Vote for Darwin by Friday

Every time someone tries to drag Florida's miserably vague educational science standards into the 20th century -- never mind the 21st century -- the creationist lunkheads rise up to drag it back again to Bishop Usher's famously bogus date of 4004 B.C.

Any and every hominid in the world has through Friday, October 14 to cast his or her vote for the newly proposed Florida science standards at this polling place. A vote for the new standards is a vote proving that Florida at long last has evolved. Darwin would be proud.

Two Dinosaurs in Local News

Local radio Friday afternoon was reporting that Dr. Dino, more formally known as Kent Hovind, was sentenced today to ten years in the poky. Hovind was convicted late last year on 58 felony and misdemeamor counts related to tax evasion. His wife's sentencing has been delayed.

(UPDATE: Michael Stewart has the quick story and, a day later, the full story at the PNJ.)

Hovind made a small fortune himself -- or, if you still believe in fairy tales, for god -- by preaching that dinosaurs cohabited the earth with mankind. The root of his problem seems to be that god forgot to file his income tax returns and so the IRS turned to Hovind, instead.

Maybe Hovind was right about one thing. At least one dinosaur coexists with mankind: Tom Banjanin, former county commissioner for the district that includes Pensacola Beach.

Banjanin announced today that he will be a candidate to nuzzle up to whatever public feeding trough he can manage to fool somebody into giving him. Today, it's the special election to fill state House District 3, recently vacated by Holly Benson after she was named head of Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

Before making a career of getting paid to do nothing as a county commissioner, Banjanin learned his trade as a state representative, where he also did nothing. So, you can certainly say he has experience.

Republican voters will have their second chance in four months to vote against the insipid Banjanin when early voting begins January 29.

Homo Sapiens Hanky-Panky

The Christian Science Monitor, among others, earlier this week reported the exciting news that two scientific teams working in Europe and the U.S. are well on their way to finishing "a rough draft" of the entire genome of Neanderthal man.

[U]sing the 38,000-year-old remains of a 38-year-old male, found in a Croatian cave, each group now says it has rebuilt, or sequenced, long segments of Neanderthal DNA - the twisted, ladder-shaped molecule in the nucleus of cells that holds an organism's genetic blueprint.

The technique is not only yielding new insights into Neanderthals, reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature and Friday's issue of Science, it's also likely to prove an important tool in teasing out secrets about how plants and animals evolved, researchers say. DNA "is the ultimate forensic record of evolution," says Sean Carroll, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "There's never been a more exciting time to be an evolutionary biologist."

The disturbing part in all of this is what looks like a new wrinkle in an old debate. Not the debate about what happened to Neanderthal man. The one about why Homo Sapiens, sapiens men can be such brutes to women.

Although the genome is far from complete, the teams have used the data to test questions about the history of humans and Neanderthals. One centers on the contentious issue of whether the two species interbred during the 10,000 to 20,000 years they shared the same territory in Europe and western Asia. Several paleo-anthropologists hold that the fossil record points to some interbreeding.

Dr. Rubin's group says that the genetic information his group has gathered so far shows no signs of interbreeding. The second team, led by Dr. Paabo of the Max Planck institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, suggests genes may have been mixed, but only in one direction - from male humans to Neanderthal females. [emphasis added]

Get it? Today's New York Times editorial calls it "hanky-panky." Others might call it rape.

"Jesus Camp" Reviewed

"His singed eyes, black in their deep sockets, seemed already to envision the fate that awaited him but he moved steadily on, his face set toward the dark city, where the children of God lay sleeping."

-- Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away (1955)

The late short story writer and novelist Flannery O'Connor once said, "My audience are the people who think God is dead."

O'Connor was herself a devout Roman Catholic. Most emphatically, she did not think that god was dead. Yet, when she wrote with sympathy and dark humor about the violent extremism of primitive Southern fundamentalists, the purposes and vision of her art often were misconstrued by reviewers, academics, religionists, and sometimes even her own family.

The grotesque, tormented fanatics she wrote about 'cannot possibly exist' was a common complaint in her time. She invented them simply for exaggerated effect, others suggested. The Protestant rural South that O'Connor depicts is 'demented', some argued; if the deranged people of whom she writes exist at all, fellow citizens of Milledgeville, Georgia, claimed, they certainly are not found in any numbers.

If those criticisms of Flannery O'Connor's work had any small merit then, they surely do not now. America has caught up with Flannery O'Connor's fiction. Doubters have only to see Jesus Camp, now playing at Gulf Breeze Cinema 4.

The film, as Kirsten A. Powers efficiently describes, is a documentary "which chronicles a North Dakota summer camp where kids as young as 6 are taught to become dedicated Christian soldiers in 'God's army... .'" Without benefit of narration, we simply see and hear what can only be described as brain-washing techniques used by adult evangelicals on their own adolescent children.

They home school them against evolution. During church services they lead prayers to a cardboard cut-out of George W. Bush. Before meetings they recite a 'pledge of allegiance' to a flag resembling the pop-culture version thought to have been carried into the Christian Crusades. And, at summer camp the children are dressed out in camouflage and practice military maneuvers with wooden swords while giving Heil Hitler-like straight-armed salutes.

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady abruptly begin the film Jesus Camp in a nondescript Missouri motel meeting hall off an interstate highway exchange. It's the kind of room that might easily be the site of a weekend company training session for Xerox repairmen. Instead, we see it filling with dozens of suburban soccer moms and their adolescent children whom they've hauled along for a weekend Play-and-Pray that apparently doubles as a recruiting session for "Kids on Fire," a fundamentalist summer camp.

The camp, we learn soon enough, is run by Becky Fisher in a remote part of North Dakota. Fisher is a Pentecostal minister of the charismatic variety that talks in gibberish called "tongues" and lays hands on people to "heal" them. She would be right at home in an O'Connor story.

A woman of gargantuan girth, Fisher is seen early in the film haranguing the children and their mothers about the evils of modern America. Among these she includes, without hint of irony or self-awareness, people made "fat and lazy" by too much fast food. Secular humanists in the audience will laugh. The true believers in Fisher's audience would not even see the reason.

As Fisher explains candidly to the camera, her church is training the children to be religious warriors who will "take back" the U.S. government. They are using, she says, techniques pioneered by Muslim religious extremists. 'Except," she adds with a smile, "we're right."

Before going to camp, the documentary invites us into the neat, average-looking suburban homes of some of the children's families. 'We don't believe in evolution,' Levi, a 12 year old boy recites for his mother by rote during a home schooling session at the kitchen table. Then he adds, unprompted, 'Galileo was right to renounce science, too.'

A cute ten year old girl dances to "Christian Rock" so frenetically in her pink-on-pink bedroom that she works up a sweat. Then, she worries aloud that some who see her may mistakenly suppose she is "dancing for the flesh" instead of for god.

The boy Levi could be a stand-in for Francis Marion Tarwater, O'Connor's troubled orphan in The Violent Bear It Away. Tarwater's crazy grandfather had prophesied that he would become a prophet in his own right and this haunts the boy throughout the novel. Levi hankers to become a minister, too. At camp we see him assiduously practicing his sermonizing skills, measuring each new phrase he has thought up for its emotional impact on a future audience. ('Use your youth until you're in your thirties,' Rev. Ted Haggard advises him, 'and by then you'll have content.')

The view we are given into this seemingly normal exterior world with an appallingly primitive spiritual core is not entirely monochrome. At camp, one articulate eight or nine year old openly confesses his doubts about god and the bible because, he says, there seems to be no evidence for either of them whatsoever. He is quickly shamed. After Becky Fisher sternly says, "We don't have phonies in the army of God," the boy winds up tearfully confessing to the sinful bent of his intellectually curious mind.

In the absence of any narrator of the film, Pensacola's own Mike Papantonio -- an Air America talk show host as well as a prominent local lawyer -- provides the only counterpoint to what we witness. In occasional cut-aways, we see him in the studio from time to time declaiming on the air against Jesus Camp and, near the end of the film, debating or interviewing Becky Fisher -- it's hard to tell which.

The film's subjects, however, more often than not expose their own fallacies. Therein lies any fun for the audience.

Nowhere is this so more than when the film makers follow some of the Jesus Camp families on a pilgrimage to the Rev. Ted Haggard's megachurch in Colorado Springs. You can see a cutting from the documentary for yourself on YouTube.

In the film, Haggard interrupts a sermon to stick his face into the camera and make inappropriate jokes about 'knowing what you did last night' and pretending to demand blackmail to keep 'your secret.' Embarrassed when he saw the scene later on celluloid, Haggard accused the film makers of having had "an agenda" -- which Ewing and Grady vigorously denied.

We don't have to wait for End Times to know how this one turned out. Haggard resigned from the church a little over one week ago after admitting he was a "deceiver and liar" who was "guilty of sexual immorality." It was he, not the filmmakers, who turns out to have been burdened by "a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life."

Secular humanists will find in this film ample proof of the rank hypocrisy that seems endemic to the current crop of religious revivalists. But they will also see a powerful spiritual commitment to changing American political and public life -- by marrying their church to our government. It seems to be a spirit as imperishable in their lives as it is antithetical to the American tradition and constitutional law. No matter how many of them may be unmasked as hypocrites, sinners, or cynics, one comes away from this documentary convinced they will persist... and persist... and persist.

As Neva Chonin wrote in her review of "Jesus Camp" for the San Francisco Chronicle, "The film offers one answer to why the country's Evangelical minority packs such a political wallop, and it's frighteningly simple: They're efficient -- and ruthless."

The real-life Jesus Camp closed last week (not the movie). supposedly a casualty of the documentary. But don't think for a moment the camp "counselors" have quit. Any day, now, they'll be coming toward the "dark city" near you.

Dr. Dino's Judgment Day

The federal court jury Thursday afternoon convicted Kent Hovind ("Dr. Dino") and his wife Jo of multiple counts of tax fraud. The jury deliberated only two and a half hours; much of that time, we suspect, was occupied by ordering lunch and selecting the foreman.

Nicole Lozare once again drew the short straw at the Pensacola News Journal:

"Kent Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, was found guilty of 58 counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes. He faces a maximum of 288 years in prison.

"Jo Hovind was charged and convicted in 44 of the counts involving evading bank-reporting requirements. She faces up to 225 years in prison but was allowed to remain free pending the couple's sentencing on Jan. 9."

Many may suppose the convictions were a foregone conclusion when Dr. Dino's lawyer was admonished by the judge for wasting the court's time and, the next day, both defendants elected not to call any witnesses or to testify themselves. The truth, however, is that unlike cynical hypocrites such as the Hovinds, who made a small fortune peddling biblical fantasies to simple-minded religionists, lawyers have to work in a world of reality with the facts they are given.

In the end, reality always prevails, sooner or later.

Amplification Dept.
Two Dinosaurs
Dr. Dino gets his sentence.

Dr. Dino Defense Rests

UPDATES BELOW
In Wednesday's installment about the Dr. Dino trial, the Pensacola News Journal reported "The defense has subpoenaed 10 witnesses." For Thursday's newspaper, however, the PNJ is reporting "the defense will not present a case."

As we said yesterday, there is "literary precedent" for this. Given a defendant who scams millions by preaching that dinosaurs and mankind were set down on Earth simultaneously, Morgenhall himself couldn't have said it any better:

"Tactics, you see. We'd decided not to trouble with science."

---------
UPDATE # 1

In the print edition of Thursday's paper we're told, "Before the break, [defense counsel Alan] Richey discussed with [Judge] Rodgers the witnesses he planned to call. After Wednesday's session, Richey said there was no need for a defense."

Sounds to us as if the judge may have issued a gentle -- or not so gentle -- private warning to Richey. Something along these lines, we imagine:

"I will not have any religious screwballs making a circus out of my courtroom, Mr. Richey. So I suggest you check your witness list twice to be sure every single one of the ten witnesses you have subpoenaed has personal knowledge of some admissible fact relevant to the case, not just a hair-brained opinion or 'faith-based' belief that defies reality. Otherwise, the U.S. Marshall will be measuring you for an orange jumpsuit, too."

UPDATE # 2

Red State Rabble ("A skeptic's dispatches from the fly-over zone") got off a good one about the defense's failure to offer any evidence:

"Hey, wait just a minute. That's the same proof they offer for creationism and intelligent design."

Dr. Dino's "Terrible Trumpet"

"There are ways and ways of losing."

-- John Mortimer, The Dock Brief, Sc. 2

To her credit, Nicole Lozare slips in a bit of courtroom color in her article summarizing yesterday's doings at the trial of Dr. Dino. At last, readers are given a taste of the real flavor of the courtroom, with all the bumblings and fumblings and missteps and outbursts that try judge's souls and make the proceedings ever so human:

"[O]n Tuesday, it wasn't always clear where [defense lawyer] Richey's lengthy cross-examination of Schneider was going. The Washington attorney was admonished by U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers for asking irrelevant questions.

"One example: Richey questioned Schneider about a letter U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson sent to Hovind in response to the evangelist's questions about taxation. Nelson wrote that the IRS is committed to ensuring that "everyone pays their fair share of taxes."

"'Does everyone in your office pay their fair share of taxes?'" Richey asked Schneider. Schneider didn't respond because Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Heldmyer objected and the judge agreed it was irrelevant."

Although Lozare doesn't give us an exact body count, offering that snippet as "one example" suggests that, overall, Tuesday wasn't a good day for the defendants -- or Dr. Dino's defense lawyer.

"When Richey spent several minutes looking for documents, [Judge] Rodgers excused the jury. She then told Richey he was wasting their time. Rodgers then suggested Richey come in earlier or stay later to make sure his files were organized."

Who is this Richey fellow? "DodgerDean" over at The Panda's Thumb speculated last September in the comments section that he might be the same Port Hadlock, Washington, attorney who previously represented one Nadine Griffen who was convicted of filing a false tax return on her earnings as a saleswoman of off-shore seminars which "promoted and marketed fraudulent tax schemes."

Well, as they say, there are many opportunities to specialize in the law. You just have to find your niche.

The larger question Lozare's dispatch inspires is this: Is there any method to Dr. Dino's madness in having Mr. Richey as his lawyer? One precedent, of a literary kind, comes to mind: John Mortimer's classic radio play, The Dock Brief.

The play was later filmed and released under the title "Trial and Error" starring Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough. As Bosley Crowther explained in a New York Times review at the time of original release, the film, like the play on which it is based, is --

"[N]othing more than a long dialogue ... between a meek little man [played by Attenborough] accused of murdering his eternally cheerful wife and the ponderous and dull-witted barrister [Peter Sellers] assigned by the court to defend him.
* * *
"The humor is in the fumbling discourse, the clumsy clichés by which these two expose their pathetically dull backgrounds and their horribly middle-class minds.

"The law's a tricky business," Mr. Sellers sagely observes, and Mr. Attenborough, after some cogitation on that weighty observation, replies, with the profundity of a pundit, "It is a bit chancy, yes."

We can't find a full text version of the play on-line, but Wisconsin law professor John Kidwell's essay offers a deliciously detailed description of the plot and liberally quotes from the script of this hilarious satire of lawyers at their work:

"The Dock Brief ... gives new meaning to the phrase 'ineffective assistance of counsel.' It opens with Morgenhall, a barrister played by Peter Sellers, being admitted to the cell of a man who has been accused of murdering his wife. Morgenhall, we quickly learn, is an unsuccessful barrister who has been waiting for years for the court to assign him a case; in England such an assigned case is referred to as a 'dock brief' -- hence the name of the film. Morgenhall’s first dock brief -- and in fact, apparently, first case of any kind -- is the defense of the unfortunate Mr. Fowle, played by Richard Attenborough. Fowle is the meek proprietor of a birdseed shop who has killed his wife because she saw humor in everything, and her raucous laughter and practical jokes finally drove him over the edge.
* * *
Most of the film is set in Fowle’s cell, and consists of Morgenhall’s discussion with Fowle about the strategies to be employed to obtain Fowle’s acquittal, notwithstanding ... that Perry Mason, Clarence Darrow and Cicero working together couldn’t have succeeded in getting Fowle off.
* * *
Ordinarily we expect the client to be the victim of some predicament, who turns to the lawyer to be rescued. Here ... that assumption is turned on its head. Morgenhall the lawyer is the one who needs help lest his whole career be a complete failure. When Fowle admits his guilt Morgenhall suggests he is being selfish and inconsiderate.

Morgenhall [the lawyer]: You think you killed your wife.
Fowle [the defendant]: Seems to me.
Morgenhall: Mr. Fowle. Look at yourself objectively. On questions of birdseed I have no doubt you may be infallible -- but on a vital point like this might you not be mistaken . . . ? Don’t answer.
Fowle: Why not sir?
Morgenhall: Before you drop the bomb of a reply, consider who will be wounded. Are the innocent to suffer?
Fowle: I only want to be honest.
Morgenhall: But you’re a criminal, Mr. Fowle. You’ve broken through the narrow fabric of honesty. You are free to be kind, human, to do good.
Fowle: But what I did to her . . .
Morgenhall: She’s passed, you know, out of your life. You’ve set up new relationships. You’ve picked out me.

When the defendant gently points out that, in fact, he hadn't picked Morgenhall to defend him -- instead the court had assigned the lawyer to his case at random -- Morganhall is momentarily crushed. But he recovers quickly:

Morgenhall: Never mind. You hurt me temporarily, Fowle, I must confess. It might have been kinder to have kept me in ignorance. But now, it’s done. Let’s get down to business. And Fowle -
Fowle: Yes, sir.
Morgenhall: Remember, you’re dealing with a fellow man. A man no longer young. Remember the hopes I’ve pinned on you and try . . .
Fowle: Try?
Morgenhall: Try to spare me more pain.
Fowle: I will, sir. Of course I will.

And so it goes with the two of them, lawyer and client, sitting in the jail cell before trial as the lawyer Morgenhall tries out first one defense and then another, practices imaginary witness examinations, and dreams of delivering the clinching final argument that will win the day in court. With every exercise, however, the client gently, so as not to hurt the lawyer's feelings, points out there is no such witness as he has imagined exists. There is no evidence of his innocence, no reasoned basis for the lawyer's fantasies, because the defendant really did it.

In the end, it seems, the husband is convicted of killing his wife. It develops, as well, that his lawyer has thoroughly botched the trial. He cross-examined no one, he called no witnesses of his own. He was struck dumb before the jury when it came time for his summation.

Back in the cell after the jury has returned its verdict, the lawyer continues to be assailed by self-doubts while simultaneously yearning for his client to assuage them. From a hard copy of the play we happen to have on hand:

MORGENHALL: And then they called that doctor.
FOWLE: You were right not to bother with him.
MORGENHALL: Tactics, you see. We'd decided not to trouble with science.
FOWLE: So we had. And with Bateson . . .
MORGENHALL: No, Fowle. I must beware of your flattery. I think I might have asked Bateson . . .
FOWLE: It wouldn't have made a farthing's difference. A glance told them he was a demon.
MORGENHALL: He stood there, so big and red, with his no tie and dirty collar. I rose up to question him and suddenly it seemed as if there were no reason for us to converse. I remembered what you said about his jokes, his familiarity with your wife. What had he and I in common? I turned from him in disgust. I think that jury guessed the reason for my silence with friend Bateson.

As for the final argument:

MORGENHALL: I stood up, Mr. Fowle, and it was the moment I'd waited for. Ambition had driven me to it, the moment when I was alone with what I wanted. Everyone turned to me, twelve blank faces in the jury box, eager to have the grumpy looks wiped off them. The judge was silent. The prosecutor courteously pretended to be asleep. I only had to open my mouth and pour words out. What stopped me?
FOWLE: What?
Morgenhall: Fear. That's what's suggested.

Eventually, however, it dawns on Morgenhall that his client may not appreciate the gravity of what he supposes to be the court's judgment:

MORGENHALL: I lost, Mr. Fowle. You may not be aware of it. It may not have been hammered home to you yet. But your case is lost.
FOWLE: But there are ways and ways of losing.
MORGENHALL: That's true, of course.
FOWLE: I noticed your artfulness right at the start, when the policeman gave evidence. You pulled out that red handkerchief, slowly and deliberately, like a conjuring trick.
MORGENHALL: And blew?
FOWLE: A sad, terrible trumpet.
MORGENHALL: Unnerved him, I thought.
FOWLE: He never recovered. There was no call to ask questions after that.

The surprise comes when the lawyer at last notices that Fowle appears altogether too happy for a man who has just been convicted. As Prof. Kidwell describes the scene:

"Fowle, somewhat reluctantly, discloses that he is about to be released. When Morgenhall asks why, Fowle even more reluctantly admits it is because the trial has been ruled 'no good at all—it is all null and void—because the barrister selected for him was no good—an old crock.'

Morgenhall's incompetence, it seems, was the best defense of all.

FOWLE: Don't you see? If I'd had a barrister who asked questions and made clever speeches I'd be as dead as mutton. Your artfulness saved me... . The dumb tactics. They paid off! I'm alive!"

It seems improbable that here in Pensacola we will see Dr. Dino escape justice by relying on a similar collection of "dumb tactics" orchestrated by his out of state defense lawyer. Still, it isn't totally out of the question. As The Dock Brief defendant points out (above) to his own court-appointed lawyer, "There are ways and ways of losing."

Dr. Dino On God's Payroll

Up to bat with the latest Pensacola News Journal report about Dr. Dino's tax fraud trial is Nicole Lozare. With the excessive credulity she usually musters for any fantastic fable, Lozare again refers to Hovind, erroneously as we have hinted before, as a "tax protestor." Then she reports without a hint of irony:

"Despite a million-dollar business and speaking engagement earnings of nearly $50,000 a year, Pensacola evangelists Kent and Jo Hovind did not count the money as income.
* * *
Special IRS Agent Scott Schneider testified Monday that the couple denied that they had any income in numerous documents.
* * *
"Kent Hovind, a tax protester, makes a substantial amount of money. Schneider testified that in 2002, the ministry sold more than $1.8 million in Christian merchandise. But Hovind believes he and his employees work for God, are paid by God and, therefore, aren't subject to taxation."

It's difficult to believe Schneider actually testified that Hovind "believes" his own bull. More likely, what agent Schneider testified is that this is what Hovind claimed.

Maybe Lozare was just exhausted. She writes that Schneider was on the witness stand "for nearly eight hours," from which one can assume (because the reporter isn't saying) that the judge is making the lawyers work overtime after a week off due to a defense attorney's illness.

In any event, Hovind's substantial income didn't stop him or his wife from pleading poverty to a local medical establishment:

"'Dr. and Mrs. Kent Hovind do not earn salaries,' wrote Martha Harris, the trust secretary of Creation Science Evangelism to Baptist. 'As health insurance is not provided for this couple, we would appreciate (financial assistance.)'"

That little anecdote reminds us of a line from Edward Albee's great stage play about self-deception, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? One of the house guests, Nick, is explaining to George that he's financially set because he married a woman whose father was a traveling preacher. The preacher collected a fortune from Christian simpletons, he says, "And when he died there was a lot of money."

George asks, slightly mystified, but wasn't that "God's money?"

"No," says Nick, "He spent God's money and saved his own."

Dr. Dino's Pizza Party

It was always apparent that it would take a wicked combination of avarice, hubris, and stupidity for someone like Kent Hovind to bilk befuddled boobs out of their money by convincing them that god manufactured dinosaurs and mankind in the same week and airmailed them all to earth at the same time. Yesterday's testimony in the Dr. Dino trial proved that Hovind has all three dubious qualifications.

One of the PNJ's stalwarts, reporter Michael Stewart, has the story. It takes place "after church" two years ago when Hovind invited Seminole, Florida, attorney David Charles Gibbs "and his daughter, along with other church members... to Hovind's home for pizza and soda."

Gibbs, Stewart reports, "is affiliated with the Christian Law Association, a nonprofit organization founded by his father that offers free legal help to churches nationwide." But instead of picking Gibbs' brain for free advice about his many frivolous lawsuits and IRS troubles, Hovind spent the afternoon lecturing the lawyer on his own screwy legal theories:

"Gibbs said Hovind tried to persuade him he had no obligation to pay employee income taxes and explained with 'a great deal of bravado' how he had 'beat the tax system.'

Gibbs said Hovind also told him he preferred to deal in cash and that when you are 'dealing with cash there is no way to trace it, so it wasn't taxable.'"

Some measure of Dr. Dino's deranged view of himself can be gleaned from the analogies he pressed on Gibbs:

"'He tried to stress to me that he was like the pope and this was like the Vatican,' Seminole attorney David Charles Gibbs testified... ."

Now, the Vatican may consist of only 108 acres. But it is officially recognized by hundreds of diplomatic treaties as an independent nation. So, it's something of a hoot to learn that Hovind sees himself as the same kind of fellow as, say, Hildebrand (aka Pope Gregory VII - 1020?-1085), who excommunicated kings and emperors and fielded entire armies in his effort to fill the void left by the collapse of the Roman Empire with a religious theocracy stretching from Constantinople to London.

What's less amusing is to realize that Dr. Dino claims he is exempt from all uniform local, state, and federal tax laws simply because he asserts fruity ideas that are biblical in character. After all, to a secular realist Dr. Dino's religious ideas at a certain level of abstraction are no more outlandish or fantastical than those of other churches, religions, and faith-based organizations who have been bullying Congress and state legislatures into giving them special tax exemptions.

Just last week, the New York Times drew attention to this phenomenon with a four-part series on religious tax breaks. For online readers, most of the series is hidden behind Times Select (although you may be able to freely access a couple of them here and here. But you can get the flavor from the one installment that is still readable for free, titled "As Exemptions Grow, Religion Outweighs Regulation":

"In recent years, many politicians and commentators have cited what they consider a nationwide 'war on religion' that exposes religious organizations to hostility and discrimination. But such organizations — from mainline Presbyterian and Methodist churches to mosques to synagogues to Hindu temples — enjoy an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number is multiplying rapidly.

* * * {M]any have been granted in just the last 15 years — sometimes added to legislation, anonymously and with little attention, much as are the widely criticized 'earmarks' benefiting other special interests.

An analysis by The New York Times of laws passed since 1989 shows that more than 200 special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into Congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use. New breaks have also been provided by a host of pivotal court decisions at the state and federal level, and by numerous rule changes in almost every department and agency of the executive branch.

The special breaks amount to 'a sort of religious affirmative action program,' said John Witte Jr., director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at the Emory University law school.

Professor Witte added: 'Separation of church and state was certainly part of American law when many of today’s public opinion makers were in school. But separation of church and state is no longer the law of the land.'"

So, it would seem Dr. Dino isn't the only 'Christian' who's been throwing parties and angling for tax exemptions to subsidize his magical thinking. Everybody and anybody who embraces the same or similar irrational ideations has been getting into the act. The difference is, the smarter ones buy a few politicians, first, to earmark exemptions for them.

As the Times later editorialized when the series had concluded:

"Religious institutions should be protected from excessive intrusion by government. Judges should not tell churches who they have to hire as ministers, or meddle in doctrinal disputes. But under pressure from politically influential religious groups, Congress, the White House, and federal and state courts have expanded this principle beyond all reason. It is increasingly being applied to people, buildings and programs only tangentially related to religion.

"In its expanded form, this principle amounts to an enormous subsidy for religion, in some cases violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment. It also undermines core American values, like the right to be free from job discrimination. It puts secular entrepreneurs at an unfair competitive disadvantage. And it deprives states and localities of much-needed tax revenues, putting a heavier burden on ordinary taxpayers."

Pizza, anyone? The "atoms of carbon which enter into its composition," as T.H. Huxley would have reasoned had he known that Pizza Hut delivers, will taste just like the sacramental wafer -- only without the cheese.

The Confidential Informant

Prosecutors in the Dr. Dino tax evasion trial yesterday apparently tried to make it look like it was a Pensacola Christian College executive who blew the whistle on Kent Hovind's tax evasion scheme.

According to the tag-team news report by Angela Fail in the local paper, Christian College vice-president Rebekah Horton testified yesterday that it was she who informed on Dr. Dino and turned taped evidence over to the feds. As Fail succinctly explains:

"[Dr. Dino] Hovind believes he and his employees work for God, are paid by God and therefore aren't subject to taxation."

Here's the surprise: according to the news report, the Pensacola Christian College executive "believed it was the college's duty to report the misleading doctrine." Consequently, the PCC vice-president testified, "Administration called the Internal Revenue Service and gave the tape to officials... ."

"Misleading doctrine"? Good grief! If PCC faculty and staff see it as their "duty" to "report...misleading doctrine" they're going to be awfully busy turning in every magical thinker out there -- starting with the screwball faculty and staff at Pensacola Christian College itself.

The truth is, the feds really didn't need Horton's crime tip. Earlier reports establish that "Dr. Dino" and the U.S. Government had been thoroughly entangled, in court and out, for years. Kent Hovind has been filing frivolous lawsuits and bogus bankruptcy claims against the IRS for much of the last decade.

Moreover, videotapes of Hovind's multi-part seminar on why Christians of his particular flavor- of-choice lived alongside dinosaurs and shouldn't pay their taxes have been in the public domain for as long as Kent Hovind has been fleecing simpletons with his Dr. Dino act. Various copies are now available on the web.

In the third video segment of a 2003 'seminar' given in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Dr. Dino happens to make an admission against interest relevant to the ongoing trial. In fake-folksy introductory remarks while speaking of his wife and adult children, Hovind says:

"We live in Pensacola, Florida. We have three kids, all married, and the dog died. I made it -- I'm home free. It's wonderful. And all three of my kids work for me... ."

Take a look, if you don't mind risking the health of your brain. The admission comes at minute 1:04, so you don't have to watch all 3 hours of his hokum.

Tag-Teaming Dr. Dino's Trial

Apparently, the Pensacola News Journal intends to cover Dr. Dino's trial for tax evasion straight, no chaser. No H.L. Mencken to give us the colorful commentary; no 'kick, bounce, or leap' in the style of A.J. Liebling, no Runyonesque accounts of the certifiably weird characters in the Dr. Dino trial who surely rival the cast of the Daddy and Peaches soap opera.

Just the facts, ma'am?

Well, not quite. The paper seemingly has decided to use a tag-team of reporters, switching from one to the next with each passing day. It's a terrible decision, no doubt driven by Gannett Corporation's devastating cuts across the news room. But once made, you'd think the dwindling staff of PNJ reporters sentenced to cover the case would at least read the news dispatches filed by their predecessors before they rush off to court themselves.

Apparently not. Today's front-page, top-of-the-fold coverage of the tax evasion trial of Dr. Dino is the handiwork of reporter Amy Sowder. Somehow, she manages to drain even more blood and context from the event than did her colleague, Angela Fail, in yesterday's paper.

For proof, we submit Ms. Sowder's lede as Exhibit 1:

"Two people who worked for a Pensacola evangelist testified Wednesday in federal court that they didn't consider where they worked to be a church."

That's a two-fer. In a single opening sentence, Sowder has managed both to focus the reader's attention on the most irrelevant part of yesterday's testimony and to camouflage the most pertinent part.

Whether Dr. Dino's "Dinosaur Adventure Land" is a "church" or not is legally irrelevant to the charges he faces. As Angela Fail reported yesterday, prosecutor Michelle Heldmeyer explained it this way in her opening statement to the jury:

"...though the Hovinds refer to their business as a ministry, it's not affiliated with a church, she said.

"It's not a church," she said. "But that doesn't matter, because a church still has to pay payroll tax."

The camouflage starts with the headline -- "Workers Testify In 'Dr. Dino' Trial" -- and is repeated throughout Souder's dispatch. "Workers." That's a nice, neutral-sounding word. What Souder doesn't tell her readers is that she's using that word to avoid addressing a central issue in the trial: not whether "Dinosaur Adventure Land" is a church, but whether the people who were staffing it -- the "workers" -- are employees or independent contractors.

If the religious zealots who took money from a gullible public at Dr. Dino's emporium of ecclesiastical effluent were "employees" then Dr. Dino was required by law to secure and file W-4s, withhold payroll taxes, send out W-2 forms, and escrow both employee and employer Social Security taxes. If, instead, they were "independent contractors" then he wasn't.

The standards for resolving that issue are well known. As the IRS explains it on the web:

"In determining whether the person providing service is an employee or an independent contractor, all information that provides evidence of the degree of control and independence must be considered.
* * *
A general rule is that anyone who performs services for you is your employee if you can control what will be done and how it will be done.

Reporting facts without context is bad journalism. Even so, we'd be ready to forgive all if only the PNJ reporters would write their trial dispatches in a compelling or entertaining way.

But readers of the PNJ will search in vain through the past two days for any hint of what the witnesses really looked like on the witness stand. Did they sweat and shift uncomfortably in the seat as they came into the presence of the self-proclaimed "steward" of "god's money"? Did any of the jurors visibly react to the testimony? Is the judge keeping a tight rein on the proceedings? Or, instead, is she letting out leagues of loose rope with which Dr. Dino and his lawyers are invited to hang their own case?

Is there no moment of levity in the courtroom to break the tension among the lawyers? (That would be a first.) No quick exchange of Christ-like beatific smiles between Dr. Dino loyalists in the gallery who still believe god sent him something like a text-message to open up a commercial bank checking account and have "his employees to sign nondisclosure agreements if they wanted to keep their jobs"?

Little wonder serious people are asking if newspapers can survive the digital information age. The answer is: not if they report trials the way the News Journal is covering this one.

Dinosaur Trial Begins

The long-awaited trial of Dr. Dino has commenced. The jury has been sworn, the lawyers have delivered their opening statements. Today the evidence begins to pour in.

Angela Fail filed a workman-like story for the Pensacola News Journal. Very Journalism School, very balanced, very fair, very... well, prosaic and boring:

"Opening statements began Tuesday in the trial of Pensacola evangelist Kent Hovind and his wife, Jo. Between them, the Hovinds are charged with 58 counts of tax fraud involving their Creation Science Ministry. The ministry includes Dinosaur Adventure Land on North Palafox Street, a creationist theme park dedicated to debunking evolution."

"Dedicated to debunking evolution?" Debunking? Kent Hovind is a mountebank who made millions off the ignorance and fear of an uneducated, timorous public by selling them the hallucinatory notion that the bible proves dinosaurs inhabited the earth at the same time as mankind. He no more 'debunks' evolution than the Wizard of Oz proves monkeys can fly.

Ms. Fail does okay setting up the prosecutor's story:

"Heldmeyer said from 1999 to March 2004, the Hovinds took in more than $5 million. Their income came from amusement-park profits and merchandise -- books, audiotapes and videotapes -- they sold on site and through phone and online orders, she said. About half the money went to employees."

Then she blew it by not reporting the context: what Hovind sells isn't "merchandise" -- it's pure baloney sandwiched between slices of claptrap and bunkum.

Angela! Loosen up, have some fun. More to the point, let us have some fun. Give us the smell of the courtroom, the smirk in the corner of that juror's pursed lips, the sight of the lawyer who takes mincing steps across the courtroom floor like someone whose shoes are too tight.

Wake up, Angela! This could be a career maker for you. Sure, it's a tax fraud case. Sure, you're looking ahead at a string of dreary days while soporous accountants and vapid IRS agents dutifully drone on and on about numbers without end. But your own trial reports shouldn't be equally torpid.

Take a clue from H.L. Mencken's timeless coverage of the Scopes "Monkey Trial." Look behind the curtain. Follow "the squirming and jabbering mass" out to the Hills of Zion. Tell us "to what extreme lengths the salvation of the local primates has been pushed." Let us know if the prosecutor's speech about taxing churches had the same effect as if she "had bawled it up a rainspout in the interior of Afghanistan."

It might not conform to the usual journalism rules. Then again, apparently this isn't the usual kind of case. The defense attorneys already are complaining that when they executed a search warrant "IRS agents stepped outside their authority... interrogating employees and confiscating records and money."

Holy moley, no! Armed with a court-authorized search warrant, the agents actually "confiscated" potential evidence? How low can they go?

There seems to be enough hokum in this courtroom to fill a museum of natural history -- you know the kind we mean. A museum that shows dinosaurs in their natural habit grazing at the fast food window.

Fundamentally, Just as Stupid

From Live Science.com we learn that, "A comparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower."

The news is based on a report in the current issue of Science (subscription required), publishing the results of a 30-year survey by researchers who combined the data from public surveys about evolution conducted in 32 European countries, the United States, and Japan between 1985 and 2005. The basic question asked was --

"Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals -- Is this true, false, or are you not sure?"

[Click graph to enlarge]

So, what accounts for the rank stupidity of most Americans? According to Jon D. Miller of Michigan State University, one of the co-authors of the study, "American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, which is why Turkey and we are so close."

Indecent Trial Reporting

"Investigative reporters don't have a sense of humor. They can't afford one."

As we 'noted' the other day, after the latest round of reductions-in-force at the Pensacola News Journal, the unfortunates who remain in Gannett Corp.'s employ are being required to double-up, or worse, in journalism assignments. Increasingly, it seems, editors are sending them far afield from their usual beats to cover subjects about which the reporters couldn't care less -- or aren't competent to handle.

This doesn't make for an informed readership. But we have to admit, it is entertaining to watch.

Take two of today's front-page courtroom related stories. The first one was covered by Michael Stewart, one of the few left at the PNJ who justly might be considered a skilled investigative reporter. He was assigned to waste his talents reporting on the federal court prosecution of the "Christian" proselytizer Kent ("Dr. Dino") Hovind.

The second story was handed off to Nicole Lozare, who formerly malpracticed her trade on Pensacola Beach. This week, she was dispatched to the state courthouse to cover the trial of Janelle Bird, the 25 year-old school teacher who is accused of bedding a 15 year-old student of hers.

Time was when the Pensacola News Journal, aware of the rich veins of public policy -- not to mention local lunacy -- to be mined in the depths of local courthouses, hired actual trial-wise reporters for such stuff. No longer.

Neither of today's reporting assignments make much sense.

We've mentioned the Dr. Dino story before. Hovind and a fervent band of college students from Pensacola Christian College for some time, now, have been shaking down credulous simpletons by thumping on the Bible and telling them dinosaurs and mankind shared the earth together a few thousand years ago. Now, "Dr. Dino" and his wife have been charged in a 58-count indictment with failing to pay nearly half a million dollars in income taxes, employer Social Security withholding, and Medicare employment deductions.

Hovind raked in the money and stiffed the callow college kids at "Dinosaur Adventure Land," a pathetic backyard of a house he festooned with ridiculous-looking yard ornaments and playground equipment resembling cartoon dinosaurs. Then, he started charging money to see them and buy his propaganda books.

Now, "Dr. Dino" claims all that money really belongs to God and he is merely guarding it from the Darwin-loving grasp of the IRS.

The latest twist in this hilarious tale is that Hovind, based on various cockamamie constitutional arguments, is demanding that the federal court return his passport while he's out on bail so he can fly to South Africa next month. The trip was planned, as Stewart writes, so Dr. Dino could "'square off against several luminaries who hail from different scientific disciplines,' according to the Web site for Power Ministries."

He'll hurry back for the trial. Yeah, sure. As long as God buys him a return ticket.

Much as we appreciate his talents, this courtroom story doesn't deserve heavy artillery like Michael Stewart. It needs a comedy writer.

As is well known in the world of journalism, investigative reporters don't have a sense of humor. They can't afford one. Otherwise, they'd be giggling all the way through the interviews with crooked public officials, hypocritical politicians, and randy religious leaders caught with their hands in the till or up the skirts of parishioners.

As for the Nicole Lozare story, the inappropriateness of sending her to cover a court trial of any kind should be evident to anyone who knows her work. She lacks the substantive knowledge, listening skills, and critical thinking ability to report on anything more serious than a beach bathtub race.

But -- who'd a thunk it? -- Nicole does have a talent. As a steamy romance writer! Get this lede:

Tears rolling down her face, a former teacher who faces up to 60 years in prison testified there was nothing lewd and lascivious about her relationship with her 15-year-old student -- just love.

Janelle Bird, 25, said she loved him so much that, despite a Pensacola Christian College education that preached against premarital sex, she gave him her virginity.

"Gave him her virginity?" If that's a quote from the defendant's testimony, you'd think Nicole would have given her readers some sort of clue -- like quotation marks, for instance. Perhaps she feared that doing so would make it seem, to borrow Lynn Truss' words, like "a kind of linguisitic rubber glove, distancing [herself] from vulgar words [she] is too refined to use in a normal way."

Apart from the steamy prose, obscurantism, and the (yet another) example of Lozare's carelessness with quotations, she seems to have missed entirely the story-behind-the story. According to Lozare, the teacher --

didn't deny that she had sex with the teen nearly a dozen times in August and October. But she denied that it was lewd and lascivious.

Now, here is where a real trial reporter might have done some good. What on earth is the defense doing? Why would the accused teacher take the stand and testify so explicitly to her long-running affair with a 15 year-old male student? Why would the defense lawyer let her? Don't they watch Law & Order?

These are questions we imagine most readers are asking themselves today. They have to ask because these questions don't seem to have occurred to Nicole Lozare.

Could it be that the Florida Supreme Court has "reserved" approving a standard jury instruction for "lewd" and "lascivious" to share with juries? Might it be that the state's statutory definitions of those words are vague and even contradictory? Even on-line dictionaries offer what some could argue are incompatible definitions of lewd ("lustful" or "indecent") and "lascivious" ("expressing lust" or "salacious").

Add to that the fact that the whole of the "common law of England" -- we're talking over seven centuries of judicial decisions, now -- is expressly made part of Florida criminal law by the very first section (775.01) of the Florida Criminal Code, and you can begin to see there may be some method to the madness of having the defendant testify that, sure, she had an affair. So what?

At the least, there seems to be enough confusion in Florida law over what "lewd" and "lascivious" mean that even a linguist would have trouble reaching a reasoned judgment. Even if the jury eventually throws out whatever definitions the court may give it and concludes -- as Justice Potter Stewart once did about what constitutes obscenity -- that they know lewd and lascivious when they see them, it's a good bet there will be protracted appeals to higher courts.

Is that what the defense has in mind? We can't be sure. The reporter covering this trial isn't saying.

Dr. Dino, Tax Free

"If the leaseholders' tax suit fails, maybe we can have another go by declaring beach life a religion and Pensacola Beach the promised land. After all, there is plenty of scriptural support."

Jennifer Liberto reported in yesterday's St. Petersburg Times that the Florida legislature is seriously considering passing a new statute which would award a property tax exemption to "A biblical theme park in Orlando where guests pay $30 admission to munch on "Goliath" burgers and explore reproductions of 2000-year-old tombs and temples... ."

"So far," Liberto reports, "there doesn't appear to be any organized opposition to the bill, which sailed through a Senate committee Tuesday with no debate."

The Senate bill is being promoted by state senator Daniel Webster R-Orange County) , who is chairman -- chairman! -- of the Senate Judiciary Committee. A similar bill is being sponsored in the Florida House by Rep. Frederick Brummer (R-Orange County), chairman of the House Tax and Finance Committee.

Obviously, these two guys are heavy hitters in the mental ward known as the Florida legislature. They also must be colossal dumbbells.

Even the "director of ministries" for "Creation Science Evangelism" recognizes the proposed exemption "should be a little more broad in scope and not even limit it to Christians. That seems a little discriminatory."

It isn't clear to us, either, why one faith-based theme park should be exempt from taxes and tens of thousands of others not. There's just as much scientific evidence that Mickey Mouse married Minnie after getting her pregnant as there is that the Earth was created in six days, with one day off for good behavior. Or, for that matter, that 72 virgins await you in heaven. There are countless other myths and magical thoughts from world religions that could become a tax-free theme park.

Creationist nuts already are starting to fall out of the trees in their haste to get aboard this legislative gravy train. Liberto reports that among them is Pensacola's very own alleged "religious theme park," Dinosaur Adventure Land (“Where dinosaurs and the Bible meet!”).

Dino Land, as it is known locally, is run by Kent ("Dr. Dino") Hovind. Hovind has been described by some as a "creationist and tax dodger". He describes himself as one of the leading authorities on "Science and the Bible." More than you'd ever want to know about him is available at Carl Marychurch's web site named, appropriately, Analysis of Kent Hovind.

The 'doctor' part comes from a degree awarded by something called "Patriot University" in Colorado. PU, so it has been reported, charges $100 for a Ph.D.

The "tax dodger" part stems from Dr. Dino's well publicized run-ins with the law , other bizarre court cases, and his attempted bankruptcy filing, which was dismissed for being filed in "bad faith."

In a November 2004 profile by Greg Martinez, Hovind's Dino Land was revealed to be not much more than a "converted backyard ... stuffed full of children’s games and playground equipment . . . and lots of fiberglass dinosaurs." The essential "theme" of this "park" is that the Earth is no more than 6,000 years old, God created mankind and dinosaurs at the same time, and Noah left the big dinosaurs behind to be drowned in the Big Flood but took a few small ones aboard -- which, we are assured, "explains Bigfoot."

Inside the visitor center, an investigator for Morris Dees' Southern Poverty Law Center -- the same heroic organization that put Richard Butler's "Aryan Nation" out of business in Idaho, as Firedoglake coincidentally reminisces today -- found a bookstore selling:

various books on "Evolution and the New World Order." (At least one of them, Fourth Reich of the Rich, alleges a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.) * * * Citizens Rule Book, popular among antigovernment "Patriots"; Media Bypass, an antigovernment magazine with strong anti-Semitic leanings; and titles by America's leading authority on tax-dodging... .

It isn't particular clear to us why Florida should grant a tax exemption to one myth-based religious theme park and deny it to others. But Pensacola Beach residents should pay attention, anyway.

If the leaseholders' tax suit fails, maybe we can have another go by declaring beach life a religion and Pensacola Beach the promised land. After all, there is plenty of scriptural support, starting with Genesis 1:6:

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Water on two sides. Firmament in between. Sounds to us like it ought to be a tax-free Holy Land Theme Park.

--------------

Dept. of Amplification
Sharp-eyed Bryan points out in the reader comments, below, that just this week Dino Land was ordered shuttered by a state circuit court judge. The story was carried in today's PNJ, of all things.

Here's a snippet:

Owners of the park, which shows how dinosaurs may have roamed the Earth just a few thousand years ago, did not obtain a building permit before constructing the building in 2002. They have argued in and out of court that it violates their "deeply held" religious beliefs, and that the church-run facility does not have to obtain permits.

After almost four years of litigation, the judge disagreed and said the county has the authority to close the building until the owners comply with regulations.

The judge also fined two church leaders $500 each per day for every day the building is used or occupied. If church officials continue to refuse to comply with local ordinances, the judge may decide that the building can be razed, Allen's ruling said.

County commissioners showed no sympathy to members of the Creation Science Evangelism ministry who spoke out Thursday night at a commission meeting about the county's actions.

"Scripture also says 'Render unto Caesar what Caesar demands.' And right now, Caesar demands a building permit," County Commission Chairman Mike Whitehead said.

Whaddaya bet we haven't heard the last of Dr. Dino and 'Caesar' Mike Whitehead?

What Will King George Do?

"President Bush said Monday he believes schools should discuss "intelligent design" alongside evolution when teaching students about the creation of life."

-- SF Gate, Aug. 2, 2005

Uh-oh.

Now that federal judge John Jones III has ruled that Intelligent Design is a "sham" that cannot constitutionally be taught in science class, will King George W. Bush use his unlimited powers to ignore law and have the judge hauled off to Gitmo until the war on terrorism is over?

Choice Excerpts From Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board

"The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial."

-- Ruling of Federal Dis. Judge John E. Jones III, p. 137-38, Dec. 20, 2005

More Choice Excerpts
(legal and scholarly citations omitted)

We initially observe that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” U.S. Const. amend. I. The prohibition against the establishment of religion applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. (p. 10)

* * *
After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID [i.e., "Intelligent Design"] arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. (p.64-65)

* * *
Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena. * * * This revolution entailed the rejection of the appeal to authority, and by extension, revelation, in favor of empirical evidence. * * * Since that time period, science has been a discipline in which testability, rather than any ecclesiastical authority or philosophical coherence, has been the measure of a scientific idea’s worth. * * * While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science.

This self-imposed convention of science, which limits inquiry to testable, natural explanations about the natural world, is referred to by philosophers as “methodological naturalism” and is sometimes known as the scientific method. * * * Methodological naturalism is a “ground rule” of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify. (p.65)

* * *
It is therefore readily apparent to the Court that ID fails to meet the essential ground rules that limit science to testable, natural explanations. * * * Science cannot be defined differently for Dover students than it is defined in the scientific community ... .

ID is at bottom premised upon a false dichotomy, namely, that to the extent evolutionary theory is discredited, ID is confirmed. This argument is not brought to this Court anew, and in fact, the same argument, termed “contrived dualism” in McLean, was employed by creationists in the 1980's to support “creation science.” The court in McLean noted the “fallacious pedagogy of the two model approach” and that “[i]n efforts to establish ‘evidence’ in support of creation science, the defendants relied upon the same false premise as the two model approach . . . all evidence which criticized evolutionary theory was proof in support of creation science.” We do not find
this false dichotomy any more availing to justify ID today than it was to justify creation science two decades ago. (pp. 70-71)

* * *
[T]he concept of irreducible complexity is ID’s alleged scientific centerpiece. Irreducible complexity is a negative argument against evolution, not proof of design, a point conceded by defense expert Professor Minnich. * * * Irreducible complexity additionally fails to make a positive scientific case for ID, as will be elaborated upon below. (p 72)

* * *
As expert testimony revealed, the qualification on what is meant by “irreducible complexity” renders it meaningless as a criticism of evolution. In fact, the theory of evolution proffers exaptation as a well-recognized, well-documented explanation for how systems with multiple parts could have evolved through natural means. Exaptation means that some precursor of the subject system had a different, selectable function before experiencing the change or addition that resulted in the subject system with its present function. For instance, Dr. Padian identified the evolution of the mammalian middle ear bones from what had been jawbones as an example of this process. By defining irreducible complexity in the way that he has, Professor Behe attempts to exclude the phenomenon of exaptation by definitional fiat, ignoring as he does so abundant evidence which refutes his argument. (pp 74-75)

* * *
Indeed, the assertion that design of biological systems can be inferred from the “purposeful arrangement of parts” is based upon an analogy to human design. Because we are able to recognize design of artifacts and objects, according to Professor Behe, that same reasoning can be employed to determine biological design. Professor Behe testified that the strength of the analogy depends upon the degree of similarity entailed in the two propositions; however, if this is the test, ID completely fails.

Unlike biological systems, human artifacts do not live and reproduce over time. They are non-replicable, they do not undergo genetic recombination, and they are not driven by natural selection. For human artifacts, we know the designer’s identity, human, and the mechanism of design, as we have experience based upon empirical evidence that humans can make such things, as well as many other attributes including the designer’s abilities, needs, and desires. With ID, proponents assert that they refuse to propose hypotheses on the designer’s identity, do not propose a mechanism, and the designer, he/she/it/they, has never been seen. In that vein, defense expert Professor Minnich agreed that in the case of human artifacts and objects, we know the identity and capacities of the human designer, but we do not know any of those attributes for the designer of biological life. In addition, Professor Behe agreed that for the design of human artifacts, we know the designer and its attributes and we have a baseline for human design that does not exist for design of biological systems.

Professor Behe’s only response to these seemingly insurmountable points of disanalogy was that the inference still works in science fiction movies. (pp 80-81)

* * *
Accordingly, the purported positive argument for ID does not satisfy the ground rules of science which require testable hypotheses based upon natural explanations. ID is reliant upon forces acting outside of the natural world, forces that we cannot see, replicate, control or test, which have produced changes in this world. While we take no position on whether such forces exist, they are simply not testable by scientific means and therefore cannot qualify as part of the scientific process or as a scientific theory. (p. 82)

* * *
After this searching and careful review of ID as espoused by its proponents, as elaborated upon in submissions to the Court, and as scrutinized over a six week trial, we find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community. ID, as noted, is grounded in theology, not science. Accepting for the sake of argument its proponents’, as well as Defendants’ argument that to introduce ID to students will encourage critical thinking, it still has utterly no place in a science curriculum.

Moreover, ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID. (pp 88-89)

* * *
To conclude and reiterate, we express no opinion on the ultimate veracity of ID as a supernatural explanation. * * * It is our view that a reasonable, objective observer would, after reviewing both the voluminous record in this case, and our narrative, reach the inescapable conclusion that ID is an interesting theological argument, but that it is not science. (p 89)

* * *
Although Defendants attempt to persuade this Court that each Board member who voted for the biology curriculum change did so for the secular purposed of improving science education and to exercise critical thinking skills... are a sham, and they are accordingly unavailing, for the reasons that follow. (p 130)

* * *
Moreover, Defendants’ asserted secular purpose of improving science education is belied by the fact that most if not all of the Board members who voted in favor of the biology curriculum change conceded that they still do not know, nor have they ever known, precisely what ID is. To assert a secular purpose against this backdrop is ludicrous. (p 131)

* * *
Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions. (p 136-37)

* * *
The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy. (p 137)

* * *
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources. (p 137-38)

'To See Ourselves Truly'

"'To the extent that the furor over evolution represents a cultural crisis in America - and only in America - it is a crisis of credulity, not faith, a crisis rooted in neglect and ignorance."

-- Verlyn Klinkenborg, New York Times, Nov. 19, 2005

Suddenly, we're seeing a lot of Florida newspapers make mention of the Darwin Exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Undoubtedly, this has a lot to do with growing expectations that Florida Republicans are planning a mass pandering to public ignorance by firing up a "debate over the role of religious faith in science class," as Florida Politics, noted two days ago. The fighting ground was prepared late this summer when Jeb Bush appointed "creationist wingnut Cheryl Yecke as the state chancellor of K-12 education," as Florida Blues and others (documented by Mark Lane) have observed.

Apparently in response, a new Florida blog named Florida Citizens for Science was born almost immediately. It's backed by "a group of concerned citizens, businesspeople, parents and educators who are committed to maintaining excellence in public school science classrooms in the state of Florida."

The battle is not yet joined, however. As the Miami Herald reported late last week, state officials have decided to delay "for at least a year" a review of state educational science standards for "how to address humanity's origins."

Education officials were planning to revise the standards next year, but a spokeswoman for state education Commissioner John Winn said Wednesday that delays in updating math and language arts standards have pushed science into 2007 or 2008.

* * *
That delay will postpone the debate over how to teach evolution, creation and intelligent design until after Gov. Jeb Bush's successor is elected next year.

Or, put another way, the attack on science will begin just as Jeb Bush publicly launches his 2008 campaign for president.

What better way to distract the public mind from the real issues of the day? There just isn't much of political pay-off trying to start an argument over "math and language arts" standards.

Michael Ruse, a Canadian biologist now teaching in Florida, professes to be "puzzled" over the ignorance of most Americans when it comes to evolutionary theory. As he wrote this past weekend in the Toronto Globe and Mail:

I cannot understand how anyone over the age of 12 can take seriously and literally the creation stories of Genesis. It is truly beyond me to fathom how someone can spend time and effort actually trying to work out the elephants' living arrangements on the Ark. Yet this is the sort of stuff I deal with daily on my campus.

You think I exaggerate? Survey after survey shows that more than 50 per cent of Americans do not believe in evolution. It is too embarrassing to say out loud how many believe that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.

Puzzled he may be, but he still gets it. The evolution debate in he U.S. is not about science. It's about those politicians who would say to us --

Do not attempt grand plans of reform and progress. Concentrate on personal purity, so you will be among the chosen. Do not concern yourself with plans for universal health care. Stop the plug from being withdrawn from Terri Schiavo. Do not worry about the levees of New Orleans. Fight the good fight against the anti-Christ in Iraq. Care not for the gun-driven murder rate. Support the Second Amendment to the Constitution and the right to bear arms.

How does a Canadian realize this when so many Florida voters seem oblivious to how they are about to be hoodwinked? Ironically, Darwin himself offered the answer.

A couple of weeks ago Verlyn Klinkenborg -- scholar, author, ex-Iowan, gardener, professor, environmentalist, social critic, and member of the New York Times editorial board -- shared an insight from Darwin himself that was inspired by the museum exhibition. Klinkenborg had a chance to see the Darwin Exhibit in preview and came away, he wrote in the Times, "with a reawakened sense of Darwin's characteristic honesty and his extraordinary powers as an observer, qualities that are as much an attribute of the scientist as of the man."

The new exhibition called "Darwin" at the American Museum of Natural History portrays the making of the man and the scientist, and it reminds us how well and how fully evolution explains the life around us. It also captures the way Darwin's theory opened an entirely new window in the human imagination.

Even more than that, it seems, the exhibition provides a keen appreciation for how far-sighted Darwin was in devining the criticisms that would confront his theory, criticisms that still echo today:

The basic objections to evolution - the ones trumpeted by the proponents of so-called intelligent design - are essentially the ones Darwin described in the sixth chapter of ' Origin.' They have been given a new language, and new examples have been adduced. But Darwin did a surprisingly good job of forestalling his critics. He showed that most of the objections to his theory, then as now, were based on a misunderstanding of the evidence or the nature of his argument, or were owing simply to the fact that so much remains to be discovered about the workings of life on Earth.

The exhibit also reminded Kinkenborg about the warm sympathies for humanity that Darwin felt as he realized "how hard it would be for us to see ourselves truly."

How hard... to see ourselves truly. It always is.

¿Habla usted español tambien, Elsie?

With all the fuss over hurricanes, Supreme Court nominees, and the probable indictments this week of high-ranking Bush administration criminals, the
"intelligent design" trial taking place in Harrisburg, PA, is getting little attention from the mainstream media.

This is a shame. The entertainment value of watching biblical creationists scrambling to unearth some kind of probative evidence to back up their naked opinions -- which, of course, is what a court trial requires -- is a lot higher than, say, mundane photos of Judith Miller being let out of prison or Karl Rove being hauled off to one.

Almost daily some good reporting in the small town York Daily Record (home of the Dover, Pennsylvania school board) spins off into obscurity, unnoticed by most of the rest of us on Earth. Staff reporters Lauri Lebo and Michelle Starr are doing some mighty heavy lifting, trying to provide conventionally balanced 'on-the-one-hand-this, on-the-other-hand that' reporting when there isn't much "on the other hand" to it. Still, the Daily Record doesn't want to offend the local Neanderthals intelligently designed bible-thumpers. That's a job better left to columnist Mike Argento, who puts the case in context three times a week in his humor column.

A running transcript of the actual trial testimony is available on Talk Origins.org. The defendant school board members -- or at least those who remained on the board after the smarter ones quit in disgust or embarrassment -- began the defendant side of the case last week.

It's been a tough go so far. Quite a few defense expert witnesses seem to have bailed out after it became apparent they wouldn't be allowed merely to deliver one-sided Oral Robert-style lectures to a credulous audience, but instead they'd have to endure cross-examination by card-carrying Darwinian lawyers who know something about logic, reality, proof, and the scientific method. According to blogger Panda's Thumb, the first defense witness, Michael Behe, was so thoroughly discredited that his career may have been 'terminally demolished'.

"Will all the rest of the [defendant's] scheduled experts actually show up for a big helping of what Behe had?" Panda's Thumb asks. Unhappily enough for the school board, it seems a few will. In the end, the defendants may wish they'd all stayed home.

Yesterday, Defense Witness No. 2, Steven Fuller, took the stand. He's an obscure sociology professor who teaches "philosophy of the social sciences" at Warwick College in England.

Fuller wound up testifying "at the moment, evolutionary theory is a better explanation of the biological world." His only argument seems to have been that Darwinian evolution is so broadly accepted by so many scientists that "affirmative action" is needed to keep so-called 'intelligent design' notions from being "marginalized in cult status."

"[I]ntelligent design," the York Daily Record reports he said from the witness stand, "sits on the fringe of science."

And, that was a witness for the anti-Darwinists on the school board!

Fuller told the court that one of the problems of science is with the very definition of 'scientific theory,' which is the idea of well substantiated explanations that unify a broad range of observations. He said by requiring a theory to be 'well substantiated,' it makes it almost impossible for an idea to be accepted scientifically.

Get it? The problem with science is it requires that crackpot theories be subjected to rigorous scientific testing before they are palmed off on school students. What is education coming to?

As reporters Lebo and Starr correctly point out, in proposing that so-called 'intelligent design' theory be taught in school, "Fuller was actually proposing the definition for hypothesis — an untested idea... ." Or, as columnist Mike Argento puts it less politely:

What Fuller was suggesting ... is that science won't let intelligent design in merely because it doesn't meet the requirements of a scientific theory, as far as science is concerned.

In fact, he said to call intelligent design a scientific theory, you had to change the definition of a scientific theory. The last defense witness who did that said his definition of a scientific theory included astrology.

Fuller said intelligent design is, essentially, a half-baked idea, pretty much something the intelligent design guys have whipped up without doing much in the way of producing evidence.

And that's why it should be taught to ninth-graders in Dover.

"You know," the columnist reflects, "I can come up with a lot of half-baked ideas that no one in their right mind would want to teach to kids in Dover. Let's see. How about this? Cows think in Spanish. Discuss.