2008 Woodie Awards
Speaker debunks Intelligent Design
Katherine J. White
Issue date: 9/27/06 Section: News
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Intelligent Design has evolved, evolution theory supporters claim.
That is part of what Nick Matzke, public information project director for the National Center for Science Education showed during his lecture in Bakersfield College's Fireside Room on Sept. 21.
Matzke worked a year for the plaintiff's legal team in the recent Kitzmiller vs. Dover Case, which concerned the teaching of Intelligent Design in the public schools of Dover, Penn.
BC English professor Jeannie Parent, leading member for the Kern County Chapter of American United for Separation of Church and State, arranged Matzke's lecture. During the lecture, Matzke probed the origins of Intelligent Design and discussed the particulars of the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case.
Matzke, with his double B.S. in biology and chemistry from Valparaiso University and a master's degree in geography from UC Santa Barbara, lent scientific advice to the legal team that fought to keep ID teaching out of Dover schools.
The pro-evolution legal team beat down the Dover school board policy, which ordered the instruction of ID in science classes. Presiding U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that the ID policy was a violation of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. Jones, a conservative fundamentalist appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002 to the federal court, wrote in his 139-page summary of his ruling that ID was not an actual science but religion. Jones even went so far as to lambaste the Dover school board for implementing such a controversial policy in Dover.
Jones mentioned in his legal treatise on the case that Dover school libraries were provided with copies of the pro-creationist textbook "Of Pandas and People." Jones also brought the fact that the students were ordered to listen to a pro-ID disclaimer.
Jones wrote in his ruling officially known as Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District that "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. We have been presented with a wealth of evidence which reveals that the District's purpose was to advance creationism, an inherently religious view, both by introducing it directly under the label ID and by disparaging the scientific theory of evolution, so that creationism would gain credence by default as the only apparent alternative to evolution…"
That is part of what Nick Matzke, public information project director for the National Center for Science Education showed during his lecture in Bakersfield College's Fireside Room on Sept. 21.
Matzke worked a year for the plaintiff's legal team in the recent Kitzmiller vs. Dover Case, which concerned the teaching of Intelligent Design in the public schools of Dover, Penn.
BC English professor Jeannie Parent, leading member for the Kern County Chapter of American United for Separation of Church and State, arranged Matzke's lecture. During the lecture, Matzke probed the origins of Intelligent Design and discussed the particulars of the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case.
Matzke, with his double B.S. in biology and chemistry from Valparaiso University and a master's degree in geography from UC Santa Barbara, lent scientific advice to the legal team that fought to keep ID teaching out of Dover schools.
The pro-evolution legal team beat down the Dover school board policy, which ordered the instruction of ID in science classes. Presiding U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that the ID policy was a violation of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. Jones, a conservative fundamentalist appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002 to the federal court, wrote in his 139-page summary of his ruling that ID was not an actual science but religion. Jones even went so far as to lambaste the Dover school board for implementing such a controversial policy in Dover.
Jones mentioned in his legal treatise on the case that Dover school libraries were provided with copies of the pro-creationist textbook "Of Pandas and People." Jones also brought the fact that the students were ordered to listen to a pro-ID disclaimer.
Jones wrote in his ruling officially known as Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District that "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. We have been presented with a wealth of evidence which reveals that the District's purpose was to advance creationism, an inherently religious view, both by introducing it directly under the label ID and by disparaging the scientific theory of evolution, so that creationism would gain credence by default as the only apparent alternative to evolution…"
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