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Merged Scalia is dead

16.5 said:
lol, you mean the case in which I have been citing the dissent.

no never heard of it

Before summarizing the testimony of Senator Keith and his supporters, I wish to make clear that I by no means intend to endorse its accuracy. But my views (and the views of this Court) about creation science and evolution are (or should be) beside the point. Our task is not to judge the debate about teaching the origins of life, but to ascertain what the members of the Louisiana Legislature believed. The vast majority of them voted to approve a bill which explicitly stated a secular purpose; what is crucial is not their wisdom in believing that purpose would be achieved by the bill, but their sincerity in believing it would be.
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Didn't read the link, obviously.

You asked for evidence of his clever rhetoric in the questioning phase. I provided it. Please note above where I asked if you were merely holding onto the dissenting opinion? Just say so.

I contend that he was a fundie and a creationist. There is ample evidence throughout his career. If you're just playing Conspiracy Theory Gotcha, admit it. This is a favorite ploy on these boards. "Oh, yeah! Show where he specifically uttered the words igglebibble sloovermuff flavenspink, I double dog dare you!" His dissent was well-worded and danced around the underlying issue of the case, brought by a bunch of religious fundies.

Now, go do your reading homework, and you can confirm that he was much better at argumentation than the lawyers in question. (He met his match, but that doesn't change the fact that his rhetoric was more polished.)

ETA: You edited that to include a "hee hee"? I don't find ignorance funny.
 
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Foolmewunz said:
Didn't read the link, obviously.

You asked for evidence of his clever rhetoric in the questioning phase. I provided it. Please note above where I asked if you were merely holding onto the dissenting opinion? Just say so.

I contend that he was a fundie and a creationist. There is ample evidence throughout his career. If you're just playing Conspiracy Theory Gotcha, admit it. This is a favorite ploy on these boards. "Oh, yeah! Show where he specifically uttered the words igglebibble sloovermuff flavenspink, I double dog dare you!" His dissent was well-worded and danced around the underlying issue of the case, brought by a bunch of religious fundies.

Now, go do your reading homework, and you can confirm that he was much better at argumentation than the lawyers in question. (He met his match, but that doesn't change the fact that his rhetoric was more polished.)

ETA: You edited that to include a "hee hee"? I don't find ignorance funny.
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Have you ever met a fool who thought everyone else in the room is wrong, even though he is demonstrably wrong?
 
Foolmewunz said:
You're not familiar with the case? Color me surprised!

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/brennanscalia.html
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This is the thing that good people get wrong:
Scalia was right, Johnson thought, in recognizing that “the Louisiana legislature had acted on the premise that legitimate scientific objections to ‘evolution’ were being suppressed.”
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That's the propaganda message the Intelligent Design and Creationists have successfully spread.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
This is the thing that good people get wrong:
That's the propaganda message the Intelligent Design and Creationists have successfully spread.
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Yeah, and like homeopaths and their ilk, Scalia actually said (either in that article I linked to or another I've previously read) that "there are a number of academics who agree" that creationism is a viable scientific theory.

He was rehashing and selling the party line of the fundies. Not surprising. He belonged to an orthodox congregation which has a memorial to the unborn, he beseeched bible thumpers to stand up to the "new elitism" (or whatever he called it) and he was the stalking horse for this ridiculous case.
 
Scalia quoted above:
[M]y views... about creation science and evolution are... beside the point. Our task is not to judge the debate about teaching the origins of life, but to ascertain what the members of the Louisiana Legislature believed.

Well, this cuts at the heart of the debate about Scalia's jurisprudence. Some believe that he sought to dispassionately discern the original intentions of the framers. Others cynically believed he smuggled his own views into his opinions. In this case he argued Louisiana legislators sincerely wanted to advance science (which just happened to be creationist), and my response to that is, "but of course he did." He castigates opponents who "impugn" the motives of these fine legislators, but did not himself hesitate to condemn the "anti-anti-homosexual culture" of the law profession.
 
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Cain said:
Scalia quoted above:
[M]y views... about creation science and evolution are... beside the point. Our task is not to judge the debate about teaching the origins of life, but to ascertain what the members of the Louisiana Legislature believed.

Well, this cuts at the heart of the debate about Scalia's jurisprudence. Some believe that he sought to dispassionately discern the original intentions of the framers. Others cynically believed he smuggled his own views into his opinions. In this case he argued Louisiana legislators sincerely wanted to advance science (which just happened to be creationist), and my response to that is, "but of course he did." He castigates opponents who "impugn" the motives of these fine legislators, but did not himself hesitate to condemn the "anti-anti-homosexual culture" of the law profession.
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The problem with the highlighted part is their motives are not the issue. The evidence and the scientific process are the issue. And those are not based in belief.

Anyone is welcome to present evidence, and to teach that evidence. But the evidence has to stand on its own merit. And those merits cannot be supported solely by someone's beliefs. Science is self correcting. Once Behe's hypothesis was discredited, it's not resurrected because people want it to be true.

Sometimes the scientific evidence does not support the conclusions drawn. Sometimes a lone dissenter turns out to be right. But you can't have the goal of fitting the evidence to the conclusion. You have to fit the conclusion to the evidence. And that's where evolution deniers fail.
 
A couple other things. First, this guy went out to Texas to party and kill animals. From the Washington Post:

Later that day, Scalia went out with the group to hunt blue quail. But “he did not exert himself,” Poindexter said. “He got out of the hunting vehicle and walked around some.’’
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Yeah, got out of the "hunting vehicle." You know, the hunting vehicle. Why not just mount a turret? The other thing is that my cheeks hurt from smiling so much lately. **** this guy. He died in the lap of luxury, in his sleep. He had 9 kids and thirty-six grand kids, and this obese **** managed to make it to 79. He had a full and happy life. He definitely could've died a few years sooner, but take what you get.
 
16.5 said:
here is the dissent in Edwards v. Aquillard:

http://www.belcherfoundation.org/edwards_v_aguillard_dissent.htm

Because I believe that the Balanced Treatment Act had a secular purpose, which is all the first component of the Lemon test requires, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand for further consideration.

He's a creationist! I read it on the Iskeps!
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There is no way that an intelligent, educated adult could ever say that without either being a creationist or lying their ass off.

Which is it?

In fact, even a creationist couldn't honestly make the claim that the purpose of the law was secular, because support for creationism is always ultimately based in religion, and in this case specifically monotheistic Mosaic religion.

In that case he could be both a creationist and a liar. Definitely one or the other, though.
 
Cain said:
AYeah, got out of the "hunting vehicle." You know, the hunting vehicle. Why not just mount a turret? The other thing is that my cheeks hurt from smiling so much lately. **** this guy. He died in the lap of luxury, in his sleep. He had 9 kids and thirty-six grand kids, and this obese **** managed to make it to 79. He had a full and happy life. He definitely could've died a few years sooner, but take what you get.
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It is Texas. . . .Next up will be inmate hunting from vehicles.
If they can actually get away, they will actually get a fair trial.
 
sunmaster14 said:
That is consistent with the truth (note the "at least" qualifier), appropriately respectful of his hosts (a Catholic school which presumably teaches Catholic doctrine), and justifiable as lower bound on the age of human civilization.
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...and the drive from Chicago to Boston is "at least" "200 yards or so"...

A Creationist, and a cowardly one.
 
Reading these things about whether or not Scalia was a creationist takes me back to the early days of my participation on this forum.

I'm not a creationist. I'm not a Christian. I'm an atheist. (In the early days of my participation, I was still calling myself a Buddhist, a position which is not inconsistent with atheism.) And yet, I said some things that were not unfriendly to creationism and intelligent design. I criticized what I called the "gag order" approach to discussions of creationism in public schools. I even went so far as to criticize portions of the opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover.

As a result, there were several people on this forum who insisted I was actually a fundamentalist Christian lying about my beliefs. They said some really nasty things about me, too.

I do not know, or care, whether Justice Scalia was a creationist, but I do know that it is possible to say the things he said and not be a creationist. I would not go quite as far as he did in the Edwards dissent, but I can see where he was going with it. I also know that there are worse things than being a creationist.
 
quadraginta said:
There is no way that an intelligent, educated adult could ever say that without either being a creationist or lying their ass off.

Which is it?

In fact, even a creationist couldn't honestly make the claim that the purpose of the law was secular, because support for creationism is always ultimately based in religion, and in this case specifically monotheistic Mosaic religion.

In that case he could be both a creationist and a liar. Definitely one or the other, though.
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What I don't understand is the apparent defence of him that he was pandering to his audience.

First of all I don't think people should lie to pander to an audience but beyond the ethics of that I am pretty sure that most Catholics these days accept evolution and are not young Earth creationists.
 
Meadmaker said:
As a result, there were several people on this forum who insisted I was actually a fundamentalist Christian lying about my beliefs. They said some really nasty things about me, too.
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Welcome to the internet. I know how you feel.

I do not know, or care, whether Justice Scalia was a creationist, but I do know that it is possible to say the things he said and not be a creationist.
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Except he was a creationist, and also he let his various beliefs influence his legal opinions.
 
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