"Over the years, she filled it with leopard print, red carpet, crystal chandeliers, ornate gold upholstery, and a Pepto-pink marble bathroom...."

"One library has a portrait of leopards that hangs above a leopard-print couch and a leopard-print ottoman, both of which sit atop a leopard-print rug. The dining room features the kind of gold upholstered chairs one might have found in a hotel ballroom in 1990 and a gold-embossed fireplace.... Garish décor aside (which can be negotiated with the sale in the unlikely event that anyone should want it), the 17 rooms lack one significant — and costly — amenity: a full-size kitchen."

From "The Townhouse Where Ivana Trump Died Has Been Hard to Sell" (NY Magazine).

"Ball State already has a serious issue with creationism being taught as science by an astronomy professor, Hedin."

"Now they've hired another astronomy professor and creationist to teach science at their university, Gonzalez," says a Freedom From Religion Foundation lawyer.

Professor Gonzalez responds:

"As I communicated to members of the department during my interviews, I plan to continue my research on astrobiology and stellar astrophysics. I will not be discussing intelligent design (ID) in my classes (I didn't discuss ID at ISU either).... In my opinion, the controversy surrounding my hire is artificial -- largely generated by one activist blogger who is not an astronomer... Lastly, I need to reiterate that I was denied tenure at ISU not because of poor academics on my part, but for ideological and political reasons."

I'd say Gonzalez has the better side of this argument. Otherwise you'd be disqualifying even the most ordinary, mainstream religious believers from teaching science, creating fear of expressing the belief in God lest you become unemployable in your field.

(Notice that the FFR lawyer uses the term "creationism," and Gonzalez says "intelligent design.")

AND: Here's an old Slate article: "Creationism vs. Intelligent Design: Is there a difference?"

"If it’s supposed to be chaos, then mission accomplished."

"Unfocussed. Seems like a mishmash at best. You’ve got creatures that can speak but aren’t smart (parrots). Then, You’ve got creatures that are smart but can’t speak (dolphins, dogs, houseflies). Then, You’ve got man, who is smart and can speak but who can’t fly, breathe underwater, or unhinge his jaws to swallow large prey in one gulp. If it’s supposed to be chaos, then mission accomplished. But it seems more like laziness and bad planning."

God's blog.

Later:

Wow. Just wow. I don’t even know where to start. So the man and his buddy the rib-thing have dominion over everything. They’re going to get pretty unbearable really fast. What You need to do is make them think that there were other, bigger, scarier creatures around a long time before them. I suggest dinosaurs. No need to actually create dinosaurs—just create some weird-ass dinosaur bones and skeletons and bury them in random locations. Man will dig them up eventually and think, What the f?

Is this humor from The New Yorker funny?
	Great if you're not religious, otherwise: awful.
	Funny for the religious and the non-religious alike.
	Amusing for (some) religious folk, pretty stupid to anyone else.
	The humor depends more on whether routine internet-related stuff still tickles you.
	Bad. Just bad. For anyone with or without a brain. With or without a God.
pollcode.com free polls

How foolish do these Miss USA contestants sound responding to the question whether evolution should be taught in schools?

This video clip is making the rounds on some lefty blogs:



These women don't seem to realize how well-established the theory of evolution is and how central it is to the study of science. Of course, it should be taught in school. The more lively present-day issue is whether intelligent design may also be taught alongside evolution, but that isn't what the women were asked. The question prompts them to think of evolution as something that perhaps ought not to be taught in schools. From the bizarre similarity of the answers, I would extrapolate standard beauty-contest advice: Look for the prompt in the question and echo it back with some embellishment that makes you sound thoughtful, caring, and respectful of diversity.

But maybe, as Nicolle Belle at Crooks and Liars says:

The way that the majority of these women express their view that there are multiple and equally scientifically valid arguments truly shows the success of the religious right to muddy the waters and dumb down the populace by introducing skepticism over scientific theory.

By the same token, these answers may show how fundamental it is in America to believe in gathering information, listening to the argument about what might be true, and developing your powers of judgment. So, to some extent, what these women are saying aligns with the scientific method.

More than anything else, however, what I hear in these answers is a deep instinct toward freedom of choice. I felt moved to transcribe Miss New Jersey's remark because it was so perfectly typical of what they all seemed to be saying:

"I think everything should be taught in schools, every single aspect of evolution and anything you can think of. I think they should have the option of learning everything that there is to learn and then kind of choose what they like to believe."

Now, there is something absurd about that.  You don't want to teach kids everything you can think of, and they shouldn't be choosing what to believe based on what they like, but there's something beautiful and quintessentially American about that commitment to the free flow of information and the freedom of belief. It's not that far from the statement on the "sifting and winnowing" plaque here at the University of Wisconsin... about which I once said:

I would like to see some "continual and fearless" judgment about who should be given the opportunity to amass the pile of material that students are assigned to sift and winnow.

That is, you don't just throw anything you can think of at the students and leave it to them to find the truth. And some things are so well-established that it's a good idea to teach them quickly and simply as facts and save the "sifting and winnowing" activity for some other set of material. That brings us back to evolution: Should schools teach it as a fact — this is the theory — or use this subject as an occasion for teaching students how to look at evidence and judge it critically? I think that is the interesting question, and it is not at all obvious which approach is more supportive of science/religion.

"I have to confess that I now regard 'the case for theism' as a fraud and I can no longer take it seriously enough to present it to a class as a respectable philosophical position..."

"... no more than I could present intelligent design as a legitimate biological theory. BTW, in saying that I now consider the case for theism to be a fraud, I do not mean to charge that the people making that case are frauds who aim to fool us with claims they know to be empty. No, theistic philosophers and apologists are almost painfully earnest and honest... I just cannot take their arguments seriously any more, and if you cannot take something seriously, you should not try to devote serious academic attention to it."

A religion philosophy professor packs it in. 

Brian Beutler takes a cheap shot at Sarah Palin: "Sarah Palin Calls Joe Miller A Lost Cause, Quotes Scopes Monkey Trial Attorney."

Beutler is either shameless or ignorant:

There are probably better ways to inspire confidence in a candidate's prospects when he's in free fall than to call him a lost cause. But that's exactly what Sarah Palin did to one of her favorite tea partiers last night.

"Joe Miller - do not give up. It's you against the machine. This is it. 'Lost causes' are the only ones worth fighting for,'" Palin tweeted, quoting famed Scopes Monkey Trial attorney Clarence Darrow.

It seems unlikely that Palin is aware that Darrow was a big wig at the American Civil Liberties Union given her penchant for scoffing at...civil liberties. And one wonders whether Palin knows that, in the Scopes trial, Darrow defended John Scopes, who violated Tennessee law by teaching evolution. But there you have it.

Is there any evidence, anywhere, that Sarah Palin would like to criminalize the teaching of evolution? Is there any evidence, anywhere, that Sarah Palin doesn't love our constitutional free expression rights? Is there evidence, anywhere, that Sarah Palin would not admire a lawyer who fought to defend free speech rights against the oppressive government use of criminal law against a science teacher?

In her memoir, Palin explains her views on evolution. Confronted with the statement "science proves evolution," she said: "Parts of evolution... But I believe that God created us and also that He can create an evolutionary process that allows species to change and adapt." That is what an awful lot of people think, and I think most American politicians if pressed on the question, would interweave God with the theory of evolution.

In any case, you don't even have to accept evolution to oppose criminalizing the teaching of evolution. The issue about evolution today isn't about barring teaching evolution. It's only about whether creationism or "intelligent design" can be taught alongside evolution if that's what schools want to do. The restriction on freedom of expression, then, is pro-evolution. Not anti-evolution. And who knows what Clarence Darrow would think about that?

But even assuming Clarence Darrow should be anathema to Sarah Palin, the quote — " 'Lost causes' are the only ones worth fighting for" — isn't from Clarence Darrow. It's from the book that became the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Here:



ADDED: Sarah Palin does name Clarence Darrow in her tweet, so clearly she had the wrong source for the quote too.

AND: "The restriction on freedom of expression, then, is pro-evolution. Not anti-evolution." Is that too concise to understand easily? I usually resist verbosity, but let me expand. Let's assume someone — Palin, Beutler, the ACLU, whoever — cares about freedom of expression and would like to oppose restrictions on it. Now, they look at the current issues that have to do with the teaching and evolution. They will not see a restriction on teaching the theory of evolution, which is generally required. The restrictions that exist today limit a public school teacher who would like to introduce alternate theories like creationism and intelligent design. The key case is Edwards v. Aguillard (1987):

[Louisiana's "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction" Act] is designed either to promote the theory of creation science which embodies a particular religious tenet by requiring that creation science be taught whenever evolution is taught or to prohibit the teaching of a scientific theory disfavored by certain religious sects by forbidding the teaching of evolution when creation science is not also taught. The Establishment Clause, however, "forbids alike the preference of a religious doctrine or the prohibition of theory which is deemed antagonistic to a particular dogma." Because the primary purpose of the Creationism Act is to advance a particular religious belief, the Act endorses religion in violation of the First Amendment.

"The Libertarian Case for Palin."

By David Harsanyi. But wait! She's a big social conservative. How can she count as libertarian?

The choice issue... is complicated, even for many libertarians. And, as I was recently reminded, Ron Paul, the Libertarian champion of the 21st century, also opposes abortion.

Even when advocating for "moral" issues, Palin's approach is a soft sell. Palin does not support gay marriage (neither does Obama, it should be noted). Yet, in 2006, Palin's first veto as Governor was a bill that sought to block state employee benefits and health insurance for same-sex couples.

We cannot bore into Palin's soul to see her true feelings about gay couples, but, at the time, she noted that signing "this bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office" because it was unconstitutional. For most libertarians, the thought of politician following any constitution, rather than their own predilections, morality or the "common good," is a nice change of pace.

On the counterproductive War on Drugs, Palin is no warrior. Her Republican opponent in 2006 primary, incumbent Republican governor Frank Murkowski, made recriminalizing the possession of small amounts of pot a priority. Palin, though she does not support legalization, believes enforcement should be a high priority....

On education, Palin supports school-choice programs. There have already been smears that she backed "creationist" teaching in "public" schools, when in fact, Palin's comment regarding intelligent design should hold some appeal to libertarians. Even if you find the idea inane, in essence, Palin pushed the idea that parents, rather than the state, should decide what children are learning.

Is Palin -- is McCain -- more libertarian than social conservative? That's an important question for me.

Crist, Jindal, Romney.

Looks like McCain wants a governor for VP. Which one?

What do you think of Bobby Jindal?

Mr. Jindal, who was born in Baton Rouge, La., to a family that had just arrived there from the Punjab area of India, took office as Louisiana’s governor in January after serving three years in the House of Representatives. Mr. Jindal, who was born a Hindu but became a Roman Catholic as a teenager, campaigned for governor as a social conservative, opposing human embryonic stem cell research and abortion in any form and favoring teaching “intelligent design” in schools as an alternative to evolution.

But Mr. Jindal also has a reputation as a policy wonk, like the Clintons, with a specialty in health care issues. After graduating in 1991 from Brown University, where he majored in biology and public policy, and attending Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Mr. Jindal worked for the management consulting firm McKinsey and Company and was executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. He later served as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and in the Bush administration as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for planning and evaluation.

Sounds great. The health specialty could work very well in the mix. But Jindal is only 37! That's 5 years younger than our youngest President... but old enough — in constitutional terms — to be President. I see fodder for jokes about how old McCain is. Their average age — 54 — seems ideal for a President. Downside: It would make it impossible to argue that Obama is too young to be President.

ADDED: Jindal turns 37 on June 10th.

Is it "nice" to see Obama say "Faith got hijacked"?

John Amato writes that "It’s nice to see Obama say these words," but to me, it's entirely distracting to use the word "hijack," especially if the problem you're talking about has nothing to do with what we saw on September 11th but is simply the way some Christians take the conservative side on various issues and, failing to content themselves with mere belief, participate in politics. According to Obama, Christianity should move a person to political action -- Obama himself was speaking to a church congregation -- but only on the progressive side.

Mr. Obama used his 45-minute speech to recall the church’s and many others’ proud history of involvement in the American Revolution and the abolition and civil rights movements.

“But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together,” Mr. Obama said. “Faith started being used to drive us apart. Faith got hijacked.”

He attributed this partly to “the so-called leaders of the Christian right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us.” Yet he said that in traveling around the country he had sensed an “awakening” of an interfaith movement of “progressives.”

From these excerpts, Obama's famous rhetoric looks entirely self-contradictory. If he's trying to stimulate liberal Christians to political action, he too is using faith to "drive us apart."

ADDED: Here's the text to the whole speech. Excerpt:

But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it’s because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us. At every opportunity, they’ve told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design. There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich. I don’t know what Bible they’re reading, but it doesn’t jibe with my version.

But I’m hopeful because I think there’s an awakening taking place in America. People are coming together around a simple truth – that we are all connected, that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.

So: People are "coming together around" the ideas espoused by the Democratic Party.

... Our conscience can’t rest so long as 37 million Americans are poor and forgotten by their leaders in Washington and by the media elites. We need to heed the biblical call to care for “the least of these” and lift the poor out of despair. That’s why I’ve been fighting to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and the minimum wage. If you’re working forty hours a week, you shouldn’t be living in poverty. But we also know that government initiatives are not enough. Each of us in our own lives needs to do what we can to help the poor. And until we do, our conscience cannot rest.

Clearly, he is using religion as a basis for political commitment. How is this not "divisive" in almost exactly the same way as the Religious Right? I'm not saying it's wrong. We have two parties. We don't need to cure that division. In fact, political actors like Obama ought to define the division. But to simultaneously define and decry the division is incoherent. There's a sleight of hand in Obama's rhetoric that I'm going to make it my business to point out.

UPDATE: How does Andrew Sullivan -- who is so skeptical of "Christianists" -- see it?

[Obama] is Bush's natural successor, and threatens to make secular politics even more elusive in a fundamentalist age. He also threatens, if he pulls it off, to be a transformational candidate, turning American politics into a battleground primarily between those who believe the Gospels mandate an expansive welfare state and those who believe they mandate government's moral regulation of human birth, death and sex. For my part, I believe Jesus had no politics, let alone the big government politics of our time. And the attempt of both right and left to coopt his truth corrupts faith and politics simultaneously.

Ah, and Sullivan purports to know "his truth." At least he's got the humility -- or is wily enough to feign the humility -- to say "I believe." And he does take what I think is the best of the Christian positions: that it's Christian to keep religion out of politics. But the urge to gain political power is so strong, and religion is so effective. It's hard to get the candidates to leave it alone.

Creationism in science class... in England.

It's required:

Pupils in England will be required to discuss creationist theories as part of a new GCSE biology course being introduced in September.

The move has alarmed scientists who fear it could open the door for the promotion of creationist ideas like "intelligent design" and give them scientific respectability at a time when they are being promoted by fundamentalist Christians and Muslims....

The new biology syllabus in England does not require the teaching of creationist views alongside Darwin's theory of evolution, but it opens the way for classroom discussions in science lessons and pupils will be assessed on work they do on this topic.

The schools standards minister, Jacqui Smith, said in a parliamentary answer that pupils were encouraged to explore different views, theories and beliefs in many different subjects, including science.

"Creationism is one of many differing beliefs which pupils might discuss and consider, perhaps when they learn about another aspect of science: 'ways in which scientific work may be affected by the contexts in which it takes place... and how these contexts may affect whether or not ideas are accepted'," she said.

I wonder if in the end the religionists will be happy. The science teachers, most of whom won't like having this imposed on them, will be pressing students to use the tools of science to question the assertions made by religion. Won't this teach them not to believe? Students who hold to the belief in creationism will be shredded in any classroom debate that is framed in scientific terms. Smith imagines a sweet atmosphere of mutual understanding, but what is going to cause that to happen?

"It is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science."

The official Vatican newspaper opposes teaching Intelligent Design as science:

"If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another," Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, wrote in the Jan. 16-17 edition of the paper, L'Osservatore Romano.

"But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science," he wrote, calling intelligent design unscientific. "It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious."

This class will take a close look at evolution as a theory..."

"...and will discuss the scientific, biological and biblical aspects that suggest why Darwin's philosophy is not rock solid," says a public high school's course description. Constitutional? This issue, raised in a new lawsuit, is very different from the recent case that dealt with teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in a biology class. It seems clear as a general matter that a high school can teach about religious ideas in history, literature, and philosophy courses. But if the whole purpose of the course is to teach religion under the cloak of a bogus label, it should be seen as a violation of the Establishment Clause. The question is: At what point does the school cross over the line?

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said, "This is apparently the next wave of efforts to bring creationism to schools, and that's why we want to dry it up immediately."

The school district, with 1,425 students, serves several towns in a mountain area where many students are home schooled. The special education teacher, who is married to the pastor of the local Assemblies of God church, amended her syllabus and the course title, from Philosophy of Intelligent Design to Philosophy of Design after parents complained.

These details about the purpose of the program are crucial.

UPDATE: Sorry I had the wrong link before.

Quotes of the year 2005 -- my choices.

After writing that last post, on the WaPo's quotes of the year, I got the idea of going through the past year of my writing on this blog to find the quotes I thought were most interesting. Here they are, beginning with a quote from back in January:

"I can't think of any examples where I said, 'Gosh, I wish I had more power.'" -- President Bush

"When you think of the New Testament, they get about 2 of the values and we get about 27." -- Howard Dean

"Christ did not come down from the cross." -- Pope John Paul II (on why he didn't retire)

"But I also know if I can get music without buying it, I'm going to do so." -- Justice David Souter (at oral argument in the Grokster case)

"I can't agree with you. 'Our laws come from God.' If you don't believe it sends that message, you're kidding yourself." -- Justice Antonin Scalia (at oral argument in the Ten Commandments case)

"Try to survive a tornado with a post-structuralist." -- Camille Paglia (speaking in Madison)

"If I should ever be in a vegetative state and kept alive on life support, please, for the love of God, don't ever show me in that condition on national television." -- Kenny in the "Best Friends Forever" episode of "South Park"

"Matt, Matt, you don't even -- you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is." -- Tom Cruise

"What are you, some redneck blogger pig?"-- Claire Fisher on "Six Feet Under" (to her boyfriend, when he defended the war in Iraq)

"Narm." -- Nate Fisher on "Six Feet Under."

"That's for me to know and for your to find out." -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist (responding to a question about whether he's retiring on July 11th, causing me to write "How near death can he be if he's horsing around like that?" He died on September 3rd.)

"The Supreme Court voted last week to undo private property rights and to empower governments to kick people out of their homes and give them to someone else because they feel like it." Rep. Tom Delay (on the Kelo case)

"He's crushing his testicles in tight trousers for world peace." -- John Lydon (insulting Bono)

"We have an American refugee situation on our hands." -- a Red Cross spokesperson (re Katrina)

"We perceive no reason why both parents of a child cannot be women." -- the California Supreme Court

"What dreary sentimental nonsense this all is, and how much space has been wasted on it." -- Christopher Hitchens (on Cindy Sheehan)

"If you're not on drugs, you've got problems." -- Jimmy Kimmel (to Courtney Love)

"There's loads of room for judgment. The judges do judge." -- Justice Stephen Breyer

"They will do what they think is in their interest, however they define it." -- Senator Hillary Clinton (predicting how Democrats would vote on the nomination of John Roberts)

"Would you agree that the opposite of being dead is being alive?" -- Senator Tom Coburn (asking the most ridiculous question asked at the Roberts confirmation hearings)

"By becoming John Roberts the chief justice, don't ever forget to be John Roberts, the man." -- Senator Mike DeWine (at the Roberts hearing)

"Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire." -- John Roberts (at his confirmation hearing)

"I believe the common character of the universe is not harmony, but hostility, chaos and murder." -- Werner Herzog (in voiceover in the movie "Grizzly Man")

"I haven't even run out of weed yet." -- one of the New Orleans holdouts (on not evacuating after Katrina)

"Almost all of them that we see, are so poor and they are so black." -- Wolf Blitzer (on the Katrina victims)

"Anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you." -- Steve Colbert

"She needs more than murder boards. She needs a crash course in constitutional law." -- Arlen Specter (on Harriet Miers)

"I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called." -- Howard Dean

"I know her heart." -- President Bush on Harriet Miers

"These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will." -- President Bush (finally fighting back against war critics)

"It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy." -- Judge John E. Jones III (in the Intelligent Design case)

"I don't expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom." -- President Bush (on the Iraq war)

"We will talk to each other, and we will connect with each other, and we will weave the country together like a piece of cloth." -- A voter in Iraq

"I have no friends." -- Howard Stern

"We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril." -- Senator Joe Lieberman

"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them." -- Harold Pinter (accepting the Nobel Prize)

"I for one do not dance to dance music; disco for me is a lofty metaphysical mode that induces contemplation." -- Camille Paglia (criticizing Madonna's new CD)

"In the 1960's and 1970's, ... psychotherapy felt like a social movement, and you just wanted to be a part of it."

But now, says psychologist Jeffrey Zeig, it's just not the same. The "cool logic of science" threatens to unseat the "spirit of humanistic activism."

[Hunter "Patch" Adams] called for a "last stand of loving care" to prevail over the misery in the world, its wars and "our fascistic government." Overcome by his own message, Dr. Adams eventually fell to the floor of the stage in tears.

Many in the audience of thousands were deeply moved; many others were bewildered. Some left the arena.

At the conference, many said they found it heartening that psychotherapy was finding some scientific support....

Many therapists at the conference said that if the field did not incorporate more scientifically testable principles, its future was bleak.

The "humanistic" psychotherapists remind me of the proponents of Intelligent Design. They don't have science, but they have the deep conviction that what they believe is more profound. The question is: What do you do with it? If you try to sell to patients/students as science, you've got a problem.

Cut and run, Scalito, Intelligent Design, truthiness...

Here is a collection of pieces about the words/phrases of the year. Truthiness comes from "The Colbert Report":

"Truthiness is sort of what you want to be true, as opposed to what the facts support," Mr. Colbert said in a recent interview. "Truthiness is a truth larger than the facts that would comprise it - if you cared about facts, which you don't, if you care about truthiness."

Ah, I love that show! Much better than "The Daily Show" these days. I love the complexity of Colbert playing a character the audience is supposed to hate, but making himself so adorably audacious that half the time the audience sounds as though they approve of his counter-liberal opinions.

The powerful district court decision in the Intelligent Design case.

Here's the NYT report on yesterday's decision in the Intelligent Design case. An excerpt:

Judge [John E. Jones III], a Republican appointed by President Bush, concluded that intelligent design was not science, and that in order to claim that it is, its proponents admit they must change the very definition of science to include supernatural explanations....

"To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect," Judge Jones wrote. "However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions."...

Judge Jones's decision is legally binding only for school districts in the middle district of Pennsylvania. It is unlikely to be appealed because the school board members who supported intelligent design were unseated in elections in November and replaced with a slate that opposes the intelligent design policy and said it would abide by the judge's decision.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said at a news conference in Harrisburg that the judge's decision should serve as a deterrent to other school boards and teachers considering teaching intelligent design....

Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, who helped to argue the case, said, "We sincerely hope that other school districts who may have been thinking about intelligent design will pause, they will read Judge Jones's erudite opinion and they will look at what happened in the Dover community in this battle, pitting neighbor against neighbor."

What a powerful district court opinion! It will remain unreviewed, the final word at the end of a cautionary tale for all school boards who contemplate adopting Intelligent Design in the future.

Eugenie Scott, executive director, National Center for Science Education, an advocacy group in Oakland, Calif., that promotes teaching evolution, said in an interview, "I predict that another school board down the line will try to bring intelligent design into the curriculum like the Dover group did, and they'll be a lot smarter about concealing their religious intent."

It's hard to see how they will ever hide this intent. If there is any controversy at all -- and could there not be? -- opponents will bring up the Dover case and make much of the fact that a federal judge has equated Intelligent Design with religion. It simply won't be possible to adopt Intelligent Design without talking a lot about religion now. The next school board may be "smarter" about what it needs to do to achieve its end, but if it's that smart, it should also perceive the world of trouble that lies ahead. If the judge's decision doesn't faze them, the political losses of the school board that voted yes certainly should. Proponents of teaching Intelligent Design in science classes will have a hard time admitting it, but this one district court opinion just killed their movement.

"A federal judge ruled Tuesday that 'intelligent design' cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district."

Just reported:

The Dover Area School Board violated the Constitution when it ordered that its biology curriculum must include "intelligent design," the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled Tuesday.

Predictable. Correct.

UPDATE: Here's the opinion. It's lengthy. Basically, the judge, following precedent, asks whether a reasonable observer would perceive a government endorsement of religion. He also, more briefly, applies the Lemon test. Here are some key points:

As a reasonable observer, whether adult or child, would be aware of this social context in which the ID Policy arose, and such context will help to reveal the meaning of Defendants’ actions, it is necessary to trace the history of the IDM. ...

Although proponents of the IDM occasionally suggest that the designer could be a space alien or a time-traveling cell biologist, no serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed by members of the IDM, including Defendants’ expert witnesses....

Dramatic evidence of ID’s religious nature and aspirations is found in what is referred to as the “Wedge Document.” The Wedge Document, developed by the Discovery Institute’s Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (hereinafter “CRSC”), represents from an institutional standpoint, the IDM’s goals and objectives... The Wedge Document states in its “Five Year Strategic Plan Summary” that the IDM’s goal is to replace science as currently practiced with “theistic and Christian science.” As posited in the Wedge Document, the IDM’s “Governing Goals” are to “defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies” and “to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.”...

The weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates... that the systemic change from “creation” to “intelligent design” occurred sometime in 1987, after the Supreme Court’s important Edwards decision. This compelling evidence strongly supports Plaintiffs’ assertion that ID is creationism re-labeled. ...

[T]he disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere....

ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community....

[A]lthough Defendants have unceasingly attempted in vain to distance themselves from their own actions and statements, which culminated in repetitious, untruthful testimony, such a strategy constitutes additional strong evidence of improper purpose under the first prong of the Lemon test. As exhaustively detailed herein, the thought leaders on the Board made it their considered purpose to inject some form of creationism into the science classrooms, and by the dint of their personalities and persistence they were able to pull the majority of the Board along in their collective wake. ...

[T]he Court likewise concludes that the ID Policy is violative of Plaintiffs’ rights under the Pennsylvania Constitution....

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. ...

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom. Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

I love that last part about who's the real activist here. And note the passage I've highlighted in red. I think that translates into: You call yourself religious? You hypocrite! You lied and cheated your way through this case!

ADDED: I'd like to retitle this post: School Board in the Hands of an Angry Judge. He is really angry, isn't he?

MORE: The judge called it ironic that persons who claim to be religious would lie and deceive. But isn't it also ironic that a judge enforcing the Establishment Clause would throw in an opinion about what obligations religion imposes?

Butterfly wings that are "identical in design to the LED."

BBC reports:

This slab of hollow air cylinders in the wing scales is essentially mother nature's version of a 2D photonic crystal.

Like its counterpart in a high emission LED, it prevents the fluorescent colour from being trapped inside the structure and from being emitted sideways.

The scales also have a type of mirror underneath them to upwardly reflect all the fluorescent light that gets emitted down towards it. Again, this is very similar to the Bragg reflectors in high emission LEDs.

"Unlike the diodes, the butterfly's system clearly doesn't have semiconductor in it and it doesn't produce its own radiative energy," Dr Vukusic told the BBC News website "That makes it doubly efficient in a way.

"But the way light is extracted from the butterfly's system is more than an analogy - it's all but identical in design to the LED."...

"When you study these things and get a feel for the photonic architecture available, you really start to appreciate the elegance with which nature put some of these things together," he said.

No, I'm not trying to restart the Intelligent Design debate. I just think it's cool.

Audible Althouse, #19.

The new podcast is an hour long. Topics: male and female brains, 3 Stooges comedy, 3 Stooges sex, the Marx Bothers, some Halloweenish thoughts about the new Supreme Court, heteronormativity, military memoirs, lawprof bloggers, good and bad commentary about Samuel Alito, why so many Catholics have been nominated to the Supreme Court, the affinity between physicists and religionists, the politics of Intelligent Design, and the demand for nuanced reporting on the riots in France.

Intelligent design.

If you're worried about Kansas:

The fiercely split Kansas Board of Education voted 6 to 4 on Tuesday to adopt new science standards that are the most far-reaching in the nation in challenging Darwin's theory of evolution in the classroom.

The standards move beyond the broad mandate for critical analysis of evolution that four other states have established in recent years, by recommending that schools teach specific points that doubters of evolution use to undermine its primacy in science education.

You may want the courts to stop this immediately.

But remember that democracy works too:

Voters on Tuesday ousted a Pennsylvania local school board that promoted an ''intelligent-design'' alternative to teaching evolution, and elected a new slate of candidates who promised to remove the concept from science classes.

ADDED: It's too simple, however, to point to what happened in Dover, Pennsyvania as proof that democracy is all the correction that is needed. That vote took place in the context of an ongoing trial:

For the last six weeks, the teaching of intelligent design has been challenged in federal court by a group of Dover parents. They said the concept is a religious belief and therefore may not be taught in public schools, because the U.S. Constitution forbids it. They also argue that the theory is unscientific and so has no place in science classes....

The trial, which attracted national and international media attention, was watched in at least 30 states where policies are being considered that would promote teaching alternatives to evolution theory.

We have to take into account the effect of this litigation on the voters:

1. It may have educated and persuaded voters that teaching intelligent design is a bad idea.

2. Even if they still like the policy, they may want to avoid the bad publicity the litigation brought to their town.

3. They may still like the policy but be averse to the expense of the litigation.

Without lawsuits (and the threat of them) the democratic process would play out differently.