The New Antievolution Strategy: Just Make Bizarre Stuff Up

Also, one more obvious point. This meeting took place on Dec. 5, after the trial stage was over and the judge was making his decision, how would the board voting to recind the policy at that date reduce their court cost? If anything it would have been a public admission of guilt (not that this would have been allowed to influence Judge Jones' decision, as I believe the Judge pointed out himself.)

Wow. Let be the first to say:

Pwned!

Well done, Wesley, that's one fine piece of research.

between 0 and 1 vote for Cashman

Are there any ID advocates out there with an ounce of moral fiber?

It makes for a great conspiracy theory, it'd be a shame if anything as trivial as mere facts were to get in the way.

Time to submit letters to the editor at the enterprise institute, be bold and forceful, swamp them with enough letters to the editor indicating the stupidity of the Manzari and Cooper article and lets see what happens.

Time to submit letters to the editor at the enterprise institute, be bold and forceful, swamp them with enough letters to the editor indicating the stupidity of the Manzari and Cooper article and lets see what happens. Here is the address for letters:

E-mail letters to TAE@aei.org
or
Fax them to (202) 862-5867
or
Write "The Mail"
The American Enterprise
1150 17th Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036

From a legal standpoint could removing the need for a redress have actually affected the outcome?
I'm not a lawyer, but isn't it too late once the trial is over?
Am I wrong or would the judge would still have to reach a decision, this would still set a precedent, and the board would still have to pay the opposing legal fees?

It does seem like there is a concerted effort to simply libel the snot out of anyone who the IDiots decide they don't like, at this point. It is telling that, when their movement is under greater and greater pressure to produce results (none yet!), their behavior grows more and more bizarre.

Though I would love to see the wedge document for this new strategy. "Our goal is, having failed to replace natural methodology with faith-based reasoning, to shamelessly lie about everyone who is not Christian enough for our liking."

I almost think it would be worth going back and doing a formal "performance review" of the wedge document...

Am I wrong or would the judge would still have to reach a decision, this would still set a precedent, and the board would still have to pay the opposing legal fees?

I'm pretty sure the legal situation is that even if the school board had rescinded the policy, it wouldn't moot the court case. There is probably some legal doctrine with a latin name for this, but basically once a case is before a court, defendants can't just make it go away by unilaterally reversing their action. This is because the following game could be play: 1. Do something bad; 2. Get sued; 3. Plaintiffs spend months of time and thousands of dollars preparing suit; 4. Defendants drop the policy and the lawsuit goes away; 5. Defendants start the policy again, and the plaintiffs have to start the lawsuit all over. This game could be played indefinitely.

So I think both parties have to agree to resolve a lawsuit by signing a consent decree. This option was given to the Dover school board when the lawsuit was filed in December 2004, if they dropped the policy immediately, which they didn't. The chance of the plaintiffs agreeing to a consent decree *after* they've gone through the expense and hassle of a trial is pretty low.

Of course, it must be added that I Am Not A Lawyer.

It's obvious, but someone has to say it: Since when is making bizarre stuff up a new strategy for antievolutionists?

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

If 'you know who' doesn't show up 'with you know what' now, then 'who knows when' we will be able to rub his nose in it all over again.

I'm pretty sure the legal situation is that even if the school board had rescinded the policy, it wouldn't moot the court case. There is probably some legal doctrine with a latin name for this, but basically once a case is before a court, defendants can't just make it go away by unilaterally reversing their action. This is because the following game could be play: 1. Do something bad; 2. Get sued; 3. Plaintiffs spend months of time and thousands of dollars preparing suit; 4. Defendants drop the policy and the lawsuit goes away; 5. Defendants start the policy again, and the plaintiffs have to start the lawsuit all over. This game could be played indefinitely.

let me be the second to say LOL PWN3D!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111

Rescinding the policy does save fees that would otherwise have been paid on the appeal that the new Board would not pursue.

If anyone gets a response / retraction / apology from the American Enterprise Institute, could they please post it?

Um... Pardon my ignorance, but are you sure this is a new strategy?

Actually, by the lack of activity, the question is probably whether I would have to take off one of a pair of mittens to count that high.

Dear Panda's Thumb Readers:

Seth and I made a good hearted effort to get the facts straight in this article. We acknowledge that we did make a small factual error in the paragraph about Bryan Rehm and we have moved quickly to fix it.

An editors note has now been included in the piece which reads: "Editor's note: Correction - The Dover Board considered rescinding the evolution policy at the December 5th meeting; Board member Bryan Rehm did not participate in the consideration."

Let the fun natured debate move forward!

Best,
Joe Manzari

This is par for the course for the AEI. The day after the Dover decision, I remember listening to a segment on NPR that had one person who supported the decision and one person who opposed it. The person who opposed it was from the AEI (I can't remember who.) and just made stuff up in his statement.

Mr. Manzari, I don't think that works. The whole thesis of the article is based upon that one incident. Without that being true, you have no collusion between the ACLU and the board and the entire thesis of the article is gone. The entire article should thus be retracted.

Seth and I made a good hearted effort to get the facts straight in this article.

Dear Panda's Thumb Readers:

Seth and I made a good hearted effort to get the facts straight in this article.

In school, that would get you a "D" (maybe a "C" in this era of grade inflation). In the real world, that effort would get you fired (good and half are not synonyms).

All in all, not very impressive.

Come on guys. These are, by and large, soul-less conservatives we're dealing with here. They are the worst hypocrites on the planet. This attempt to slander and libel is the DEFACTO fallback position for everything they do.

related: Bush lies on WMD, Katrina nonresponse, ad nauseum.

Enjoy.

... you know, if they actually admit their intention was a constructed falsehood, at least that would imply they had some level of competence.

coming here to say they "tried to get it right" only promotes the idea of their complete incompetence.

so, Joe, which do you think you and Seth prefer to be applied to your efforts here:

intentional deceit

~or~

gross incompetence

?

"Seth and I made a good hearted effort to get the facts straight in this article. We acknowledge that we did make a small factual error in the paragraph about Bryan Rehm and we have moved quickly to fix it."

And you still have problems with the truth.

1. You did not correct the *article*, instead there is a note at the end. So your problems with the truth are still there in the body of the article. (The proper thing to do is remove all references to Rehm in the article and append a note saying 'in an earlier version of this article, we stated that Brian Rehm etc. etc. We acknowledge that we were incorrect. We apologize to Mr. Rehm for our error.")

2. The editors note also has problems with the truth: it refers to *board member* Rehm not attending the meeting, but Rehm was not a board member when the meeting took place. (You can do Clintonesque/Bushesque word parsing and say that the editors note is not therefore a lie, but why not be crystal clear: Editor's note: Brian Rehm was not a board member at the time of the decision and therefore had no part in it.)

3. You still do not acknowledge that the board's counsel advised against rescinding (as noted in the minutes).

4. You still do not acknowledge that rescinding would not have removed the liability for costs on the part of the board.

In fact, your story is a non story. All relevant facts are in this sentence:

The Dover Board considered rescinding the policy at the Dec. 5 meeting even though doing so would not remove liability for costs, but decided not to do so on advice of counsel.

It's true that the article now includes a correction about Rehm. Nonetheless, this is a profoundly dishonest article. It somehow fails to mention that the school board broke the law, or that the board ignored their own counsel, or that the board had the option of not going ahead with the trial and turned it down, they refer to ID as "the emerging scientific theory of intelligent design" and somehow fail to mention that Jones found it to be 100% pure religion devoid of any science.

They say "the policy itself wasn't favored by such leading proponents of intelligent design as the Discovery Institute, which opposes mandating the topic in public schools and repeatedly urged the Dover board to repeal its policy" but somehow forget to mention that the ID instigated the entire affair, and only backed out later after the school board starting making religious statements. Instead, they refer to the requirement that science be taught in science class as "a comprehensive attack against scientists, philosophers, academics, and institutions throughout the nation."

Well, that should teach Manzari and Cooper a lesson: Never SAY falsehoods when you can IMPLY them in sentence after sentence, in the process creating a totally false misrepresentation of the actual situation, in every respect. What is needed is a statement at the end of the article saying Correction: None of the implications in this article are in fact true.

There's more squink in the water on this one. Though there's no basis for the claims anymore, the DI now has fully endorsed the Manzari and Cooper position.

BTW, Francisco, Manzari and Cooper are the ones who made the initial rounds of claims concerning the morality of actions in this incident. It turns out that they were moral defectives, willing to bear false witness to a world audience, and it looks like Francisco is yet another ID advocate with a degaussed moral compass.

The article is still wrong. The body of the article implies Rehm was a "new board member" at the time of the meeting when in fact he was not. This is pathetic, shoddy research.

In fact the new version of Manzari-Cooper's article does not anymore contain the prase about Rehm's "clear conflict of interests." For me it looks like a cover-up. It is good that Wesley quoted the original text, otherwise readers would be puzzled: what he complains about? In view of that deletion, the half-hearted comment at the article's end sounds immaterial for readers not familiar with Wesley's post to PT. Given the authors' obvious sympathy for ID (which they refer to as "an emerging scientific theory") there is little surprise they did not really care about facts. Manzari's clarification sounds a bit forced by the unearthing of the real story. Good-hearted effort? Come on, guys, the record of ID advocates is too well known - they usually are prepared to lie for the "Glory of God" (Dembski's expresion)

Science is aimed at improving understanding. That is not the case for "intelligent design". And so I offer this visual aid for the ID movement's effect on learning.

Aren't these basically the same people who reviled Eugenie Scott for the heinous crime of saying that Larry Caldwell submitted creationist materials to a school board when it was actually someone else?

But accusing a school board member of gross malfeasance is just a "small factual error"?

But accusing a school board member of gross malfeasance is just a "small factual error"?

What they need now is Dembski's "Clarion Call" .....get on the clarion to the big G himself, ask ....no beg for divine assistance from "the designer"...if no reply..then take it as a sign that "the designer" is in bed(literally) with Darwin they're turning into fossils together.(giggle)

Do you mean falsely accusing?

— Laser

Actually--if I'm tracking here, always a somewhat dubious proposition--this "good hearted" pair of small-minded maroons have falsely accused the gentleman of being a school board member, in order to then falsely accuse him of a conflict of interest.

Maroonitis. Spreads much more quickly than ebola. Damages brains, but leaves the bodies walking around and the lips flapping, spreading further maroonitis.

Kevin, I was just checking. No big deal.

yeah, but your omission was implied by your use of the phrase "small factual error", at the end of your statement.

;P

In the words of ACLU's Eric Rothschild following their victory in Dover: "Are we a little bit famous now? Yes, and it's amazing."

Please, everyone, feel free to pick out further inaccuracies in both the ID articles on the subject and put them here in comments.

Please, everyone, feel free to pick out further inaccuracies in both the ID articles on the subject and put them here in comments.

God, talk about throwing red meat into the water....

Re "Please, everyone, feel free to pick out further inaccuracies in both the ID articles on the subject and put them here in comments."

Careful - somebody might decide to copy/paste the entire article. ;)

Henry

one wonders if dembski will now retract his statements here:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/990

based on the fact that the factual innacuracies leading to his post have now been admitted to by the authors themselves.

doubtful.

god, i hate these folks.

Dr. Elsberry: Please, everyone, feel free to pick out further inaccuracies in both the ID articles on the subject and put them here in comments.

The election of Dover C.A.R.E.S. endangered the plans of the ACLU and AUSCS. Both groups used the calamitous situation in the Dover Area School District to launch a comprehensive attack against scientists, philosophers, academics, and institutions throughout the nation that advocate the emerging scientific theory of intelligent design. They hoped for an authoritative court decision banning discussion of intelligent design in public schools and government, perhaps via a U.S. Supreme Court decision to ban the theory of intelligent design by subsuming it under creationism and its decision of Edwards v. Aguillard (1987). Dover was never the primary target of the lawsuit, but rather served as a springboard for striking a blow nationwide against the theory of intelligent design.

The IDots talked about the 'big tent' but it seems they meant to say the 'big top' - bring on the clowns. Talking of which, has anyone noticed this 'news' has disappeared from UD - poof (their blogging software must be intelligently designed!!)

The wikipedia page on mootness is useful context, particularly how voluntary cessation is a major exception to mootness.

By the way, guys, Seth Cooper is listed as a former policy analyst for the DI but they don't list his current job - he's a clerk for Justice Jim Johnson of the Washington State Supreme Court. I wonder if his boss knows that in his spare time he's writing such clearly irrational and defamatory articles.

As I recall, the plaintiffs specifically asked for a PERMANENT injunction, so if the school board lost and rescin ded the ID policy, the trial and decision would go ahead anyway tp rpevent any FUTURE school boards from re-imposing it.

So the IDers are whining about nothing.

They shot their load. They lost. It's time they got over it. (shrug)

Dear IDers:

Sorry that you don't like the judge's ruling. Please feel free to whine, weep, moan, groan, jump up and down, and throw as many hissy fits as you want to over it. After all, it simply DOES NOT MATTER whether you like the decision or not. All that matters is that you FOLLOW it. If you don't, then we'll sue the crap out of you. (shrug)

Timothy's followup post is exactly right - the factual merits of the article aside, its legal analysis is dubious at best. The authors' only attempt to salvage their pseudo-mootness claim is to assert, without any support that I can see, that the parties might have entered into a consent decree. But they do not provide any basis to believe that a vote to rescind the policy would be a necessary or sufficient condition precedent to a consent decree. Nor do they suggest that either the plaintiff parents or the district court were amenable to such a decree. (I suspect that the court would not--and perhaps could not--accept such a proposal at such a late date, but consent decrees are outside of my practice area and experience, so I'll withhold criticism on that narrow count.)

I offered caselaw addressing the mootness point in a comment at Uncommon Descent, but it was, of course, blocked in moderation. It is genuinely sad to see Dembski and DaveScot actively preventing their readers from learning more about the topics they present. It says a great deal about Intelligent Design that its most visible supporters feel that objective, factual information is a threat to their message.

It says a great deal about Intelligent Design that its most visible supporters feel that objective, factual information is a threat to their message.

# The PT post misses the point. As I explain over at Evolution News & Views, the appearance of collusion does not depend on the single board member. The newly elected DASB board was elected to repeal the policy, they met December 5, before the decision came down, and a citizen urged them to repeal the policy to avoid fees. The informed citizen brought legal briefs. The openly anti-ID Board then kept the old ID policy in place. The DASB thus knew they were risking expensive legal fees, and could have avoided that by simply doing what they campaigned to do: repeal the old policy. I still think it looks like the anti-ID board spent taxpayer money to secure a legal judgment in their favor, even if the original article mistook when one of the board member's started. That totally misses the point. Michael Comment by mfrancisco --- April 4, 2006 @ 3:45 pm

Has anyone contacted Mr Rehm about this article?

He may be very interested to take action to protect his reputation and recover compensation for the damage already done.

Francisco could not possibly be any more full of shit on this one. He is seriously claiming, without a shred of evidence, that the new board committed financial fraud by making sure that money from themselves and the community they lived in and were elected to represent got paid to a group they had no responsibility to whatsoever. That is completely irrational. Add to that the fact that the "informed citizen" he invokes was completely wrong and the board knew that nothing they could do would actually moot the case. I don't care what "legal briefs" the "informed citizen" brought to the school board meeting, everyone agreed that no matter what the new board did, the ruling was still going to be issued in the case - the plaintiffs' attorneys agreed, the Thomas More Law Center agreed, the Judge himself agreed, every single legal scholar that was quoted in every article that addressed the subject agreed that the voluntary cessation doctrine meant the case could not be mooted no matter what the new board did. So the facts are that A) there was no incentive for the school board to do what he claims they did; B) the claim that the case could be mooted is 100% false; and C) there is not one shred of actual evidence that anyone on the new board was in collusion with the ACLU. All they have is innuendo based on false claims and lies. And they know it.

Well, the most obvious interpretation is that the DI and Seth Cooper are just desperately trying to do some damage control and redirection.

As discussed by Pim and Red State Rabble, just last week came the revelation, by Bill Buckingham himself, that the DI actively encouraged the tools at the Dover BoE to pursue their pro-ID policy (before dropping them like hot potatoes when the going got tough), thereby helping initiate the chain of events that costed the district a cool mil. And who did the active encouragement and initial legal assessment of the Dover BoE strategy for the DI? Why, Seth Cooper, JD.

Talk about "conflict of interest"...

And let me add that, in contrast to the ridiculous speculation of these idiots about the new school board, we know that the old school board risked the financial well being of the district against the direct advice of their legal counsel. In doing so, they also voided the district's liability policy, which is why the cost isn't paid by their insurance company. The only ones who can be shown to have actually engaged in financial mismanagement here is the old board, not the new board.

everyone agreed that no matter what the new board did, the ruling was still going to be issued in the case - the plaintiffs' attorneys agreed, the Thomas More Law Center agreed, the Judge himself agreed, every single legal scholar that was quoted in every article that addressed the subject agreed that the voluntary cessation doctrine meant the case could not be mooted no matter what the new board did.

BTW, I've spoken several times with the head of the new school board in Dover, Bernadette Reinking, and she's quite ammenable to questions.

Her email can be found on the Dover school board's website, should anybody have direct questions remaining.

Not only the article attempt to shift the blame that resides solely on the old board,
bit an eventual settlement or consent decree (assuming one would be both contemplated and reached) would have certainly included the full payment of legal fees, since almost all the legal costs had already been incurred at that point.

So, in that dream world, the school would have agreed to pay $1 million or $2 millions to the plaintiffs, and the judge would have (putatively, again) been persuaded to drop the case.

Who would have benefited, in that unlikely scenario ? Not the schoolboard, who would have been out of pocket for essentially the same sum.

The only one to have benefited with such a (losing) settlement would have been the Discovery Institute, who would have been free to entice other gullible schoolboards into unconstitutional policies, exposing themselves to $1M+ lawsuits.

Fortunately, the Dover ruling now makes it crystal-clear that ID is a canard, science-wise.

Another obvious error in logic is the claim of collusion between the "new" school board and the ACLU. If the new school board wanted to "give" taxpayers money to the ACLU and if they wanted a more permanently declaration of the unconstitutionality of teaching ID in the High School Science Classroom, then surely recinding the policy was the wrong move. They should have voted to reaffirm the policy and kept the Thomas More lawyers on board (or fired them and gotten better lawyers) and appealled all the way to the supreme court. THen the ACLU would have made lots of money and we could have had a Supreme Court decision affirming the ID movement as a dressed up modern creationism. But NOOOOOOOO! (think John Belushi as you read the No)they wimped out and saved the tax payers at least 1M dollars and likely more.

If you ask me it was the OLD school board that was in collusion with the ACLU. I mean come on. Can any group be so much like the Keystone Cops? Write a policy, make sure there is a strong paper trail, and then lie about it (or have moments of interesting memory lapses I guess). The old school board just GAVE the case away. And then maybe the DI was in with the ACLU. I mean, pull out all the the big guns (Dembski, Meyer et al.) Leave Behe in, but make sure he talks about astrology. Leave Minnich in and make sure he says ID isn't really testable, etc. If there is a case for conspiracy it is the DI and the old school board. Maybe there was a back room deal ACLU makes money, the DI contributitions go up, everybody wins. Except of course the STUDENTS!

By the way, guys, Seth Cooper is listed as a former policy analyst for the DI but they don't list his current job - he's a clerk for Justice Jim Johnson of the Washington State Supreme Court. I wonder if his boss knows that in his spare time he's writing such clearly irrational and defamatory articles.

I dunno, Ed. Why don't you send the judge an email and see what happens?

Attorney Seth Cooper advised the Dover school board not to adopt its policy and even offered guidelines for change. "We do believe a lawsuit is certain in your situation," Cooper told Alan Bonsell, the school board curriculum chairman, in a Dec. 10, 2004, e-mail. "We strongly recommend some corrective action be taken." (USA Today)

Seth Cooper, an attorney and legal analyst with Discovery Institute, faulted school district lead counsel Linwood Gunn for putting on "an incompetent defense." (DI MCD)

I moved a series of sidetracking and meta-talk comments to the Bathroom Wall.

As discussed by Pim and Red State Rabble, just last week came the revelation, by Bill Buckingham himself, that the DI actively encouraged the tools at the Dover BoE to pursue their pro-ID policy (before dropping them like hot potatoes when the going got tough), thereby helping initiate the chain of events that costed the district a cool mil.

Are there any ID advocates out there with an ounce of moral fiber? We'll be able to tell because they'll be the ones who loudly and publicly register their disagreement with Mims, Manzari, and Cooper. I suspect the list will never grow so large as to require me to take off my shoes to count that high, though I'd be pleasantly surprised if I were proved wrong on that point.

As discussed by Pim and Red State Rabble, just last week came the revelation, by Bill Buckingham himself, that the DI actively encouraged the tools at the Dover BoE to pursue their pro-ID policy (before dropping them like hot potatoes when the going got tough), thereby helping initiate the chain of events that costed the district a cool mil.

Research Clerk, Christian Research Institute Irvine, CA (Volunteer 1987-1989)

Legal Evidence & Christian Apologetics (Graduate)

6. Posting under multiple identities or falsely posting as someone else may lead to removal of affected comments and blocking of the IP address from which those comments were posted, at the discretion of the management. Simply put, don't make a jerk out of yourself.

AWW, I'm gonna miss "As the Wingnut Turns" and "All My Aliases" - not. Don't woory, there'll always be some other nut to show lurkers what we're up against.