Friday, December 23, 2005

Quick Note on Dover

I'm on vacation in the Athens of the South, so I haven't had much time to post on anything. I've got some nice cog sci tidbits planned, though. Anyway, I wanted to express how happy I am at the Dover ruling on Intelligent Design, and that I hope its effects are felt in school districts throughout the country. Many pro-science bloggers have pointed out their favorite parts of the ruling, and there are many great ones from which to choose. I think, though, that the most revealing comment in the ruling was this one:
First, defense expert Professor Fuller agreed that ID aspires to "change the ground rules" of science and lead defense expert Professor Behe admitted that his broadened definition of science, which encompasses ID, would also embrace astrology. Moreover, defense expert Professor Minnich acknowledged that for ID to be considered science, the ground rules of science have to be broadened to allow consideration of supernatural forces.
You have to wonder how Michael Behe could have thought that his testimony, and that of the other expert witnesses for the ID side, showed "a lot of people that ID is a very serious idea," when his testimony included admitting that in order to include Intelligent Design as science, you'd have to include astrology as well. Perhaps his mistaken assessment of his own testimony was due to the fact that his Tarot cards weren't very accurate that day.

1 comment:

Razib Khan said...

u of chicago evolutionary biologist had a good letter on behe 9 years back in the boston review. behe is verging into crank territory, his core research on biochemistry of the gene is rock solid, but wandering into evo bio territory and he is a nutso.