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Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover Decision

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I bought this book to see what the ID proponents had to say that they didn't say in court. I found little. And most of what I did find was more succinctly addressed by luskins's and behe's previous critiques of the decision which you can find on the internet for free. It is a quick read though.
Judge Jones' decision is a few pages longer than this book but if you want the truth about this case I encourage you to read the decsision and the transcripts of the testimony which you can find on the internet at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover.html

Avoid the testimony of the school board members if you are a christian (pro ID or not) because a couple of the professedly christian board members got caught lying on the stand and I know that was upsetting to me. Don't miss the expert testimony though. Robert Pennock, Barbara Forrest, Michael Behe and Steven Fuller. HIgh points (IMO) are Dr Forrest's testimony about the writing of "Of Pandas and People" the textbook in question at the trial, and Dr Behe's admission that the rule changes necessary to make ID science would also allow astrology.

The view of the decision that you get here is not as complete or truthful as the the picture you can get by going to the source documents and making up your own mind. For instance, reading this book will convince you that Judge Jones went beyond his authority to make a needless determination that ID is not science. But a reading of the trial transcripts will show you that the one of the major arguments made by the ID forces was that ID should be taught because it is science. While a narrower opinion could have been written (with the same result that ID can't be taught in Dover but based only on the defendants' intent to teach a particular brand of religion in the public schools in violation of the establishment clause), the judge was well within his right to rule on the merits of all the defense's claims.

I can only recommend this book if you are extremely interested in this debate and wish to keep up with the latest of the ID proponents' strategies.

"Traipsing" is basically a cut-and-paste job from articles available for free on websites like the Discovery Institute's own site. Why pay for such a silly book when you can get it for free? (Sorry, Amazon ;-)

"Traipsing" criticizes Judge Jones' ruling in the Kitzmiller case, but the book's many blunders simply confirm Jones' ruling that requiring ID to be taught in science classes constituted "breathtaking inanity."

I highlight six major blunders. There were many more.

1. REDUNDANCY. Jones ruled against ID on two grounds: 1) the School Board's action did not have a valid, secular purpose, and 2) its primary effect was not secular either. The authors blast Jones for using two justifications when one would have been sufficient. That complaint is simply naïve. When a trial judge has multiple justifications for his decision, it is entirely routine that he list all of them. That way, even if an appellate court rejects one particular justification on appeal, the trial court's basic decision might still be upheld based on one or more of the alternate justifications. That practice is so routine, it's amazing that the authors, two of whom claim to be attorneys, could be unaware of it.

(BTW, the judge in an earlier creationism case, McLean v. Arkansas, followed exactly the same "redundant" procedure, and McLean was cited favorably in a Supreme Court decision, so apparently the Supremes don't share the authors' concern about "redundant" justifications either.)

2. NEGATIVE ARGUMENTS/FALSE DICHOTOMY. The design inference almost always follows a negative argument, like this: "There is no known natural cause for X, therefore X is attributable to design." Negative arguments like that are said to be based on a dichotomy. Judge Jones ruled that ID's dichotomy argument was an illogical "false dichotomy." In "Traipsing," Michael Behe tries to rebut Jones.

Behe starts by describing a valid dichotomy, strictly limited to only two types of causes, intelligent and natural. Behe's theoretical dichotomy seems to pass muster; the problem is, the negative arguments that ID-iots (including Behe himself!) actually use are nothing at all like Behe's theoretical dichotomy. Specifically, the "no-known-natural-cause" arguments that Behe and other ID-iots actually use clearly imply the existence of a third type of cause, i.e., unknown natural causes, and that violates the two-causes limitation of a valid dichotomy. So Behe's own arguments demonstrate that Jones was exactly right: ID's negative arguments are illogical, because they employ a false dichotomy with more than two types of causes.

3. BIG BANG RELIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS. Behe spent what seemed like hours in court whining that it is unfair to ban ID just because it has religious implications, since the Big Bang theory is routinely taught even though it has religious implications too. Behe's whining completely misses the point. Courts have never held that teaching scientific theories with secondary religious implications is unconstitutional; what is unconstitutional is teaching primarily religious theories with no meaningful scientific implications. Big difference! Behe thought ID was in the former category, not the latter; he was painfully, obviously wrong. Big Bang theory is a genuine scientific theory, with many important, empirically-testable predictions confirmed by subsequent observations. ID, however, makes no -- repeat, no -- such predictions, making confirmation impossible. So there is far more to Big Bang theory than its alleged religious implications, while ID contains nothing but religious implications. No one denies that equivalent theories should be treated equivalently, but ID is no more equivalent to Big Bang theory than Mohammed Atta was equivalent to an airline pilot.

4. TESTABLE PREDICTIONS. ID-iots are well aware how important predictions are in science, so "Traipsing" actually claims that ID does make meaningful, testable predictions, but that's a naked assertion, an empty bluff. Behe spent three whole days -- three whole days!!! -- on the witness stand without describing even one such prediction. Steve Fuller didn't describe any either. Scott Minnich claimed that ID predicts the existence of complex, functioning biosystems, but that's nonsensical, because ID's core concepts do not logically lead to Minnich's "prediction."

As an allegedly scientific alternative to evolution, ID should provide meaningful, testable explanations for biological origins; but it does nothing of the sort. The simple fact is that ID does not logically predict the existence of any -- repeat, any -- particular sort of system at all. Intelligent designers may produce simple systems, complex systems, functioning systems, non-functioning systems, biosystems, non-biological systems, or they may produce nothing at all; so claiming that ID specifically predicts the existence of complex, functioning biosystems is just empty bluster, and Minnich's "discovery" of biological complexity is essentially meaningless.

5. DEFINITION OF SCIENCE. "Traipsing" argues that Jones shouldn't have issued any ruling at all about whether ID is genuine science, because philosophers of science don't unanimously agree how to define science. I guess courts shouldn't rule on medical malpractice cases either (doctors aren't unanimous), insanity defenses (psychologists aren't unanimous), antitrust cases (economists aren't unanimous), child custody cases (parents aren't unanimous), etc. DeWolf must think judges should decide only those controversies where there is no controversy. That's just dumb.

6. IS ID RELIGION? The authors howl in outrage that ID is not necessarily religious, and point out that some ID writings do not explicitly mention God. Well, yeah, but a lot of other ID writings do! (For specific examples, see Barbara Forrest's devastating testimony.) Furthermore, courts have never held that merely avoiding the G-word guarantees constitutional immunity. The creationists in McLean and Edwards didn't use the G-word either, and they lost both of those cases. And Edwards was a Supreme Court decision! Judge Jones was simply following those precedents. (Again, it's mystifying that the authors, two of whom claim to be attorneys, seem to be completely unaware of major precedents in this area.)

In short, ID claims to promote critical thinking, but judging from this book, ID promotes critical thinking about as well as Hustler magazine promotes sexual restraint. There are glaring errors on every key point. That's not critical thinking; that's breathtaking inanity, just like Judge Jones said.

By now, anyone who is reviewing the work published via the Discovery Institute ought to realize we're dealing with a slick PR agency and not a scientific research organization. This book is a weak attempt to throw a little water on the fire that's been burning in the ID/Creationist camp since Judge Jones made his eloquent and legally astute decision in the celebrated Kitzmiller v. Dover case.
Those readers with any degree of intellectual honesty will take this book and contrast it with actual testimony from the trial before jumping into the flames. It's available in pdf form online. There are also several books including "Monkey Girl" and "40 Days and 40 Nights" that present a more unbiased, journalistic viewpoint.

As someone else has written, this is a waste of money no matter how you believe, as all of this slanted tripe is available for free.

More pathetic trash from The Discovery Institute. Their Christian Fundamentalist agenda was exposed in the Dover Trial for all to see. They produce bad science that has been repeatedly exposed as such by the scientific community, but that doesn't deter them. They are not interested in science, but in duping an ill-informed public into accepting their agenda. Real science doesn't need think tanks subsidised by wealthy fanatics or bought and paid for politicians. Real science becomes acceptable by virtue of its verifiable results. Read a real book on this trial: Monkey Girl by Edward Humes.

Losing a court case is like suffering a poker "bad beat." Nobody really wants to hear your story, and it's considered "whining" if you don't get over it after one beer. Amazingly, losers comprise more than 50% of all lawsuit participants. Most go away muttering under their breath about judges who don't understand them. Some can't get over their legal "bad beat" and write books about their loss.

So say it, so be it. The Discovery Institute has published their whine after the Dover bad beat. Entitled "Traipsing Into Evolution," it appeals to the court of public opinion. Appeal denied. This is a wretched book.

The Discovery Institute PR campaign for Intelligent Design bears a laughably strong resemblance to Baghdad Bob, the Iraqui "Information" minister who claimed there weree no Americans in Iraq's capital city as those same Americans pounded up the stairs into his own studio. His mere statements of fact served as their own proof, no matter how outlandish. Traipsing continues this M. O. None of the factual assertions in this book are to be taken seriously.

The book overlooks a peculiar idiosyncrasy of courts. Unlike Iraq's ministry of Information, courts rely on something called "evidence." There are two components to that concept. First, only evidence actually admitted in court "counts." Out of court self serving press releases are not evidence and don't count. Second, the evidence proffered in court must meet certain minimum requirements. Witness testimony, for example, must be both under oath and subject to cross-examination.

That means witnesses must answer questions from an attorney who is not sympathetic to the witness's own position. The witness cannot decline to answer and the witness must tell the truth. In the Dover trial, the Intelligent Design side offered: (1) out of court press releases; (2) proffered witnesses who waffled, equivocated, and finally admitted the lack of factual support for ID when cross examined; and (3) some of the Intelligent Design witnesses got caught lying under oath.

The trial judge's opinion detailed ID's lack of evidence and the witness testimonial defects, including the falsehoods, throughout his 139 page decision. Any intellectually honest post-mortem would have addressed these issues head on. If you expect Traipsing to do so, you'll be disappointed.

Traipsing argues that ID is good science and that it is not creationism. In "Bhagdad Bob" fashion, the book offers Discovery Institute press releases as "evidence" in support The court rejected both propositions based on the evidence actually offered at trial. As just one example, two Discovery Fellows, Michael Behe and Scott Minnich testified as experts. Both were asked under oath if ID was science. Both had the choice to answer truthfully or to lie and prevaricate. To their credit, they answered truthfully. Minnich testified that ID was not science and Behe testified it was as scientific as astrology. Based on this evidence from ID's own proponents, the judge not surprisingly found that ID was not science. Frankly, the authors distort both the in-court and out of court evidence in their book.

The book makes much of the fact that the judge found a lack of peer reviewed literature and ignored the "vast" ID favorable literature enclosed in the book as Appendix B. There are two reasons why the judge did not consider this literature. (1) it was out of court hearsay, not subject to cross examination; and (2) It is not scientific research, it is essentially propaganda. This second point is why nobody was willing to actually testify in court that such peer reviewed ID-specific scientific research existed.

If you are interested in what really happened, get it from the horse's mouth. Read the opinion itself and the actual evidence and trial testimony. Both are online.

This book is a totally meaningless and worthless piece of garbage. Common sense, every single legitimate scientific authority, and now a Federal Judge have all exposed intelligent design to be nothing but a sham and a lame attempt to bring religion into public school science classes, and these authors (Discovery Institute hacks with ABSOLUTELY NO ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS IN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY) are doing little more than stomping their feet and crying persecution because they didn't get the court ruling they wanted.

Discovery Institute, the publisher of the book and employer of these four authors, is an ultra conservative think tank, and their intelligent design shop is funded by a reclusive, right-wing homophobic millionaire. They do no form of academic research into evolutionary biology - most of the time they just wirte press releases about how they are being discriminated against by a scientific establishment that hides behind "Darwinian Dogma" (whatever that means), and work with publicists to improve their image and spin their message in pathetic attempts to win the public's support. This is about all they can do because they do not have and never will have sound science to back them up. These are not the people to turn to when seeking answers as to the biological theory of evolution, and surely not the people you want talking about what to include in public school science classes.

People: intelligent design is a novel idea, and for all I know it might be the truth. But it simply isn't science. If you want to talk about it in school as a political issue, a social issue, or in comparative religion and mythology class, so be it. But if we allow this into science class, we will be creating generation upon generation of scientifically illiterate children who will not be able to compete in the science workforce.

It's really not that complicated. I would think that everyone could agree that kids ought to be taught science in science class, and I still have some hope that that is the case. However, people seem to have gotten extremely confused about what science involves. This is no coincidence, as there has been a very active propaganda campaign to confuse people on this issue. That campaign is called the Intelligent Design movement, and it was exposed as such in Dover. The ID movement tries to spread confusion over two issues:

1) Whether evolution is science: You often hear the claim that evolution requires a leap of faith, that it is a religion, or that it is atheistic in nature. Often the proponents of this viewpoint attach the suffix "ism" to words that really don't need a suffix. Words like "Darwinism", "evolutionism", and "materialism" are often used to make evolution sound like an arbitrary set of beliefs. This is extremely dishonest.
To define evolution as a religion is to change the definition of the word "religion" to include everything that anyone believes, no matter what the reason. This is nonsensical. Whether you believe in evolution or not, you have to admit that biologists and paleontologists are doing science -- they're gathering data and refining hypotheses. In other words they're doing what scientists in every other discpline do, and with just as much success. But no one is seriously calling gravity or quantum physics a religion. So why is evolution special?

2) Whether Intelligent Design is science: There are a lot of lawyers and businessmen who support ID, but not too many scientists. However, there are a few, and they are well-funded. So where's the science? Thus far there have been no peer-reviewed publications, no testable hypotheses, and no experimental results to support ID. As Michael Behe, one of the movement's leading scientists, pointed out at Dover, you can call ID science only if you change the meaning of the word "science" to include any possible explanation that anyone can imagine for any phenomenon. Thus he famously conceded that ID is science in the same sense that astrology is science.
But no one (except maybe Sylvia Browne) is seriously suggesting that we should teach astrology in science class. So what's special about ID? Why should one unsupported theory be given precedence over another? Judge Jones's answer was that ID advanced a particular religious point of view, and so was inappropriate for science class. How did he figure this out? The geniuses in Dover had tried to make students use an edition of a Christian textbook that had the word "Intelligent Design" substituted for "Creation" throughout the text. Not exactly subtle.

So the whole thing was a word game. The ID movement had defined the word "science" to include religious beliefs and the word "religion" to include scientific theories. From this point of view, one can justify teaching absolutely anything in science class. Needless to say this would be rather confusing for the students, but at least it would be a consistent position for the ID advocates. Instead what they suggested was the introduction of a specific set of supernatural beliefs into science class. That's where they crossed the line from dumb to dishonest, and in so doing they broke the law.

Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller V. Dover Decision is a response to Judge Jone's decision. Having read most of the trial transcript, I must conclude that this book is on target. My only complaint is the book is far too brief; many more problems exist with the decision that could have been included. It is very clear in his opinion that the Judge does not like Darwinism Skeptics as people. The judge in his decision largely accepted everything the ACLU said as true, and most everything the other side said as false (or he ignored it). This decision is one of the most irresponsible I have ever read (and I have read many court decisions). The Judge used numerous labels that he never clearly defined, or defined accordingly to his narrow purpose. An example is "creationist" and "evolutionist," and then concluded the creationists were the bad guys and evolutionists were the good guys. Reality is far more complex. For example, Dr Michael Behe, who the judge labeled a "creationist" testified that he was an evolutionist (he accepted common ancestry). It was the existence of the cell that Behe concluded Darwinism has difficulty explaining. Behe believes life beyond the cell could have evolved by mutations and natural selection. Conversely, Kenneth Miller testified that he was a creationist "in the ordinary meaning of the word" yet the judge labeled him an evolutionist. The difference between these scientists (both Roman Catholics and both labeled creationists) is in the degree of creating they have concluded that naturalism can achieve. It is obviously difficult to draw a clear line between the two theistic evolutionists, Behe and Miller, yet the judge did just that. This is important because the judge ruled that ideas given the creationist label cannot be taught in the public schools, and those given the evolutionist label can. The fact is, Kenneth Miller's ideas are clearly creationist as he explained in detail in the second half of his book "Finding Darwin's God." The judge thus ruled that Miller's theistic evolution creationism can be taught in the schools but Behe's theistic evolutionism creationism cannot. The court, contrary to the constitution, has ruled which religious ideas are orthodox, and thus OK to teach, and which religious ideas are forbidden. It is exactly because of rulings such as this why separation of church and state is a very good idea. Now we have state sectioned religion!

This book by the discovery institute is premised on the notion that Kitzmiller v. Dover decision was a one-sided, partisan, anti-religious opinion. I would concur. The book does a good job outlining: (1) the history of the ID movement, (2) the status of ID as scientific, and (3) the un-neutral treatment that ID received under the Establishment Clause caselaw. There is another section on precedent, but as a lawyer, I found it too brief.

The section on the history of ID is fascinating. It traces the movement from ancient times and philosophers, which rebuts the presumption that ID = creationism, which it does not.

The second chapter on the scientific status of ID is well written-it is the meat of the book and by far the most important. This section defines what science is and ought to be/ought not be, as well as covers how theories can develop in science. It rebuts the argument that ID is not "science" in a way that makes Judge Jones seem like an Article III judge that has overstepped his authority. (and based off the Supreme Court's rendering of Daubert, I would agree)

The third major section deals with the un-neutral treatment of ID as religious. While I think most law nerds would prefer more of a deeper understanding of Lemon and Lynch, this is a good overview of why the Kitzmiller decision did not deal with the Establish Clause case law in a proper manner. The section on secondary effects was particularly poignant.

The appendices are informative. This is the section that I think is best read in conjunction with the actual Dover opinion. Read both and you will get a good understanding of both sides of the issue.

In summary, it is a good critique of the Dover opinion, and I would wholeheartedly recommend that it actually be read side-by-side with the Dover opinion. It also directed not to legal scholars, but laymen. Because this case has gotten so much publicity, much of the media has hyped the opinion as being the death-knell for ID. This book is a good primer on what other evidence was actually before the court, and not just the very one-sided view that the court delivered. If you are looking for heavy legal analysis, this may not be your best bet. If you are looking to understand the issues in the case and not get flooded with legalese, this is definitely worth a read.