Kitzmiller v. Dover – an analysis

As most of us know, Judge Jones has found the teaching of Intelligent Design unconstitutional. Jason Rosenhouse offers his survey of the 139-page decision:

...my intention in this essay is to provide a condensed version of all the major points and arguments it contains. The decision will no doubt be the focus of much commentary in the weeks to come, much of it by partisans trying to spin its contents for purposes of their own. Assessing the merits of such commentary will be easier armed with a firm grasp of precisely what it says.

...continued in full post...

• The decision begins with a summary of the basic facts in the case.
• From here the decision devotes several pages to ancillary issues: Establishing that the Court has jurisdiction, introducing the Plaintiffs and Defendants, and describing a few relevant legal precedents.
• Next up is a determination of the proper legal standard to apply in this case. The Court concludes that there are two relevant tests to apply in determining if the ID policy is unconstitutional: The Lemon test and the endorsement test.
• So how does the ID policy fare with respect to the endorsement test?
• The Court's first finding in this regard is that, "An objective observer would know that ID and teaching about "gaps" and "problems" in evolutionary theory are creationist, religious strategies that evolved from earlier forms of creationism (p. 18)." To justify this conclusion the Court provides several pages of relevant legal and social history.
• ...Consider, to illustrate, that Professor Behe remarkably and unmistakably claims that the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God. As no evidence in the record indicates that any other scientific proposition's validity rests on belief in God, nor is the Court aware of any such scientific propositions, Professor Behe's assertion constitutes substantial evidence that in his view, as is commensurate with other prominent ID leaders, ID is a religious and not a scientific proposition.
• From here the Court takes up the question of whether an objective student would view the disclaimer as an official endorsement of religion. After spending a few pages explaining why this question needs to be considered separately from the previous discussion of what a reasonable observer would conclude, the Court concludes "that an objective student would view the disclaimer as a strong official endorsement of religion.
• ...the Court sums up its objections:

  In summary, the 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 instructions elsewhere.

• The finding that a reasonable Dover high school student would perceive a clear religious endorsement in the ID policy is followed by a section showing that an objective Dover citizen would come to the same conclusion.
• ...Especially interesting, in my opinion, was the Court's reliance on the nature of the editorials and letters to the editor published in the local newspapers...The Defense objected (strenuously, according to the opinion) to this line of evidence, but the Court allowed it for its probative value in assessing how an objective Dover resident would view the situation.
• The Court next turns to what in my view is the most significant part of the decision: the finding that ID is not science.
• we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, 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.
• ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation;
• the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's;
• ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community.
• ...it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.
• Everything up to this point has related to the Court's application of the endorsement test to the ID policy. There is still the Lemon test to consider.
• The disclaimer's plain language, the legislative history, and the historical context in which the ID Policy arose, all inevitably lead to the conclusion that Defendants consciously chose to change Dover's biology curriculum to advance religion.
• The penultimate legal question to be resolved relates to the effect prong of the Lemon test... The Court begins this section by noting that since the ID policy has already been found unconstitutional under the endorsement test and the first prong of the Lemon test, they include the effect analysis for the sake of completeness. After a brief consideration of relevant precedents related to such analysis, the Court concludes that the ID policy runs afoul of this prong as well.
• In reading over the entire opinion I was struck by the extent to which Judge Jones' arguments parallel those scientists have been making for years. I suspect that prior to this case, Jones had never immersed himself in the minutiae of the evolution/ID dispute. In the course of the trial both sides had the opportunity to put their best foot forward in making their points. And in the end, it was clear to Jones that all of the good arguments were on the side of evolution, and not on the side of ID.