Profiles In Stupid

It's been a while since we've gone after the morons who are persistently trying to fuck up the public school system with their nonsense. Part of that is because I feel like I've gone about as far as I can in the usual broad-brush polemics. There hasn't been much of an opportunity as of late to really examine some of the specific players in this mess.

Until now.

On Tuesday, Dover Township -- a larger incorporated area of about 20,000 -- will elect a new school board.

At the northern edge of town on Route 74 stands a billboard that represents the differing positions over science and religion, ideology and theology, that have riven Dover. On the north side of the billboard is an appeal from the incumbent board:

"TAXPAYERS. Your School Board Puts Dover Independent of ACLU. VOTE REPUBLICAN." On the other side is an appeal from the opposing camp, Dover Cares: "Quality Education," it proclaims. "Common Sense. Common Cause."

At the trial, which ended Friday after six weeks of testimony, one plaintiff, Julie Smith, told of her daughter coming home from school and saying to her: "Mom, evolution is a lie. What kind of Christian are you?"

Bryan Rehm, a Dover Cares candidate and one of the 11 parents who have sued the board, said simply: "This community is ready for healing."

It's nice that Rehm is trying to reach out to these people, but the fact is that the fundies started this fight with the explicit intent of taking over the school board and implementing their bullshit. None of this is an accident.

Indeed, you could say it was by design, though reasonable folks may disagree on just how intelligent it was.

But note well how Julie Smith's daughter got brainwashed there. Someone put it into her impressionable head that she couldn't be a good Christian and still believe in evolutionary theory. This too is no accident. This is precisely why this shit is so pernicious; these people are deliberately driving a wedge into families, overtly interfering in what should be private family matters.

Intelligent design supporters maintain that Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, which underpins the position that man is descended from apes, cannot fully explain the origin of complex forms of life; thus, a higher intelligence must have designed them. Opponents of intelligent design say the theory is a means to introduce religion into the classroom and lacks scientific evidence.

This has been a consistent burr in my saddle, this mealymouthed evenhanded comparison between the two positions. Break down the first sentence and walk it back. Let's say for the sake of argument that indeed Darwin's theory cannot fully and completely explain the origins (as opposed to the continuing processes) of biology and complex forms of life. Exactly how does it follow that it therefore must be the result of a higher intelligence? There is simply no reputable form of logic which would endorse such flimsy causal reasoning, period.

A rigorous, intellectually honest logic applied here would at best allow for a possibility -- a hypothesis, if you will (and you might) -- of such a situation. In that case, such a hypothesis would then have to withstand the rigors of both scientific method (empirically testing and proving or disproving the hypothesis) and peer review.

Now, if the professional chumps at the "Discovery" "Institute" wish to put forth a methodology by which they purport to empirically test their pet theory, fine. Does any serious person think that such a proposition would hold up to scrutiny by anyone outside their own rubber-stamp team?

The ID "argument", such as it is, displays such piss-poor understanding of even the fundamentals of how science works, these people should really just be embarrassed and humiliated for wasting everyone else's time on this bullshit. Sad to say, a significant portion of Americans apparently buy into their claptrap, addled as they are by an already dumbed-down school system, and a culture that treats them like they're all four years old.

Whatever the case, the American predilection for boobism is no reason to throw out common sense and logical reasoning. It may be reason for sensible people to start looking for higher ground before the polydactyls drag the rest of us under, but that's about it. There is no reason the rest of us should have to shell out hard-earned tax dollars to propagate the mythology of one sect.

The Dover board is defended by the Thomas More Law Center of Michigan, a nonprofit firm founded by two conservative Roman Catholics, whose Web site states: "Our purpose is to be the sword and shield for people of faith ... to defend and protect Christians and their religious beliefs in the public square."

Intelligent design is science, defendants say, because the "irreducible complexity" of some aspects of the natural world cannot be accounted for otherwise.

Mm-hmm. They'll fight to the bitter end for their pet beliefs, but they seem heedless of the painfully obvious fact that, as the country gets more and more diversified, their argument is bound to be turned on them at some point.

And I, for one, will welcome our new Wiccan overlords.

Keep in mind also that the More center is bankrolled heavily by Tom Monaghan, owner of Domino's Pizza. The More center involves itself quite heavily in the wingnuttiest of "every sperm is sacred" issues, and Monaghan is well known for insisting on putting a giant Jeebus on a hill overlooking his town. You may want to remember all that the next time you're tempted to order the V8-Juice-on-Wonder-Bread concoction that Domino's tries to pass off as pizza, and maybe order Pizza Hut instead. I'm just saying.

So let's meet some of the other players, shall we?

A second defense witness, Dr. Scott Minnich, a microbiologist at the University of Idaho, testified that "intelligent design is a good paradigm, consistent with the empirical evidence." But, he complained: "It's almost like you're a heretic," if you hold such views. Intelligent design has been repudiated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences, the two leading professional organizations in the field.

Minnich acknowledged that the "intelligent agent is the God of Christianity," but insisted that he didn't "mix religion with science."

Heh-indeedy. Didn't expect any of these guys to actually admit it, now did you? And of course, he scarcely took a divinely-inspired breath before completely undermining the intellectual integrity of his own argument.

And if I were, say, an actual journamalist, entrusted with ferreting out facts and bringing them to light, I might want to check out Minnich's and Behe's bank accounts, or maybe whether the Jaguar fairy has dropped off a gratis honorarium in one or both of their driveways. That sort of thing. "Expert" testimony is almost always bankrolled somehow, and these folks are a lot less circumspect about it than, say, the mafia. I'd bet my last dollar that at some point in this, thick envelopes will change hands, if they haven't already.

And even if not, Behe's intransigence bespeaks his lack of intellectual honesty, just as Minnich's possibly inadvertent honesty gives up the whole game right then and there. This is not about science at all, not by a long shot. It's not totally about religion, either. As I keep saying, it's about politics.

But in a nice twist of small irony, perhaps it's best to leave it to a person of faith to set these knuckle-draggers straight.

The chief scientific witness for the plaintiffs, Kenneth Miller, said that he, too, was "a person of faith. ... I'm a Roman Catholic." He is also a Brown University biologist and co-author of one of the most widely used high school textbooks -- "Biology," which is the primary text employed in Dover Senior High School. Miller testified that, "If you invoke a non-natural cause, a spirit force or something like that in your research, I have no way to test it. So even if you are correct ... that really wouldn't be a part of science."

"The statement by the Dover board of education falsely undermines the scientific status of the theory of evolution," he said, "and does a great disservice to science education in Dover."

There ya go. But wait! Let's check out the point man who initiated this monumental exercise in futility:

Perhaps the most anticipated witness at the trial was William Buckingham, who as the chairman of the Dover district curriculum committee last fall, had spearheaded the adoption of the intelligent design statement. It was Buckingham, a former prison supervisor and member of an independent fundamentalist church, who cried out at a board meeting: "Two thousand years ago somebody died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?"

Nice. Hysterical much, sport? Let's see -- a former prison screw who's now an "independent" (because they're too far out on the fringe, no one else will have them) fundie church, given to weird, paranoid outbursts at meetings that are expressly supposed to set the tone for your children's school curricula. It can't get much funnier, can it?

Under cross-examination, Buckingham acknowledged there were times his testimony contradicted statements he had made earlier in sworn depositions, but said his memory was faulty because he was "addicted to OxyContin," a prescription opiate, and had twice been in rehabilitation.

Both Buckingham and the former school board president, Alan Bonsell, who were the leading advocates for the change, acknowledged in testimony that they believe the book of Genesis is literally true.

So let's get this right -- the nation is essentially being held up by this fucking no-account drug-addled cocksucker who can't even keep his story straight? This is not a small thing, folks. If you think the rest of the world isn't watching this stupidity and trying to figure out how to work around us, you haven't got a real handle on the scope of this case. No serious person of science is going to want to stick around in this climate, where Oxy-addicted Cro-Magnons can single-handedly hamstring progress and innovation. And why the hell should they?

This week, Bonsell acknowledged that he had earlier testified untruthfully when he claimed not to know where money was raised to donate 60 copies of "Of Pandas and People" to the school library. The money had been raised in Buckingham's church and funneled through Bonsell's father, so the books could be donated anonymously. Hearing that, the usually affable Judge Jones lost patience.

Red-faced and visibly angry, he took over examining Bonsell himself, peppering him with questions for 10 minutes. "You tell me why you didn't say Mr. Buckingham was involved," he demanded. Then, later in the week, he snapped at one of the board's lawyers: "Don't insult my intelligence."

Both sides were exquisitely attuned to Jones' moods and interests, because they had agreed to a bench trial -- a trial without a jury -- which is common in First Amendment cases where the arguments are mostly about legal rather than factual issues.

"Thank God" it's a bench trial, said the National Center for Science Education's Scott, who joked she's called an atheist so often she thinks it's her first name -- Atheist Eugenie Scott. "There's no way on God's green earth we'd get the verdict we want from a jury."

Sadly, Scott's right -- it would be no trouble at all for a Lionel Hutz to whip up a bunch of rubes into a self-righteous frenzy. Granpa warn't no monkey, and these cokehead lesbos just want to take yer Bibles and burn 'em! Booga booga!

Fortunately, Judge Jones sounds reasonable and sensible, and not a little put out by the obvious chicanery of the drug addict and his flunky laundering donations through a church. And he's a Bushie to boot, which will help bolster his cred when the reflexive whining continues.

And it will continue, because both sides have promised to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. How're you liking Roberts and Scalito now, folks? Will they maintain their reputations for intellectual rigor (assuming Scalito even gets in, which is 50-50 right now, at best) and toss this stupid shit, or will they buckle and make our kids genuflect to the inbreds' particular mythos? Stay tuned.