Intelligent Design Pa. Ruling Disappoints Some

A federal judge's ruling in Pennsylvania that "intelligent design" is religious fundamentalism dressed in the raiment of science has wounded a politically influential movement.

"It was a real disappointment," biochemist Michael J. Behe, who testified in the trial, said from his office at Lehigh University. "It's hard to say this chills the atmosphere, because if you're publicly known as an ID supporter you can already kiss your tenure chances goodbye. It doesn't help."




But Behe and other proponents of intelligent design emphasized that the court decision would not cast them into the political and cultural wilderness. They have pushed their theory, which holds that life is too complicated to have arisen without the hand of a supernatural creator, to the center of legislative debates in more than a dozen states, and they intend to keep it there.

Some politically influential backers of intelligent design warned that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, who was appointed by President Bush, so overreached that his ruling will outrage and inflame millions of conservative and religiously observant Americans.

"This decision is a poster child for a half-century secularist reign of terror that's coming to a rapid end with Justice Roberts and soon-to-be Justice Alito," said Richard Land, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and is a political ally of White House adviser Karl Rove. "This was an extremely injudicious judge who went way, way beyond his boundaries -- if he had any eyes on advancing up the judicial ladder, he just sawed off the bottom rung."

Jones's expansively written decision incorporated the scientific critique of intelligent design as pseudoscience in almost every detail. Legally, that decision is not binding in other states, such as Kansas, where the state school board is debating incorporating a critique of Darwinian evolution into its state standards.

Kansas officials said they would not mandate specific mention of intelligent design.

"The heart of science should be looking at the gaps in theory and trying to figure out what that's about," said Steve Abrams, a Kansas school board member. "This decision will perhaps have an effect on other states, but we don't talk about intelligent design."

Still, few advocates of intelligent design tried to hide their dismay with the judge's decision. The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank, wrote that the judge has a "pernicious understanding of what intellectual and religious freedom in America means." Some acknowledged that the decision foreshadows a much longer and more complicated battle for public acceptance.

Steve Fuller, a philosopher of science at the University of Warwick in England, whose politics tend to the left, said he worries that Jones's decision will drive an intriguing if still half-formed challenge to Darwinian theory out of the academy and into the theology schools. "The judge's ruling really puts the burden on the intelligent-design guys," Fuller said. "The judge's ruling that the theory is theology could become a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Other advocates take comfort in history. They note that in 1925, lawyer Clarence Darrow argued and lost the Scopes "monkey trial," in which a teacher was convicted of teaching that man descended from apes. But in the long run, that loss became a victory for evolutionary theory.

William A. Dembski, a philosopher and math professor at Southern Seminary in Louisville, wrote in his Web log that the loss in Pennsylvania means thousands more young people "would continue to be indoctrinated into a neo-Darwinian view of biological origins." But he wrote that the future is bright.

"ID is rapidly going international and crossing metaphysical and theological boundaries," Dembski wrote. "The important thing is ID's intellectual vitality."

Judge rules against intelligent design.

HARRISBURG, Pa. - In one of the biggest courtroom clashes between faith and evolution since the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, a federal judge barred a Pennsylvania public school district Tuesday from teaching “intelligent design” in biology class, saying the concept is creationism in disguise.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones delivered a stinging attack on the Dover Area School Board, saying its first-in-the-nation decision in October 2004 to insert intelligent design into the science curriculum violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

The ruling was a major setback to the intelligent design movement, which is also waging battles in Georgia and Kansas. Intelligent design holds that living organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher force.

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Jones decried the “breathtaking inanity” of the Dover policy and accused several board members of lying to conceal their true motive, which he said was to promote religion.

A six-week trial over the issue yielded “overwhelming evidence” establishing that intelligent design “is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory,” said Jones, a Republican and a churchgoer appointed to the federal bench three years ago.

The school system said it will probably not appeal the ruling, because the members who backed intelligent design were ousted in November’s elections and replaced with a new slate opposed to the policy.

Bush and the NSA spy report

Bush said in an interview that “we do not discuss ongoing intelligence operations to protect the country. And the reason why is that there’s an enemy that lurks, that would like to know exactly what we’re trying to do to stop them.

“I will make this point,” he continued. “That whatever I do to protect the American people — and I have an obligation to do so — that we will uphold the law, and decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people.”

The president spoke in an interview to be aired Friday evening on “The Newshour with Jim Lehrer.”

Asked about the story earlier Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and White House press secretary Scott McClellan also refused to confirm or deny that the super-secret NSA had spied on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002.

Emails, calls monitored
The Times reported Friday that following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush authorized the NSA to monitor the international phone calls and international e-mails of hundreds — perhaps thousands — of people inside the United States.

Good news to a world set free

We need to grasp the fact that Satan has constantly deceived and manipulated mankind on every conceivable level. The prophecies of the book of Revelation only begin to scratch the surface of what must take place for the Kingdom of God to be established. One message that comes through loud and clear is that Christ will have to tear virtually everything down and start over. It will be the only way to root out the vestiges of Satan's system's. Tearing down and starting over!!!!!!!!!!!!! When you read through the book of Revelations you learn that it isn't only the obvious areas of deception- such as Satan's end-time political and religious systems-that must be rooted out and destroyed. At Christ's return everything will come crashing down, to be swept away. He will start over afresh. Everything that Satan had a hand in building- goverments,political systems,economic systems, educational systems,entertainment,media and information systems,every form of society and civilization that we have invented and established over the curse of man's history-must be replaced with somthing far superior. Why Because everything in thes present world has been built on a wrong foundation. It is all founded on Satan's deceptions and outright lies. It has been built on his values-constructed to his specifications,you might say. Virtually without exceptions this world systems have all been constructed with no guidance or direction from God. This is not God's world. It is not his society. It is not his civilization. It is not built on His values, laws or way of life. Satan has deceived the world for centuries and organized it according to his values rather than God's. Wake up and know that Jesus is coming soon all you have to do is repent for your sins and let God know that you love him and His son Jesus Christ and he will not leave you behind in these troublesome times that is going on right now. Iam not a preacher Iam a sinner but I love God and know that he is the most High and that is why I want to let all my friends know that is is not to late but the return is on the door step. And I want God to know that I make mistakes everyday but if you are truely sorry for you mistakes God never takes a second look at them. I pray for my friends and family and the whole world and hope that he comes quickly and set all his people free. So even thought that these times seems at the end and at its worst it all has to happen before our lord Jesus comes back so just pray believe and no harm will come to his true followers. I will pray for all of you and I hope that you will do the same for me. a message from a friend who wants to save souls. Your friend Tim

Health

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