You know, there are Christians who believe that God planted the fossil record to confuse us and test our faith. God may intervene at times to keep evolution on track. Evolution does not say anything about the role of God. LAYCOCK: That's exactly what he said, and I-that's a very important point that I think the activists on each side tend to confuse or conceal in this debate. SIEGEL: As Judge Jones said, `The supernatural may be true, but it's not science.' And, you know, the methodological division between science and religion for centuries has been science confines itself to naturalistic explanations and leaves the supernatural explanations to religion. And they conceded that intelligent design depends on the supernatural, and to call it science requires expanding science to include the supernatural. What's less scathing, less dramatic but probably more important is that, you know, there's a handful of people with degrees in science-advanced degrees in science who work on this, and the most prominent, important of those people testified for the school board. LAYCOCK: Well, it is pretty scathing, and I think everyone has understood that intelligent designer is a euphemism for God. And the judge wrote, `Although the proponents of the intelligent design movement occasionally suggest that the designer could be a space alien or a time-traveling cell biologist, no serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed by members of the movement, including the defendants' expert witnesses.' That's pretty scathing.
#Affectus god trial#
SIEGEL: Evidently one of the issues at trial was whether the designer responsible for the intelligent design was inevitably God or whether that was-whether it was conceivably agnostic on that point. I mean, intelligent design was simply global search and replace for creationism. And apparently not much else was changed. LAYCOCK: Not just inevitably, but, you know, historically the way it actually developed, the "Pandas and People" book the school board recommended to students somebody found an early draft of, and the word `creationism' was changed 150 times to intelligent design after the Supreme Court said you can't teach creationism. SIEGEL: I mean, the judge's facts are that intelligent design really is, inevitably, an outgrowth of creationism and that there's no way in which anyone could see it as anything but the case for religion in the classroom. He marshals the evidence in support of every fact he finds. It's hard to imagine that much here is clearly erroneous. The trial judge's findings of fact stand on appeal unless they're clearly erroneous.
#Affectus god full#
And it would be very difficult to appeal successfully, even if the old school board was still in office, because it is full of very detailed findings of fact. The new school board has said it will not appeal. LAYCOCK: Well, it certainly collects in one place an awful lot of factual detail about the history of intelligent design as the concept about the statements made by its supporters, about the most prominent scientists associated with it and, less importantly nationwide, about, you know, the actions and motivations of this one school board that was trying to introduce it into the curriculum in Dover.
evolution, that entire conflict in the courts? SIEGEL: How do you think Judge Jones' decision in this case changes the position of intelligent design vs. Professor DOUGLAS LAYCOCK (University of Texas): Thank you. Joining us now by phone from Austin, Texas, is Douglas Laycock, who is a professor of law at the University of Texas, where he specializes in religious liberty.
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