On the Calvert and Harris Legal Opinion

John Calvert posted a legal opinion dated March 21, 2001. It contains creationist errors. ("Intelligent Design" is a creationist idea.)

• Nature of Origins Science. Origins science and the teaching of origins science demands scrupulous objectivity. This is because it is a historical rather than an empirical science and because it has unavoidable religious implications. The Design Hypothesis supports theistic beliefs while the Naturalistic Hypothesis supports atheistic beliefs. Accordingly, when government seeks to teach origins science it enters a religious arena where it is constitutionally obligated to remain neutral. In my opinion, the best way to achieve constitutional neutrality is to teach the subject with scrupulous objectivity and without religious or philosophic bias.

  This is incorrect. The "Naturalistic Hypothesis" simply says that we can explain our observations using the laws of physics, thermodynamics, molecular biology and other parts of science. Many people chose, in spite of this, to be religious or not.

• The Design Hypothesis is supported by abundant evidence. The evidence is easily observed and can be empirically detected using the scientific method and logical analysis. The evidence which supports the Design Hypothesis directly contradicts and otherwise challenges the validity of the Naturalistic Hypothesis, including one of its principal theories that the diversity of life results from Darwinian mechanisms such as natural selection.

  This is incorrect.
  • There is no direct evidence for an intelligence. Intelligent design is a hypothesis.
  • Computer simulations such as the ev program demonstrate clearly that the hypothesis is unnecessary to explain the observed facts.
  • If the intelligent design hypothesis were correct, what predictions would it make? It would not predict the Panda's Thumb (Gould)! It would not predict the backwards retina of humans! It would not predict thousands of facts in biology! Challenge: make a prediction that would disprove the Intelligent Design hypothesis. Test it. I have yet to hear of even one experiment done by these people!

I'll stop here for now. It's the same wolf in slightly different clothing. Don't be fooled. They have zero evidence.

[2001 May 30] A friend of mine had this to say:

William Harris Ph.D.
Intelligent Design Network
PO Box 14702
Shawnee Mission KS 66285

Dear Dr. Harris,
...
A colleague of mine directed me to your website and memorandum.
...

I have paid particular attention to the comments regarding how Intelligent Design is supported by the analysis of the human genome draft. Nothing could be further from the truth. The quote from Rick Myers was taken completely out of context. I suggest that you read the original publications in the journals, Science and Nature, before citing the San Francisco Chronicle to support your point of view.

Fewer genes than expected were found in the human genome for 3 reasons: 1) The genome sequence draft assembly is incomplete, especially in those chromosomal intervals which have duplicated in humans recently in evolution; 2) the computational methods used to identify genes were excessively stringent, and missed many previously described expressed sequence tags that encode previously unkown genes; and 3) considerable genetic diversity is achieved through other mechanisms such as alternative splicing, such that virtually every gene expressed at high levels displays more than one splice variant.

Yours sincerely,
...

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