Witness for the Defense

Steve Fuller was one of the witnesses for the defense and many may have wondered why he was included. Fuller’s opinions on Intelligent Design seem quite straightforward

Fuller wrote:

Trials over the teaching of creationism — and now intelligent design theory — can draw on two different criteria for defining science: one based on motive and the other based on method. The difference matters, even though so far creationism and ID have largely failed to meet either of them.

In other words, it seems that Fuller agrees that ID has failed to meet the criteria for science whether based on motive or method.

Fuller continues

Fuller wrote:

I testified for the defense in the recent Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District because a motive-based definition reinforces a false dichotomy between science and religion while obscuring a genuine distinction in the contexts of discovery and justification in science.

Unfortunately, Judge Jones based his ruling against ID in Kitzmiller on the clear religious motivation of the theory’s practitioners. Instead he should have drawn on the precedent set in McLean v. Arkansas (1982), which relied on a conception of the scientific method independent of practitioner motives and, for that matter, the received opinion of scientific experts.

I am not sure what trial Fuller attended but Jones’s ruling was based on both motive and lack of scientific foundation, which thus destroyed the claim that ID serves a legitimate secular purpose which is not a sham.

When Stephen Meyer argued that “Let Schools Provide Fuller Disclosure” I can now fully agree with him, it’s time for schools to provide the disclosure.Fuller has presented. In the mean time, perhaps DaveScot can educate Meyer on the facts of the Cambrian explosion?