural selection has wrought. No intelligent agents will be involved, but I can guarantee that one of more types of dog body forms will predominate, depending on the given environment.

With respect to the genetic variation that either natural or artificial selection can act upon, I highly recommend the article "Molecular origins of rapid and continuous morphological evolution" by Fondon and Garner in PNAS (101: 18058-18063) in 2004.

I cannot understand how a profession so steeped in science could lead to that kind of behavior.

actually, based on several conversations I've noted here and on other blogs, the scientific method itself has apparently little impact on someone getting a medical degree in many cases.

much rote memorization of needed information limits the ability to teach good science practice and method itself.

have your doc review a journal article in biology sometime, and see how well he does.

personally, i think the apparent lack of good training in methods directly relates to the poor diagnostic skills so prevalent in a lot of GP's these days.

bottom line:

there are a lot of creationist MD's in the states.

... it also suggest that JUST exposing one to multiple classes in biological and anatomical information doesn't "lead to atheism" as has been suggested so often by the creobots themselves.

jeh, "No intelligent agents will be involved, but I can guarantee that one of more types of dog body forms will predominate, depending on the given environment."

But, look at the dogs! They are as much intelligent agents as any other that exist now. (A fundamental mistake from ID advocates, in my opinion, is that they forget just how much intelligence exists outside of humans.)

What about the fact that antibiotic resistance is an "event" which is observed in vitro as well as in vivo? Wait...nevermind. I forgot the good doctoring skills of Egnor doesn't extend beyond linear thinking.

[Dogs] are as much intelligent agents as any other that exist now.

That they are! Way too intelligent sometimes.

Mike,

"The scientist selects the strain of bacteria to start with, and the environment that the bacteria will be placed in. Nature is then allowed to run its course."

"The scientist selects the strain" is an artificial act totally removed from a random selection of bacteria among all possible populations that might be susceptable to some microevolutionary event."

Since it is well known that most so called resistance events involving bacteria and anti-biotics have more to do with pre-resistant bacteria already extant being selected for and others falling prey to the meds; a random selection of bacteria populations and strains in a repeatred trail would be much more convincing. I believe its referred to as "blind" methodology.

Likewise the lab is no natural environment and selective pressures are of course closely correlated to the environment so that once again the setup is artificial in important aspects. A lab insulates against any number of pressures and parameters that in the natural world would have significant effects on the outcome.

I recommend you don't combat Eignor or do it under an assumed name to avoid further embarrassment to yourself.

If a human choosing a mate for a dog is artificial selection, is choosing a mate for yourself natural or artificial selection?

Wow, a post from Keith that didn't use the words "pig", "evobutt", "evolander", "Darwinist", "Nazi", "brown shirt", or "sewer". Somebody must've gotten him back on his meds.

The context of the discussion is *natural selection*. It doesn't matter whether some bacteria are already resistant to antibiotics because the point is that the environment culls the non-resistant bacteria to shift the gene pool towards the antibiotic-resistant strains. Maybe you misunderstood the discussion, because it seems like you are confusing natural selection with new beneficial mutations.

Pure misdirection. The fact of the matter is that it's relevant, just like if I drop a ball in a laboratory and it falls at 9.8 m/s^2, the experimental data isn't invalidated by the fact that it's done in a lab. You do know that medicines are created in a laboratory, don't you? Are you going to argue that medicines created in laboratories are inherently suspect because they were tested in laboratories?

I recommend you don't combat Eignor or do it under an assumed name to avoid further embarrassment to yourself.

Uh, because Egnor's stupidity is going to rub off on Mike? That's a good point.

"is choosing a mate for yourself natural or artificial selection?"

An interesting question. As I understand theistic evolution, ALL reproduction, sexual or not, is "artificial" in that it is carefully guided by supernatural direction, for supernatural purposes. Which means you didn't *really* select a mate for yourself; it's just that the selection made for you occurred outside your frame of reference!

MartinM writes: "Apparently, artificial selection is ID unless it's the Nazis doing it."

You know, Ben Stein and IDers certainly support the idea of microevolution - i.e. evolution within species - as uncontroversial. So the development of dog and cattle breeds from wild populations provides no problems for them to accept.

But here's the twist: The Nazis weren't trying to make a new species of human or kill off other species of the Genus Homo. Their focus was *microevolution*: Variation *within* the human species.

So the question for the "Expelled" folks like Stein is: "What unique aspects of 'Darwinism' applies to the Nazi eugenicists that are distinct from "microevolutionary" concepts like animal breeding that Stein et al support?"

There is no such thing as "artificial selection".

Ross is not a robot. He is an animal. He is not artificial.

His characteristics reflect strong natural selection of his ancestors in recent history.

His ancestors experienced this natural selection because they have a close symbiotic relationship with another species of animals, Homo sapiens. This is absolutely true, whether or not humans (or dogs) have souls, and whether or not Jesus or Mohamed or somebody else is the true prophet of God.

Whatever spiritual traits Homo sapiens may have, they used their purely natural traits, including that aspect of their brain function that may be referred to, perhaps excessively optimistically, as "intelligence", to manipulate the breeding of Ross's ancestors (and of Ross himself, no doubt).

What happened? Some phenotypic traits were selected for, so the alleles that underly those traits, as well as a whole bunch of other alleles that weren't wanted but that travel with them, were increased in frequency in the Border Collie population. Exactly the same way that Ross's brothers in the wild, the Grey Wolves, came to have their characteristics, except that humans played a much smaller role (although not necessarily no role at all) in basically the same process. The mechanisms are identical.

Why do we continue to inflate this man by referring to him "Dr." Egnor?

We call him "Doctor" for a number of excellent reasons.

First of all he earned a doctoral degree, and that's that. It can't be retracted for subsequent imperfections.

Second of all, by all accounts, he has a rare skill, pediatric neurosurgery, a skill that decreases human suffering in a dramatic way, but that requires a combination of high intelligence, manual dexterity, extreme work ethic, and ability to function well in very stressful situations.

Dr. Egnor is making a damn jackass of himself on the subject of biological evolution, and that's a subject a physician damn well ought have a decent comprehension of. I say that as a physician and I can assure you that every physician I ever knew well would agree. Obviously he's being influenced by right wing politics and religious fanaticism, admixed with his own pompous arrogance.

He is also a medical doctor, though. Creationists make false arguments and use non-sequitors. We should not do the same thing.

Keith Eaton apparently doesn't realize that you'll get the same sort of mutations in the wild...

He also doesn't realize that antibiotic resistance can also be acquired by spontaneous mutations and that many of these mutations have been repeatedly isolated from separate cultures started with sensitive strains. Some of these experiments are so simple that they are used as demonstration in undergrad labs. Further, the concept of 'blind' studies is another thing that eludes Keith's grasp.

Message to Dr. Egnor From a Fellow Physician -

I realize how hard it is to give up on a preconceived notion. Just the other night I lost some money by not folding pocket aces, when it was logically obvious that my preconceived notion that they would win the pot had been falsified. (Of course, alcohol was involved, otherwise I would have played the hand perfectly, but it's just an example...)

You have actually chosen a good evolutionary web site to tangle with. This is by far the best natured science site I know of, and it strikes me that if you were to admit your mistake, Mike Dunford would be one to accept your admission in a graceful and dignified way.

It is patently obvious that bacterial antibiotic resistance is the result of natural selection.

It is patently obvious that experiments which start by selecting resistant bacteria in a lab are grounded in the understanding that environmental bacterial antibiotic resistance, the reason the experiments are being done, is grounded in natural selection.

(I pointed out above that selection due to natural human activity is a type of natural selection anyway.)

It's also obvious that genes for bacterial antibiotic resistance originated through natural genetic variation, i.e. mutation and the various mechanisms by which, after mutation, the genes in question can be transferred around. The only other alternative is that they originated by magic.

Obviously, one should understand these things if one wishes to address the problem of bacterial antibiotic selection.

I cannot conceive how any of this could impact on any serious theological or philosophical question.

Faced with a choice between unbiased integrity and the disapproval of some religious sect or political fellow travelers, versus persisting in seemingly convenient but false arguments, I would urge you to choose unbiased integrity. (I am referring to integrity with regard to the particular matter of bacterial antibiotic resistance, of course, and not suggesting that your integrity in general has been compromised.)

We all make asses of ourselves from time to time, and I can assure you that I have made an serious ass of myself on occasion.

You have the opportunity to exit from this ass-making situation before it is too late. How I wish I had taken advantage of all such opportunities myself.

I strongly suggest that you just admit that the guy who wrote the paper was right when he pointed out that natural selection important for bacterial antibiotic resistance, and for his research upon that subject. After all, in addition to all the stuff I said above, it is the very guy who wrote the paper who said this himself.

The notion of agency isn't hard to grasp. If you select the fastest car of a group of 50, who's responsible for its speed - you or the engineer? Similarly if you pick the largest dog, who is responsible for it's size - you or nature?

Darwin grasped this. I presume good high school students grasp this. It takes skill to choose definitions which obscure such mechanisms. It takes special obtuseness to be unaware that one is employing this skill.

So the question for the "Expelled" folks like Stein is: "What unique aspects of 'Darwinism' applies to the Nazi eugenicists that are distinct from "microevolutionary" concepts like animal breeding that Stein et al support?"

Well, there is one thing which distinguishes Nazi eugenics from standard evolutionary concepts, assuming one accepts the artificial/natural dichotomy. That would be the belief that evolution alone would not improve mankind, but rather that intelligent agency was required. Damn those Darwinia...hey, wait a minute.

I didn't need to read any further than the title to know I needed to move my coffee far from my computer. Thanks for the heads up! Nice blog.

Tinyfrog,

Natural selection and artificaial selection are terms coined by evolutionists so I suppose a research of that history would be a good start for you to get a grasp of the difference.

Certainly where microevolution via RM and NS are effectively accelerated by intellligent guidence and minipulation one should differentiate. Genetically engineered food, gene replacement therapy, are not natural selection procedures.

This is not to deny that good and valuable science is performed in the lab, that would be preposterous and I wonder why a supposed knowledgeable person like yourself would suggest such nonsense.

Unsymp,

Wow so bacteria in an unconstrained experiement evolve by RM and NS identically in their random mutional pathways to achieve resistance.

My you should alert all the hospitals so that they can understand that if you isolate one staff bacterial strain you have it knocked because they all end up in identical states of resistance by molecular mechanism generated through the old "tried and true mutational path". This can be sent all over the world and then no more staff infection problems...it turns out their all the same or a very small predictable number of strains.

Tell the flu people as well so they can stop worrowing about new multiple strains of resistent types.

Is this called the totally predictable deterministic random process, the foreknown random process, or the blueprint random process?

Keith, before anyone is going to take you seriously, try proofreading your posts. You're almost illiterate.

Examples: "artificaial", "intellligent", "guidence", "minipulation", "mutional", "My" ('maybe', or, perhaps 'My, '?), "staff" (I assume you mean 'staph'?), "worrowing"... Come on.

Everyone makes occassional typos, but your writing is just painful to read. On syntactic, grammatical, semantical, and logical levels.

You have yet to give even a hint of reasoning as to why adaptive mechanisms would be different in a lab versus nature, regardless of who (or what!) is doing the selection. As I stated in my original post, the mechanism for adaptation is identical between "artificial" and "natural" selection; only the selection criteria are different.

Keith Eaton: "Wow so bacteria in an unconstrained experiement evolve by RM and NS identically in their random mutional pathways to achieve resistance."

It is often the case that the same mutations that rise in the wild also arise in the lab. That is because there are sometimes a limited number of one or two-step mutations that produce strong resistance. And one method to gauge the relative ease with which bacteria will become resistant to a new antibiotic is to expose strains in the lab. That is a pretty uncontroversial approach and one taken in the research paper that Egnor keeps trying to explain away.

Keith: "Is this called the totally predictable deterministic random process, the foreknown random process, or the blueprint random process?"

The work Keith Eaton should contemplate is "stochastic". One can't predict all the possible routes to resistance but there are definitely patterns that frequently reappear. Google "streptomycin resistance rpsL"

Keith Eaton -

My you should alert all the hospitals so that they can understand that if you isolate one staff bacterial strain you have it knocked because they all end up in identical states of resistance by molecular mechanism generated through the old "tried and true mutational path". This can be sent all over the world and then no more staff infection problems...it turns out their all the same or a very small predictable number of strains.

I'm guessing that you meant to talk about "Staph" not "staff".

"Staph" is a colloquial term for bacteria of the Staphylococcus genus of bacteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staphylococcus

"Staff" work at the hospital. Bacteria are almost never employed as "staff".

Your paragraph makes no sense whatsoever. It seems to be a bizarre claim that if we understand one example of antibiotic resistance, we are obliged to assume that all other examples are identical. I'd call that a straw man, but to do so would be an insult to all the other straw man arguments out there.

I'm glad you took the endless references to "morons" out of your own posts, but now, I am compelled to call you a moron.

This paragraph alone proves that you have no idea what you are talking about, none whatsoever, and yet keep going on. Unless you are a parody poster, in which case you are doing a good job of ridiculing creationists.

"It is better to stay silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt" - Abraham Lincoln.

I think our pal Keith Eaton is a parody.

His brazen stupidity on so many fronts is surely a parody
of creationists in general.

I think our pal Keith Eaton is a parody.

nope.

he's just another Larry Farfarman.

with exactly the same level of sanity (maybe even a little less).

I agree to edit my posts as a courtesy to the psychological needs of the community addressed, otherwise known as "form over substance" psychosis. Nothing in the posts with typos included was misunderstood or failed to convey the proposition, yet people choose to spend their entire post in a diatribe and uncivil set of remarks.

From time to time it is useful and affirming to reflect on the positions held by the most preeminent scientists of the last decades, particularly when their views are precisely congruent with my own, in direct opposition to those pronounced by the lesser lights posting here and elsewhere in evoland. This satisfaction is amplified considerably when the scientist is a Nobel Prize winner in the precise area under investigation, antibiotics and resistance in bacteria.

Thus the life and times of Dr. Ernst Chain, Ph.D. in biochemistry and physiology and postdoc work at Cambridge during WWII and following.

Dr. Chain was co-recipient of the Nobel Prize with Dr. Howard Florey for their elucidation of the molecular structure of penicillin and isolation of the active substance through freeze-drying for mass production facility. He also discovered the existence of penicillinase as the resistance mechanism.

Dr. Chain was a practicing Christian all of his adult life, wrote and lectured extensively on the absurdity of evolution writ large, and was in constant pursuit of the truth of creation and the Creator. His opposition to evolution was founded on his scientific training, research, observation, and understanding of the natural biological world.

Dr. Chain, as a Jewish escapee from Hitler's Germany, would be in complete agreement with the tenets of Expelled, the movie, and particularly the dark shadow darwinism has and continues to cast over societies past, present, and future.

For the infrequent open minded visitor I extend the invitation to study the life of Dr. Chain extensively and gain the understanding that, historically, the most brilliant and accomplished scientific minds in the directly related fields of science are frequently the most adamant foes of the pseudo-science of evolution.

Or you can wallow in the sound-bite science of the 3rd team, back benchers who frequent these environs posing as actual scientific contributors.

I also note the continuing absense of any rational rejoiner to the challenges issued ...just the simplistic personal attacks of the unprepared intellect.

Ichthyic, after reading Keith Eaton's latest post, I have to agree with you.

A parody guy would "fess up" and have a laugh.

By the way, Keith, why do you bother with us "lesser lights"?

A personage of your obvious great intellect should be standing in the halls of Congress or at the podium in a lecture hall at one of the great universities either here or in Europe.

I'm sure the world of science would grind to a halt just to hear your latest pronouncements on uh . . . "staff infections" or some other of your dumbass observations.

Oh, Keith . . .by the way, the flu is caused by viral agents, not bacteria.

What an ass.

One other thing . . . there is a spell checker on this site,
so even my small child, who actually knows how to use a spell checker, would have a better spelling score than you.

Waldrass,

I fess up to enjoying intellectually pistol whipping wireheads on a daily basis and watching them whimper and whine.

Of course I have been asked in the past to assist in intellectual lectures but these days as a retiree in comfort I am satisfied to act as a pedagog to the illiterate asses who pass for scientific minds these days.

If you have need of private consultation on scientific matters perhaps you can email your questions privately.

I could make an exception and cease exposing your ignorance if you consent to listening closely to my valuable insights.

Oh that red stuff in your underwear is blood.

I've seen creationists argue that evolution isn't science because you can't test it by experiment. Obviously, because any experiment is "artificial", not natural! By that reasoning, science is impossible because any experiment, evolutionary or not, doesn't actually tests what happens "naturally".

Tinyfrog: "You do know that medicines are created in a laboratory, don't you? Are you going to argue that medicines created in laboratories are inherently suspect because they were tested in laboratories?"

If you're one of those proponents of "natural" and "alternative" medicines, you do!

Ernst Chain, who contributed to the elucidation of the structure of penicillin is barely tangentially related to the subject of the evolutionary mechanisms behind antibiotic resistance.

Keith Eaton writes: "I also note the continuing absense of any rational rejoiner to the challenges issued ...just the simplistic personal attacks of the unprepared intellect."

Keith should crack open a microbiology textbook. Or here is an interesting paper to start if one is interested in the primary literature. There is a whole chain of research related to the work referenced in this paper.

Stephanie J. Schrag, Veronique Perrot, Bruce R. Levin, "Adaptation to the Fitness Costs of Antibiotic Resistance in Escherichia coli" Proceedings: Biological Sciences, Vol. 264, No. 1386 (Sep. 22, 1997), pp. 1287-1291
Abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9332013

A later paper from Levin: http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/154/3/985

Ithy,

Yeah tangentially in the sense of isolating penicillinase! LOL!!

For those interested in how real, productive, and honored scientific minds of the past approached science and religious faith see, http://www.brethrenassembly.com/Ebooks/NobelPr.pdf.

Now we have the rubes and their leaders like pee wee myers alias Minnesota Bats.

Tangential with regard to discussion of correlation of experimental observation of acquired resistance with evolutionary events seen outside a lab, which is the topic of this entire thread.

But it is certainly true that the commercial development of penicillin and other antibiotics was relevant in that it altered the local environment for the bacteria that live with humans and farm animals and consequentially led to the evolution of resistant strains. Interestingly, mutations that alter the specificity of beta-lactamases also correlate between lab-derived and 'wild' strains.

Mr. Eaton. I have no scientific background--I come here for the politics and the pretty pitchers, mainly. The strength of the argument for evolution is easily seen in Dunford's shredding of Egnor's quote-mining (or should that be "artificial selection"?) papers, and the myriad of similar exercises carried out across the web, usually earnestly and in good faith. As opposed to the dishonest and unchristian lie-in-the-service-of-truth approach of the opposition.

I don't rate as highly as the 3rd-stringers, so I'll have to stick with shorter terminology: You're a troll.
I usually wouldn't bother, given your aversion to rational discussion. But I really have to ask:

What the hell was that "That red stuff in your underwear is blood" business? Does that pass for discussion wherever they're keeping you? And why do the orderlies allow you to the keyboard, apparently unsupervised?

I can only imagine your retirement was forced upon you, and that if you were ever asked to "assist in intellectual lectures," it was in the role of experimental subject. Possibly for some of the nastier psychotic preparations the CIA was so interested in at one time.

Oh, and in case you're so enamoured of the creationist school of "argument" that you can no longer tell the difference, this isn't discussion. Trolls deserve all the abuse they can get.

Dear Metro,

Your opinions carry the weight of an owl turd, your entire life is inconsequential, of no merit, and I suggest you retire to your rented trailer house and get next months food stamps secured.

For the other evos: You might give some considerstion to the words of Huxley on Evolution and Ethics at Oxford in 1894 where he went to considerable effort to differentiate between the natual cosmic processes of evolution and the artificial processes of man the scientist, experimenter, etc. in the context of horticulture and gardening.

"It will be admitted that the garden is as much a work of art,8 or artifice, as anything that can be mentioned. The energy localised in certain human bodies, directed by similarly localised intellects, has produced a collocation of other material bodies which could not be brought about in the state of nature. The same proposition is true of all the [11] works of man's hands, from a flint implement to a cathedral or a chronometer; and it is because it is true, that we call these things artificial, term them works of art, or artifice, by way of distinguishing them from the products of the cosmic process, working outside man, which we call natural, or works of nature. The distinction thus drawn between the works of nature and those of man, is universally recognised; and it is, as I conceive, both useful and justifiable."

Such a statement alone renders Egnor's insights totally correct and those rendered by the evos as wrongheaded and in strict disagreement with one of evolutions most prominent proponents and spokespersons.

A full reading gives even more evidence that Evos are not evern aware of their own masters' historical stance on the difference betwenn natural cosmic evolution and artificial,as in intelligence enabled evoution, the difference in the conditions and pressures , etc. are undeniable and fundamental. http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE9/E-EProl.html

It is not so bad to be in the company of other intellectual giants rather than wallowing with the mental midgets. Thus it is gratifying to be in league with those in the upper 0.01% of the bell curve with Huxley, Egnor, Dembski and others in logical perception if not in world view and philosophy.

My life cannot be entirely wasted if such a grandiose intellect as yours can deign to respond to my little query. My insignificant opinion is worth responding to--thanks you for giving me a renewed sense of worth!

Your insults have opened my eyes. I am deeply ashamed. I feel so very sorry to have wasted the time of such an intellectual giant as yourself. I mean, you went and learned to use spellcheck and everything ... just for little old inconsequetial me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Alas ... I am stupider even than you thought.

Obviously, I meant "Thank you" rather than "thanks you", and "inconsequential" for "inconsequetial".

I must have evolved from a lower form of life than M. Eaton did, obviously.

Ah, how the shame and horror of my existence alongside such an eloquent and fine mind tortures me!

Keith postures belligerently, then projects his inadequacy onto others with :

Dear Metro,

Your opinions carry the weight of an owl turd, your entire life is inconsequential, of no merit, and I suggest you retire to your rented trailer house and get next months food stamps secured.

THAT from the 'towering intellect' that thought PZ's account of being expelled from the showing of 'Expelled' was faked SINCE IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR DAWKINS TO GET FROM AUSTIN TO MINNEAPOLIS IN A SINGLE DAY !

For the other evos: You might give some considerstion to the words of Huxley on Evolution and Ethics at Oxford in 1894 where he went to considerable effort to differentiate between the natual cosmic processes of evolution and the artificial processes of man the scientist, experimenter, etc. in the context of horticulture and gardening.

How, EXACTLY, are researchers placing amino acids in particular locations of a protein at will, twit ?

How, EXACTLY, is your quote-vomiting actually relevant to bacteriology ? You ARE aware that gardening is not quite the same as growing bacteria on a plate, right ?

"It will be admitted that the garden is as much a work of art,8 or artifice, as anything that can be mentioned. The energy localised in certain human bodies, directed by similarly localised intellects, has produced a collocation of other material bodies which could not be brought about in the state of nature. The same proposition is true of all the [11] works of man's hands, from a flint implement to a cathedral or a chronometer; and it is because it is true, that we call these things artificial, term them works of art, or artifice, by way of distinguishing them from the products of the cosmic process, working outside man, which we call natural, or works of nature. The distinction thus drawn between the works of nature and those of man, is universally recognised; and it is, as I conceive, both useful and justifiable."

Please demonstrate that antibiotic resistance in bacteria is brought about by researchers specificially placing amino acids at certain locations - which would be the ONLY way the quote you regurgitated would be relevant.

Antibiotic resistance in bacteria occurs via mutation and selection - NATURAL PROCESSES.

As bacteria are non-sentient, it makes NO DIFFERENCE to them whether they encounter antibiotics in the wild or in the lab - the end result is the same. Variants better able to resist the drugs flourish; those unable to resist die off.

All the things Huxley cited were NON-LIVING THINGS, twit.

Analogotes are highly dissimilar; thus, your bleatings be weak.

Such a statement alone renders Egnor's insights totally correct and those rendered by the evos as wrongheaded and in strict disagreement with one of evolutions most prominent proponents and spokespersons.

Good thing that no one takes your blithers seriously then !

What you quoted DOES NOT SUPPORT YOUR SILLY IDEA THAT ARTIFICIAL SELECTION IS RELEVANTLY DIFFERENT THAN NATURAL SELECTION. The process is the same - differential reproductive success. The only difference is what generates the selection (if we humans do it, we call the results 'artificial selection'; if we humans don't do it, we call the results 'natural selection'.)

A full reading gives even more evidence that Evos are not evern aware of their own masters' historical stance on the difference betwenn natural cosmic evolution and artificial,as in intelligence enabled evoution, the difference in the conditions and pressures , etc. are undeniable and fundamental.

You seem greatly deluded, Keith, for only a deranged twit could claim that evos have 'masters' that must be obeyed and believed without question. I suspect it is standard projection from creationism - since creationism is obesiance to authority, you've deluded yourself into believing that evolution is the same way (much like you've deluded yourself into believing that you are a 'towering intellect', actually capable of 'pistol-whipping evos into submission with your plaintive bleating'.

Note, buffoon - NON LIVING THINGS DO NOT EVOLVE. Thus your whining be petulant and as irrelevant as you claimed Metro is.

Initiating standard Eaton Ego Inflating Delusion :

It is not so bad to be in the company of other intellectual giants rather than wallowing with the mental midgets. Thus it is gratifying to be in league with those in the upper 0.01% of the bell curve with Huxley,

Darwin's Bulldog ? Who DEFENDED evolution from the creationut droolers of his day ?

Egnor

Who so epitomizes ignorance and arrogance that he has a neologism in his 'honor' : egnorance.

Dembski

The mathematical masturbator who CLAIMED that the No Free Lunch theorems 'disproved' evolution - only to have the people who DEVISED the NFL theorems state that the NFL theorems do no such thing, and that he was full of crap ? And has been shown to be wrong on nearly everything he has produced ?

Yeah, great company you'd like to be with there Keith !

and others in logical perception if not in world view and philosophy.

Well, Egnor and Dembski share your twisted version of logical perception, not so sure about Huxley, given that his quote does NOT support your gibberings.

"As bacteria are non-sentient, it makes NO DIFFERENCE to them whether they encounter antibiotics in the wild or in the lab - the end result is the same. Variants better able to resist the drugs flourish; those unable to resist die off."

If you weren't still trying to master your multiplication tables and potty training you would be aware that leading edge researchers such as James Shapiro consider bacteria to exhibit sentient behaviors , are incredibly sophisticated sensory based, integrated information processing and manufacturing systems with quaity control mechanisms in place that exceed seven sigma performance, that perform natural genetic engineering using mobile element reprogramming of the genome and that RM and NS are considered minor players in the scheme of variation and change.

You're living in the 19th century.

That might explain a lot about creationism--is posting on a comment thread a demonstrably sentient behaviour?

And I loved reading that line about the 19th century. Coming from someone who apparently still believes, despite a total lack of any evidence at all, that a giant invisible Dad made the universe, that was truly purest comedy.

"I've seen creationists argue that evolution isn't science because you can't test it by experiment. Obviously, because any experiment is "artificial", not natural! By that reasoning, science is impossible because any experiment, evolutionary or not, doesn't actually test what happens "naturally"."
Posted by: quester | April 2, 2008 2:16 AM

Hi quester, did you know that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

has exactly that in the 2006 pupil's questionnaire? See p. 71, question 3 on evolution: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/33/38709385.pdf

Question 3: EVOLUTION S472Q03

Which one of the following statements best applies to the scientific theory of
evolution?

A The theory cannot be believed because it is not possible to see species
changing.
B The theory of evolution is possible for animals but cannot be applied to humans.
C Evolution is a scientific theory that is currently based on extensive evidence.
D Evolution is a theory that has been proven to be true by scientific experiments.

EVOLUTION SCORING 3

Full credit
Code 1: C. Evolution is a scientific theory that is currently based on extensive evidence.

No credit
Code 0: Other responses.
Code 9: Missing.

Why would answer D: "Evolution is a theory that has been proven to be true by scientific experiments." be false?

Andrew asked:

"Why would answer D: 'Evolution is a theory that has been proven to be true by scientific experiments.' be false?"

Maybe because a theory can never be considered to be "proven true"? My understanding of science is that the strongest theories may be considered to be well-supported by the evidence, and make reliable predictions, but there is always leeway allowed for potential improvement.

I would have chosen "C" on that reasoning.

I see you are quite right!
Thanks!

Good article

Yea your DOG is still a DOG. So your evolution explanation fails. If this is your proof you're a fool. People like you and others who barely got through high school math & science are evolution experts? Fact is the doctor is right, you don't need evolution to do surgery. Evolution is over blown.

EVOLUTION is forced to make claims of "MICRO EVOLUTION". Basically apologetics for lack of proof, showing only small changes WITH IN a specie, which can happen, but extrapolation to the MACRO evolution, from space dust, started reproducing, out of the primordial ooze, "IT" crawled out, became ALL life, plant, bug, animal, sea life, bird and MAN, IS A HARD SELL. Everything came from nothing, out of no where, by accident for no reason? There is no abiogenesis, speciation or ANY EVIDENCE that one specie spawns a new specie. Sure adaptation with in a species fine, but to extrapolate of the observable beyound all reason is ludicrous and not science, its a hypothesis. Sadly the science cabal forces all ideas into this one paradigm as irrefutable and perfect. It does not allow cricisim. Many folks feel to consider ID is like teaching prayer in school or theocracies. That is stupid. It's some phobia and more about protecting Grant money.

The common descendants of all life on earth from a single ancestor, via undirected mutation and natural selection, biologist of the first rank have real questions.

yea, yea you're great at quoting others (well read)
So what are your original thoughts?