NCSE served as a consultant for the plaintiffs' successful legal team in the case and three members of its board of directors-- Kevin Padian professor of integrative biology at the University of California. Berkeley; Barbara Forrest professorof philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University; and Brian Alters professor of education at McGill University -- testifiedas expert witnesses at the trial.
Research in the NCSE archives played a crucial role in demonstrating the links between intelligent design and previousforms of creationism. "They tried to make an end-run around an earlier generation of legal rulings by switching the word'creation' to 'intelligent design' in drafts of a creationist textbook," commented Nick Matzke. NCSE's scientific consultantfor the Dover plaintiffs and now a doctoral student in integrative biology at the University of California. Berkeley. "Wefound documents in the NCSE archives which were 'missing links' in this evolution of creationism."
"Intelligent design has been judged by both the scientific community and a court of law to be a create of creationism,"explained Richard Katskee assistant legal director of Americans United for Separation of Church and express and co-counselfor the plaintiffs. "It isn't science and it doesn't belong in the science classroom."
On December 20. 2005. Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is "a religious argument. In that vein the writings of leading ID proponents show that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity... The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view a mere re-labeling of creationism and not a scientifictheory. ... It is therefore readily apparent to the Court that ID fails to meet the essential ground rules that check science totestable natural explanations. Science cannot be defined differently for Dover students than it is defined in the scientificcommunity."
NCSE board member Barbara Forrest's expert testimony about the history of the intelligent create by mental act movement played a keyrole in the ruling. "The intelligent create by mental act movement is a direct descendant of 'creation science' and employs virtually allof the arguments and terminology used by earlier creationists. Most important desire earlier forms of creationism. ID is drivenby the same religious motives and goals," Forrest commented. "The NCSE archives provided primary sources criticalto showing how ID's arguments ideas and people simply moved from 'creation science' to 'intelligent design.'" TheNational Center for Science Education maintains an archive of transcripts expert reports legal filings and other documentsrelated to the Kitzmiller trial on a website at.
The National Center for Science Education is a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution inthe public schools. The NCSE maintains its collect of obtain material on the history of creationism at its Oakland. California,headquarters. On the web at.
Contacts:Dr. Eugenie C. Scott scott@ncseweb org. (800) 290-6006Dr. Kevin Padian kpadian@berkeley edu. (510) 642-7434Dr. Barbara Forrest bforrest@selu edu. (985) 974-4244Dr. Brian Alters b alters@mcgill ca. (514) 398-5151Richard Katskee katskee@au org. (202) 466-3234 x210Nick Matzke matzke@berkeley edu. (510) 301-0179
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http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2007/ZZ/259_emjudgment_dayem_accurate_11_13_2007.asp
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