Judge Jones should have been disqualified because of bias
In the following excerpt from a transcript of the Dover trial, Judge Jones showed great hostility towards an absent attorney in regard to an attempt by the Discovery Institute to file an amicus brief with an expert report attached:
Jones should have been disqualified because of the bias shown by such abusive language about an attorney: " . . . have Mr. Boyle have another unhappy day in this court and have his head handed to him."
The expert report in question was written by Stephen Meyer, who had withdrawn as an expert witness in the case. In a later ruling, Jones rejected the DI amicus brief on the grounds that it was a "back door" way to insert the ideas of Stephen Meyer -- and the ideas of another expert witness who withdrew, William Dembski -- into the record without cross-examination by the plaintiffs. That was a weak argument, for the following reasons: (1) courtroom testimony is far more important than an amicus brief, hence there was no advantage to using this "back door" method, and (2) the plaintiffs were allowed to file a brief that answered a revised version of the DI amicus brief (and that of course could have answered the original DI amicus brief).
Also, the ruling rejecting the initial DI brief said,
However, FRAP Rule 29(b) says,
Supreme Court Rule 37-2(b) also says that the proposed amicus brief must accompany a motion for leave to file.
Hence, Judge Jones was wrong in saying that the Discovery Institute erred by not requesting leave of the court before submitting the amicus brief.
[492]THE COURT: But I am distressed by the fact that there is an expert report attached to the amicus brief. You know, if I open the gate and I tell him I want an expert report, that’s one thing. So I guess, you know, before we all start a plethora of filings, I’m telling you that to give it some thought, we can talk about it tomorrow, I could accept some argument on it if everybody wants to argue, and I can haul in counsel for the Discovery Institute.
They have local counsel, in fact I think it’s Mr. Boyle’s firm who’s local counsel, and we can go through that, have Mr. Boyle have another unhappy day in this court and have his head handed to him, or I can just summarily strike it. I’m not going to take an expert report. (emphasis added)
Jones should have been disqualified because of the bias shown by such abusive language about an attorney: " . . . have Mr. Boyle have another unhappy day in this court and have his head handed to him."
The expert report in question was written by Stephen Meyer, who had withdrawn as an expert witness in the case. In a later ruling, Jones rejected the DI amicus brief on the grounds that it was a "back door" way to insert the ideas of Stephen Meyer -- and the ideas of another expert witness who withdrew, William Dembski -- into the record without cross-examination by the plaintiffs. That was a weak argument, for the following reasons: (1) courtroom testimony is far more important than an amicus brief, hence there was no advantage to using this "back door" method, and (2) the plaintiffs were allowed to file a brief that answered a revised version of the DI amicus brief (and that of course could have answered the original DI amicus brief).
Also, the ruling rejecting the initial DI brief said,
As Plaintiffs submit in their Motion, the rules of this Court do not specifically outline procedures for filing amicus briefs and applicable case law indicates that the district courts have inherent authority to allow amici to participate in proceedings under appropriate circumstances . . . . We recognize, however, as pointed out by Plaintiffs in their submission, that Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and Supreme Court Rule 37 both require either the parties' consent or leave of Court to file an amicus brief. Despite the fact that amici failed to formally request leave of Court before filing the submissions, we will review them absent the request of formal leave as we do not find it necessary to elevate form over substance. (emphasis added, citations omitted)
However, FRAP Rule 29(b) says,
(b) Motion for Leave to File: The motion must be accompanied by the proposed brief . . . . (emphasis added)
Supreme Court Rule 37-2(b) also says that the proposed amicus brief must accompany a motion for leave to file.
Hence, Judge Jones was wrong in saying that the Discovery Institute erred by not requesting leave of the court before submitting the amicus brief.
Labels: Judge Jones (1 of 2)
posted by Larry Fafarman | 12/18/2006 05:32:00 AM
29 Comments:
Hey Larry, any response to the recent revelation that one of your IDer chums plagirized an entire article and then -- unlike Judge Jones -- tried to conceal what he had done?
Professor Irons concluded his study with these comments: "It seems to me the height of hypocrisy for the Discovery Institute to accuse Judge Jones of copying 90 percent of one section of his opinion (just 16 percent of its total length) from the proposed findings of fact by the plaintiff's lawyers, when the DI itself tried to palm off as 'original' work a law review article that was copied 95 percent from the authors' own book. Concealing this fact from the law review editors, until I discovered and documented this effort, seriously undercuts the credibility of the DI on this or any other issue."
Any comments?
So the DI authors "plagiarized" their own book -- big deal.
This revelation does nothing to improve my opinion of Judge Jones.
I might add that the DI authors' law review article was accepted only after they rewrote it. So should Jones be required to rewrite his Dover opinion?
AS if that would make ID any less vacuous, or the DI any less dishonest, than they clearly are...
The DI failed to formally request leave of the court when it submitted its briefs (one rejected, one accepted). Under both FRAP 29 and SCR 37, the brief is supposed to be attached to the motion for leave to file, thereby placing the filing after the motion to file. But the DI didn't submit a motion for leave to file at all!
As to Mr. Boyle, my reading of the in chambers transcript, then and now, was that the ineptitude of the DI had put their local counsel in a bad spot, not that Mr. Boyle himself was incompetent. He has an obligation to defend his client, even when his client did something stupid. The fact that Mr. Boyle had nothing to do with submitting the DI briefs is further support that the language was directed at the DI's lack of legal experience.
Judges are permitted to have their own rules of submission, so long as they don't violate the higher level rules. One of Jones's longstanding rules is that he doesn't accept expert witness reports as amici curiae. There's a good reason for this. Under the FRE, expert witnesses are required to present themselves for cross-examination. Meyer and Dembski were unwilling to face deposition and cross-examination, so they are in violation of the FRE if they attempt to present their expert witness reports to the court. Rebuttal is completely different from cross-examination.
So the DI authors "plagiarized" their own book -- big deal.
Um...yeah, it is a big deal, given that publication in that forum was, by their own rules, contingent on the article containing new information, not just a rehash of something already published.
And what about the dishonesty of refusing to admit that an article was cribbed from elsewhere? What about the author's refusal to comply with a direct request for a copy of the book from which he had copied? Is that level of dishonesty (not to mention hypocricy) "no big deal" to you or your IDist chums?
Just to emphasize, FRAP 29 and SCR 37 both require the motion for leave to file no later than the filing of the brief, something the DI failed to do.
By the way, the portion of the ruling Larry cited was accompanied by a footnote:
We do note however, that the better practice is that a motion seeking leave of Court to file an
amicus brief should be filed concurrently with any future amici submissions.
Yet another quote mine by Larry.
Larry: Here's what another comenter said about this latest breach of academic integrity by the creationists:
Any academic publication to which I've ever submitted a paper requires a statement from the author(s) that the work, or something substantially similar to the work, has not been puiblished elsewhere. If DeWolf, West and Luskin signed such a statement, they lied. DeWolf could get in trouble for it; most colleges have a disciplinary process for breaches of academic integrity.
I went to UVa, where such dishonesty would have been considered an "honor violation," and would have got a student expelled.
Kevin Vicklund said...
>>>>>>The DI failed to formally request leave of the court when it submitted its briefs (one rejected, one accepted). Under both FRAP 29 and SCR 37, the brief is supposed to be attached to the motion for leave to file, thereby placing the filing after the motion to file. But the DI didn't submit a motion for leave to file at all! <<<<<
I don't think we know exactly what happened. Perhaps DI submitted the motion with the brief. I don't think that they would have thought that the brief would be filed without the permission of either both parties or Judge Jones. Maybe they were not aware that the court was using FRAP 29 or SCR 37. Who knows? My only point was that Jones was wrong to say that they should have filed the motion before submitting the brief. And regardless of what happened, Judge Jones should not have made an insulting remark about a local attorney representing DI.
>>>>>>By the way, the portion of the ruling Larry cited was accompanied by a footnote:
We do note however, that the better practice is that a motion seeking leave of Court to file an
amicus brief should be filed concurrently with any future amici submissions. <<<<<
This footnote contradicts Jones' criticism of DI for not filing the motion before submitting the brief.
>>>>> One of Jones's longstanding rules is that he doesn't accept expert witness reports as amici curiae. <<<<<
Well, who was supposed to know that? BTW, since Meyer was no longer an expert witness, his attached report was just an "expert report" and not an "expert witness report."
>>>>>Under the FRE, expert witnesses are required to present themselves for cross-examination. <<<<<
Well, all witnesses who are direct-examined are supposed to present themselves for cross-examination. But since Meyer and Dembski had quit as witnesses, they were not going to be either direct-examined or cross-examined. The question of cross-examination was irrelevant because there was not going to be any direct-examination. The situation was as if Meyer and Dembski had never signed on as expert witnesses in the first place.
Anonymous said...
>>>>>Larry: Here's what another comenter said about this latest breach of academic integrity by the creationists: <<<<<<
As I said, none of this stuff is going to change my opinion about Judge Jones. I could understand Jones' extensive copying, considering the great complexity of the case, with hundreds of pages of documents and hundreds of hours of testimony. However, as I said, I am much more disturbed about his one-sidedness than about his extensive copying. Almost all of his ID-as-science opinion came from just the plaintiffs' opening post-trial brief. There were also the defendants' opening post-trial brief and answering post-trial briefs from both the plaintiffs and defendants. If the defendants' arguments were lousy, all the more reason to put them in the opinion. I am also disturbed that Jones mindlessly copied the ACLU's opening post-trial brief into his conclusion section -- in fact, one copied prohibition in the conclusion section, prohibiting the Dover school board from "requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution," never made it into the opinion's final order. Also, I think that Jones should not have judged the scientific merits of ID or irreducible complexity.
>>>>> Any academic publication to which I've ever submitted a paper requires a statement from the author(s) that the work, or something substantially similar to the work, has not been puiblished elsewhere. <<<<<
Well, maybe not all journals have that policy. Anyway, I think that policy is not a good idea, for the following reasons:
(1) An article could be of interest in more than one journal.
(2) An author might submit an article to more than one journal. Suppose that all of the journals have this exclusive-publication policy. If a small-time journal offers to publish the article, the author might choose to hold out and wait for a big-time journal to offer to publish, but the big-time journals might reject the article and the small-time journal might withdraw the offer to publish, leaving the author with nothing.
>>>>> I went to UVa, where such dishonesty would have been considered an "honor violation," and would have got a student expelled. <<<<<
Well, this is not UVa, thank goodness.
Well, maybe not all journals have that policy.
THIS journal does, and they state it explicitly. "Maybe" don't enter in, especially from the likes of you.
Anyway, I think that policy is not a good idea...
What you think is irrelevant. What the people who run this journal do is relevant.
>>>>> I went to UVa, where such dishonesty would have been considered an "honor violation," and would have got a student expelled. <<<<<
Well, this is not UVa, thank goodness.
Well, this pretty much sums up your ethics: you're relieved not to be in an atmosphere where honesty is required and dishonesty has consequences. And you expect us to care what you "think?"
Have you any idea how bad a joke you've become? (If you're unclear on this, consult with your brother next time he tries to clean up after you or remind you who he is.)
> I don't think we know exactly what happened. <
You obviously don't!
It looks like Larry(?) has had his head handed to him again. Will he ever learn?
If the defendants' arguments were lousy, all the more reason to put them in the opinion.
Translation: "Hey, no fair, only the winner got a prize! I wanna prize too! This is so one-sided! WAAAAAAH!!"
Why include bogus or vacuous "arguments" in an opinion, when the opinion is that those "arguments" have no merit? What's next -- a demand that geography textbooks include arguments for a flat Earth?
You may not know this about courts in America, Larry, but there's something called a trial that preceded the ruling, and the defendants had plenty of opportunity to present their side of the case in that trial, long before the ruling was written. Not only that, but every word of it is on the PUBLIC RECORD of the trial for all to read.
Your pathetic nitpicking is getting further every day from the most relevant point in this case, which is that ID and creationism are nothing but a narrow religious doctrine, badly disguised as pseudoscience for purposes of religious indoctrination of a most dishonest and bigoted sort. And all of this was proven in spades in the Dover trial -- not for the first time either.
Anonymous said...
>>>>> Why include bogus or vacuous "arguments" in an opinion, when the opinion is that those "arguments" have no merit? <<<<<<
When a court opinion ignores the losing side's arguments, that creates the overwhelming suspicion that those arguments were ignored because they are too strong. Judges can get away with ignoring losing side arguments in low-profile cases but they can't get away with it in high-profile cases.
Even Supreme Court opinions, which cannot be appealed, will discuss losing-side arguments which the court's majority considers to be meritless.
First, failure to quote the losing side's PFOFs is not the same as "ignoring" the losing side's arguments. I'm not quoting you in this response -- does this mean I'm ignoring your arguments?
Second, if the plaintiffs' PFOFs explicitly address and discuss the losing side's arguments, and the judge, having weighed all of the evidence and testimony from both sides, concludes that the plaintiffs' PFOFs are indeed correct with regard to the defendants' arguments, then no one has "ignored" anything. Concluding that an argument is bogus is not the same thing as "ignoring" it.
Third, the "London Underground" is not a political movement.
>>>I don't think we know exactly what happened. Perhaps DI submitted the motion with the brief.<<<
No, they didn't. That's why the issue came up in the first place. If they had submitted the motion with the brief, it wouldn't have been an issue.
>>>I don't think that they would have thought that the brief would be filed without the permission of either both parties or Judge Jones. Maybe they were not aware that the court was using FRAP 29 or SCR 37. Who knows? My only point was that Jones was wrong to say that they should have filed the motion before submitting the brief.<<<
Filing the motion with the brief is considered filing the motion before the brief, because the motion gets entered first. You're straining at gnats, Larry.
>>>And regardless of what happened, Judge Jones should not have made an insulting remark about a local attorney representing DI.<<<
He was not making an insulting remark about the attorney. He was simply saving Mr. Boyle from the embarrassment of being forced to defend his client's mistake in front of the entire court. Mr. Boyle would have either had to admit that he was not aware of his client's actions, or that he did not inform them of proper procedure. Either way, he'd end up looking a fool in the courtroom. Jones saved him from this embarrassment.
Kevin Vicklund said,
>>>>>I don't think we know exactly what happened. Perhaps DI submitted the motion with the brief.<
No, they didn't. That's why the issue came up in the first place. If they had submitted the motion with the brief, it wouldn't have been an issue. <<<<<<
No, as I said, we don't know. Jones did not seem to know that the motion was not supposed to be submitted before submitting the brief.
Maybe the DI authors thought a formal motion was not necessary because they knew that the brief would not be automatically accepted. So all the court had to do was just ask them to make the necessary corrections. What's the big deal? Why do you keep quibbling over trivia? Do you know the name for attorneys who quibble over trivia? They are called "pettifoggers."
>>>>>Filing the motion with the brief is considered filing the motion before the brief, because the motion gets entered first. <<<<<<
That's absurd. Supreme Court Rule 37(b), for example, requires that the motion and the brief be presented as a single document --they are filed simultaneously. FRAP Rule 29 only requires that the motion "accompany" the brief.
>>>>> He was not making an insulting remark about the attorney. He was simply saving Mr. Boyle from the embarrassment of being forced to defend his client's mistake in front of the entire court.<<<<<<
It was not a mistake at all -- Jones was only talking about his refusal to accept the expert report attached to the DI brief. And whether the abusive remark was directed at Mr. Boyle or at the DI authors, it was uncalled for.
Anonymous said (12-19-06 @ 9:57:12 AM ) --
>>>>>if the plaintiffs' PFOFs explicitly address and discuss the losing side's arguments, and the judge, having weighed all of the evidence and testimony from both sides, concludes that the plaintiffs' PFOFs are indeed correct with regard to the defendants' arguments, then no one has "ignored" anything.<<<<<
The problem is that the plaintiffs' post-trial PFOF (full name is "proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law") brief has little or no discussion of the losing side's arguments. The losing side's arguments and rebuttals of those arguments are mainly in the other major post-trial briefs here -- the defendants' PFOF and the plaintiffs' and defendants' answering briefs (there is also a brief supporting the plaintiffs' PFOF). The DI study claims that over 90 percent of the Dover opinion's ID-as-science section came just from the plaintiffs' PFOF -- that doesn't leave much room for anything else, either Jones' original writings or material copied from the other post-trial briefs. The post-trial briefs are listed here.
Now the Darwinists are claiming that their word-count programs show that only 70 percent and maybe as little as 48 percent of the ID-as-science section was essentially copied from the plaintiffs' PFOF. What I want to know is how much of the rest of the ID-as-science section discusses the losing side's arguments.
I feel that determining the extent of Jones' one-sidedness cannot be entirely determined by word-count programs but requires subjective evaluation. The DI study, which shows a side-by-side comparison of the opinion's ID-as-science section and the plaintiffs' PFOF, is here. I intend to take a longer look at the side-by-side comparisons myself.
Anyway, I think that this issue is going to take a long time to sort out and will continue to be debated.
>>>>> Third, the "London Underground" is not a political movement. <<<<<
????? What in the hell is that about?
> The Clown Prince belches...
> No, as I said, we don't know. <
You are speaking for the frog in your pocket again.
> Jones did not seem to know that the motion was not supposed to be submitted before submitting the brief. <
Where did you get this?
> Maybe the DI authors thought a formal motion was not necessary because they knew that the brief would not be automatically accepted. So all the court had to do was just ask them to make the necessary corrections. <
Why does the court have to bail out inept attornies? They didn't in your cases.
> Why do you keep quibbling over trivia? <
Are you asking this of yourself? It certainly seems to apply to you.
> Do you know the name for attorneys who quibble over trivia? They are called "pettifoggers." <
At last you got a definition right. It describes you exactly. Why are you pettifogging?
>>>>>Filing the motion with the brief is considered filing the motion before the brief, because the motion gets entered first. <<<<<<
> That's absurd. Supreme Court Rule 37(b), for example, requires that the motion and the brief be presented as a single document --they are filed simultaneously. <
This was not the Supreme Court.
> The problem is that the plaintiffs' post-trial PFOF (full name is "proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law") brief has little or no discussion of the losing side's arguments. <
Nor should it.
> I feel that determining the extent of Jones' one-sidedness cannot be entirely determined by word-count programs but requires subjective evaluation. <
We have already made the subjective evaluation. You are wrong that way as well as with any factual evaluation.
> I intend to take a longer look at the side-by-side comparisons myself. <
And misinterpret those as much as you do everything else?
>>>>> Third, the "London Underground" is not a political movement. <<<<<
> ????? What in the hell is that about? <
The Neutron Star strikes again!
>>>>>>>>>I don't think we know exactly what happened. Perhaps DI submitted the motion with the brief.<<<<<<<<<
>>>>>>No, they didn't. That's why the issue came up in the first place. If they had submitted the motion with the brief, it wouldn't have been an issue. <<<<<<
>>>No, as I said, we don't know. Jones did not seem to know that the motion was not supposed to be submitted before submitting the brief.<<<
In fact, we do know, and the following quote comes right from the section of transcript you linked to:
But the fact that I was too charitable and they gained without a motion doesn't mean that I can't summarily strike it.
It is incontrovertible: the DI did not submit a motion for leave to file before or concurrent with the briefs. It is also readily apparent that they did not know that they were supposed to do so. Larry is once again vigorously rubbing egg all over his face in the hopes that some of the splatter will head in Jones's general direction.
>>>Maybe the DI authors thought a formal motion was not necessary because they knew that the brief would not be automatically accepted. So all the court had to do was just ask them to make the necessary corrections. What's the big deal? Why do you keep quibbling over trivia? Do you know the name for attorneys who quibble over trivia? They are called "pettifoggers."<<<
Who's the one quibbling over details? Larry, you are both a pettifogger and a bald-faced liar.
Fact 1: the DI did NOT file a motion for leave to file
Fact 2: Jones could have refused to accept either amicus curiae brief because of this omission
Fact 3: Jones in fact permitted one of the briefs into the record without requiring them to make the necessary corrections
Fact 4: the other brief was denied on other grounds, and Jones clarified the proper procedure
>>>>>>Filing the motion with the brief is considered filing the motion before the brief, because the motion gets entered first. <<<<<<
>>>That's absurd. Supreme Court Rule 37(b), for example, requires that the motion and the brief be presented as a single document --they are filed simultaneously. FRAP Rule 29 only requires that the motion "accompany" the brief.<<<
Whether or not you find it absurd, that is the legal reality of the situation.
>>>It was not a mistake at all -- Jones was only talking about his refusal to accept the expert report attached to the DI brief. And whether the abusive remark was directed at Mr. Boyle or at the DI authors, it was uncalled for.<<<
And as I showed above, you are wrong. It was not just about his refusal to accept the expert report. He brought it up in chambers specifically to bring up the issues surrounding the lack of the motion and how he proposed dealing with that breach. If the DI had submitted the briefs properly, he would have simply issued an order denying the one because it contained an expert report.
Kevin Vicklund said,
>>>>>>But the fact that I was too charitable and they gained without a motion doesn't mean that I can't summarily strike it.
It is incontrovertible: the DI did not submit a motion for leave to file before or concurrent with the briefs. <<<<<
No, Kevin. We still have no idea what happened. Maybe DI submitted a motion concurrent with the briefs but Jones was talking about non-submission of a motion before submission of the briefs (according to FRAP Rule 29 and SCR Rule 37, the motion was supposed to be submitted concurrent with the briefs). Maybe DI submitted a motion before submitting the briefs and Jones did not rule on it. We don't know what Jones meant by his statement that he was "too charitable." Anyway, this issue is just a technicality because in any case the briefs required the approval of either both parties or Judge Jones. This whole issue is moot because any error or misunderstanding here does not excuse Judge Jones' nasty comment about DI's local attorney or the DI authors.
>>>>> Fact 1: the DI did NOT file a motion for leave to file <<<<<<
Wrong. We don't know. See above.
>>>>> Fact 2: Jones could have refused to accept either amicus curiae brief because of this omission <<<<<
Maybe -- but that would have been very nasty (typical of Judge Jones). I suspect that judges are given broad discretion on whether to accept amicus briefs and might have the power to reject them without good reason.
>>>>>> Fact 3: Jones in fact permitted one of the briefs into the record without requiring them to make the necessary corrections <<<<<<
We don't know that either.
>>>>>> Fact 4: the other brief was denied on other grounds, and Jones clarified the proper procedure <<<<<
No, he only added to the confusion. First he criticized DI for not filing the motion before submitting the briefs ("Despite the fact that amici failed to formally request leave of Court before filing the submissions, we will review them absent the request of formal leave as we do not find it necessary to elevate form over substance") and then he says in a footnote that the proper procedure is to file the motion concurrently with the briefs ("We do note however, that the better practice is that a motion seeking leave of Court to file an amicus brief should be filed concurrently with any future amicus submissions") -- see page 3 here.
>>>>>> It was not just about his refusal to accept the expert report. He brought it up in chambers specifically to bring up the issues surrounding the lack of the motion and how he proposed dealing with that breach. <<<<<
No, in the section of transcript provided, he said nothing about failure to submit a required motion. He only said, "But the fact that I was too charitable and they gained without a motion doesn't mean that I can't summarily strike it," but that says nothing about a failure to submit a required motion. As I pointed out above, the number of possibilities is endless. You're always jumping to conclusions.
Maybe if we had more of the transcript, we might be able to find out what happened. The transcript section came from Herr Fuhrer Esley Welsberry (pronounced "Velsberry") and he did not provide a link, date or source for it (though the evidence is that the date is in the range of October 18-24, 2005). Anyway, as I said, all of this motion stuff is just a technicality -- my purpose here was to criticize Judge Jones for his rudeness and apparent bias.
> No, Kevin. We still have no idea what happened. <
> Wrong. We don't know. See above. <
> We don't know that either. <
That ignorance seems limited to you and the frog in your pocket to which you refer collectively as "We". The rest of us understand it perfectly.
> No, in the section of transcript provided, he said nothing about failure to submit a required motion. He only said, "But the fact that I was too charitable and they gained without a motion doesn't mean that I can't summarily strike it," but that says nothing about a failure to submit a required motion. <
I just had to repeat this nonsensical paragraph so that people could savor it. You claim first that he said nothing about failure to submit a motion and then follow it with a quote of his statement they gained without a motion proving that you and your frog have severe reading difficulties.
Kevin Vicklund said ...
"Larry is once again vigorously rubbing egg all over his face in the hopes that some of the splatter will head in Jones's general direction."
What a perfect discription of the continued pettifogging of the breathtakingly inane troll, Larry(?).
I feel that determining the extent of Jones' one-sidedness cannot be entirely determined by word-count programs but requires subjective evaluation.
Translation: word-count programs (which you had previously considered gospel truth) don't yield the conclusion you thought they did, so you have to fall back on "subjective evaluation," a.k.a. "making shit up."
We still have no idea what happened...
Right -- you spent nearly a year pretending to all and sundry that you and you alone knew exactly how wrong the Dover decision was, and now, when you can't even sound credible on YOUR OWN BLOG, you suddenly change your tune and insist that nobody knows nothin'.
>>>>> Third, the "London Underground" is not a political movement. <<<<<
????? What in the hell is that about?
Wow. Just wow. So much irony, from someone too ignorant and shallow to have any sense of irony, is both amazingly funny and amazingly sad. Not to mention ironic.
Larry: have you ever considered running away and joining the circus? If they don't take you, maybe you could audition for a Three Stooges remake.
Voice and Kevin: don't call him stupid!
Anyway, I think that this issue is going to take a long time to sort out and will continue to be debated.
Judge Jones sorted it out last year, and beneath all the noise and fake outrage, none of the defendants saw any point in appealing the decision. Do try to keep up, old man.
Anonymous said...
>>>>>>Translation: word-count programs (which you had previously considered gospel truth) don't yield the conclusion you thought they did, so you have to fall back on "subjective evaluation," a.k.a. "making shit up." <<<<<<
No, I never said that word-count programs are the gospel truth, but they are useful for a first estimate. "Plagiarism" (or quasi-plagiarism or pseudo-plagiarism or whatever you want to call what Jones was accused of doing) is not just word-for-word copying but can also be the copying of ideas, and here is where subjectivity comes in -- that is why I said that things may take a while to sort out here. The word-count programs are good for determining the degree of word-for-word copying but are not necessarily good for detemining the copying of ideas. I have been comparing the DI report's side-by-side comparisons of the Dover and ACLU texts and from what I have seen so far, what Jones did does not look good -- it looks like all or almost all the words and ideas in the Dover opinion's ID-as-science section came from just the ACLU's opening post-trial brief. An opening brief is going to be very one-sided. Can anyone point to something that was Jones' original idea or that came from the other post-trial briefs, i.e., the defendants' opening post-trial brief and the plaintiffs' and defendants' answering post-trial briefs? As I said, I am much more concerned about Jones' apparent one-sidedness than about the extent of his copying. I think that a fairly large amount of copying (though perhaps not to the extent that Jones did it) is excusable here because of the great complexity of the case, with hundreds or even thousands of pages of documents and hundreds of hours of courtroom testimony.
I am trying to be open-minded about this and you accuse me of "making shit up."
> I am trying to be open-minded about this and you accuse me of "making shit up." <
You are certainly not open-minded. You are yet to change your mind in the face of overwhelming evidence that you are wrong. As for people accusing you of "making shit up", I don't think that you intentionally make things up. I think that what happens is that you have no understanding of what you read and you post the filtered and mangled garbage that you see rather than what is actually there.
Sherry D is right. You have a serious reading problem and you should try to obtain help
I have been comparing the DI report's side-by-side comparisons of the Dover and ACLU texts and from what I have seen so far, what Jones did does not look good...
"Not looking good" in this instance having a purely SUBJECTIVE meaning in your SUBJECTIVE "analysis" -- and no meaning at all outside of your own head.
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