I'm from Missouri

This site is named for the famous statement of US Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver from Missouri : "I`m from Missouri -- you'll have to show me." This site is dedicated to skepticism of official dogma in all subjects. Just-so stories are not accepted here. This is a site where controversial subjects such as evolution theory and the Holocaust may be freely debated.

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Location: Los Angeles, California, United States

My biggest motivation for creating my own blogs was to avoid the arbitrary censorship practiced by other blogs and various other Internet forums. Censorship will be avoided in my blogs -- there will be no deletion of comments, no closing of comment threads, no holding up of comments for moderation, and no commenter registration hassles. Comments containing nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks are discouraged. My non-response to a particular comment should not be interpreted as agreement, approval, or inability to answer.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Lawsuit-bait evolution-education laws needed

A number of so-called "academic freedom" bills -- which call for open discussion of scientific "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution theory in public school science classes -- have been recently introduced in several states. Examples are Iowa and Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi (evolution-disclaimer textbook sticker), Michigan, New Mexico, and Louisiana (already passed). The problem is that these "academic freedom" bills do not go far enough -- they are all "lawsuit proof"! What we need are "lawsuit bait" academic freedom laws that will invite lawsuits that will give opportunities to counter the infamous Kitzmiller v. Dover decision. For over three years now, Kitzmiller v. Dover, a decision by a single crackpot activist judge who said that the decision was based on his cockamamie notion that the Founders based the establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions, has been used to browbeat any legislature, school board, school, or schoolteacher that wants to introduce any kind of criticism of Darwinism into public school science classes. And Kitmiller was -- for various reasons -- a very bad test case. The tax expense issue is a red herring -- in a populous state, a million dollar suit against the government costs pennies per taxpayer. And it costs states money to not fight lawsuits -- there are all these government attorneys just sitting on their duffs needing some work to do.
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One good way of inviting a lawsuit would be to include the term "Intelligent Design" in the bill, because ID was what Judge Jones ruled against in Kitzmiller. "ID" was originally in the Florida bill but has been removed.

The goal of inviting lawsuits should be to have the courts declare the evolution controversy to be non-justiciable. Questions are non-justiciable when there is “a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards.” Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267, 277-78 (2004). IMO the Darwinists' dream of having the courts declare criticism of evolution to be unconstitutional is a pipe dream. Here are the Supreme Court's options if a court decision on the scientific merits of evolution or criticisms of evolution (e.g., intelligent design) is ever appealed to the Supreme Court:

(1) Deny certiorari -- i.e., refuse to review the decision.

(2) Declare the controversy to be non-justiciable. In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court essentially treated the global-warming controversy as non-justiciable, and there is no reason to believe that the court would not do the same with the evolution controversy.

Is the Supreme Court going to sit there and listen to several weeks of scientific testimony on the evolution controversy?

Another possibility is for Congress to strip the Supreme Court -- pursuant to Article III of the Constitution -- of of appellate jurisdiction over the evolution conroversy.

In South Dakota, there was an anti-abortion ballot measure that was actually intended to be lawsuit bait:
Lawmakers had hoped the ban would be challenged in court, provoking litigation that might eventually lead to a U.S. Supreme Court reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Jim Sherwood said...

But I have some fear that many of the justices of the Supreme Court might turn out to be almost as stupid as John E. Jones, if they ever get the case. There's no telling how the "Nine Ayatollahs" of the Court might rule on anything, since the only check on their arbitrary power is an amendment to the Constitution, which is very difficult to pass.

Thursday, March 05, 2009 3:37:00 PM  

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