It appears as if you accept the lies of the alleged ACLU "experts". What in the world are you thinking?

"Why not, Douglas? Shouldn't a 'true' Christian stand up against the side that prevaricates?"

Absolutely, but not by spreading lies themselves.

"Christians need to stand for those who shoot straight and tell the truth, first."

Yes. Which is why I am not willing to stand for Judge Jones.

"Christians do not accept lying in federal court as acceptable behavior, let alone behavior to be condoned. No American should accept such lies. What in the world were you thinking?"

I was thinking the following:

"Edarrell has not yet proven to me that any of the defendants lied. I read a portion of what he referred me to, and it did not support his assertion. I asked him whether he inadvertently directed me to the wrong pages to read, but he has not responded to this point. Strange, though, that Edarrell does not apply the same energy and commitment to warning the world regarding the lies that Judge Jones made and perpetuated in his ruling."

A true Christian (of any reasonable intelligence and discernment) would not have given the opinion that the judge in Dover (or presiding over the case in Dover) gave, especially not the overboard and incredibly faulty assessment of ID which that judge gave.

Why not, Douglas? Shouldn't a "true" Christian stand up against the side that prevaricates?

Christians need to stand for those who shoot straight and tell the truth, first. Christians do not accept lying in federal court as acceptable behavior, let alone behavior to be condoned. No American should accept such lies. What in the world were you thinking?

But if I did, I would be buying into your double standard, allowing you to make mistakes, while interpreting the mistakes of all evil IDers as lies.

Just list your admitted mistakes. That's step one.

I'm not sure why you've got such a grudge against me, MG. I don't interpret mistakes as lies, especially when people admit them.

Do I remember that blog? Well, no, not exactly. As I have now posted in that thread, I had intended to post that comment in another thread. More, the opening line at least has been garbled. Not my words (though, at 4:00 a.m. even computers get bleary-screened, I'm sure.) I did not write "science component." My regrets for the scrambling. So let me confess, what's there is not what I intended.

Normally, I would accept such explanations. But if I did, I would be buying into your double standard, allowing you to make mistakes, while interpreting the mistakes of all evil IDers as lies. So if I apply your approach to you, I would have to conclude you are just covering your lie with more lies. Remember how the Wesley Wedge works:

Show misquote after misquote; demonstrate error after checkable error, and make the audience understand that if the Edarrell claims that the sky is blue, their next step had better be to look out the window to see for themselves.

It's a political strategy that can be applied to even you, Edarrell. Or didn't you know that? I would suggest that you and Wesley heed the words of your fellow ID critic and PT member, Jack Krebs:

What I would like to point out is that honest intelligent people can have different views of complex subjects. I think seeing other people's different views as lies, willful ignorance, intentional misrepresentations, etc. is counter-productive. Arguing as factually and directly against their points as one can is reasonable, but I think it is important that one understand that the other person feels he is representing his view as honestly and accurately as you are yours.

As for your flood of questions and points about the OSC report, the fact remains that a Smithsonian scientist was sharing inneundo that he had apparently received from the NCSE.

So let me confess, what's there is not what I intended.

The rest of it stands up pretty well, though. The Fordham Foundation report is corroborated by several other sources, and the ACT is a weak measure of evolution standards at best, plus the fact that current ACT scores would reflect earlier standards, perhaps, and not current standards. So a comparison of test scores to state evolution standards is unlikely to produce an accurate correlation of anything.

But regardless, my asking the questions and posing the difficulties is not "a lie." If MG thinks it is, that thinking merely shows there is some serious cognitive difficulty on this blog about what a falsehood is. I cited nothing that can be said to be in error, and nothing that could be construed to be intentionally false. Asking you a question, MG, can not in any fair sense be construed "a lie," especially one you can answer so easily. (In rhetoric, that's called a "fat pitch," one that you can hit out of the park. You must be really crabby tonight to call a fat pitch a lie.)

And there you have it. I misread, or fat fingered.

So now I set the example, MG. It's your turn, now, to go after the Dover board and the DI folks many prevarications.

We're waiting.

Oh, and about the OSC letter: The obviously illegal OSC letter is a shameful episode in the OSC's history. It's not the sort of thing that should be cited as authoritative, since it violates the rules of the OSC and the canons of lawyers who may have been (should have been) part of the drafting of the letter. OSC lacked authority, as they acknowledged; were there wrongdoing discovered, the law and ethical canons require them to pass that information on to the proper authorities. That they have failed to do so is a better indication that there was nothing wrong, though the purple prose of the letter might lead an unwary reader astray on that point.

The OSC letter noted that Sternberg's actions raised questions of ethics among researchers at Smithsonian. The OSC letter noted that Smithsonian scientists pondered whether they should take corrective or punitive actions, and then determined there was nothing they could do since Sternberg's actions were not in any official capacity, and were not done in the name of the Smithsonian, and because Sternberg was not a Smithsonian employee. Now, it may be that one needs to be a lawyer and former government official to get that from the letter as written, but I loan myself out for such interpretations when required.

The author of the letter, and Dr. Sternberg, seem to think the letter raised other issues. As I noted above, the author of the letter was legally and ethically obligated to bring any other issues to the proper authorities (the Smithsonian inspector general in this case), and it certainly would have been in Sternberg's interest to do so had he thought he was wronged. But neither of them bothered to get the information to the IG so far as anyone knows.

I suspect the Smithsonian scientist called or wrote the good folks at NCSE. Good scientists have large, active networks to exchange information. It's not innuendo because it's direct and not derogatory. As reported by you, it's hearsay in the e-mail.

I'm not sure why you are troubled by it. It's a statement of what is suspected, but it clearly says what is not known. It makes no claim beyond what is known.

The whole Sternberg affair is troubling, the way Sternberg dissembles when he claims not to have ties to creationists or to IDists, when those ties are plainly traceable from what is known of his connections with "baraminologists" in all their crankery. It's troubling that Sternberg doesn't understand why the journal he edited was an inappropriate place for the Meyers article. It's troubling that Sternberg claims to have followed the society's rules, though everyone else in the society claims to have no knowledge of Sternberg's doing so and the society had to formally disassociate itself with the paper. From my experience dealing with whistleblowers and wannabe-whistleblowers, it's clear that Sternberg is a troubled and troubling guy.

A serious investigation of the affair would probably yield something akin to the Jones decision in the Dover case, I think. Surely you are not defending either the Meyer paper or Sternberg's actions, are you?

What if we were to apply Wesley's wedge strategy to Edarrell? It would be very easy to paint Edarrell as one who spread lies, given the many false claims he has presented on this blog. Here's a recent example.

Remember this blog? I compared average science ACT scores to the Evolution scores from the Fordham Foundation report.

So what did Ed ask? "Why compare with total ACT scores, instead of the science component?" Since I am not quick to imply someone else is liar, I originally responded:

If you bothered to read both blogs, you would have known that I was using the science component. But why read something you are criticizing, right?

But I will now use Wes' Wedge with Edarrell.

Why was Ed lying to us? I clearly stated that I was using the science component and he lied by wondering why I used the total ACT scores. So tell us, Ed "“ why are you preaching against lies from one side of your mouth while telling lies with the other side of your mouth?

As for Wesley, I'm sure he is "fine man." But after 20 years of battling the "lies" of creationists, then IDers, he's made it clear he is willing to transform misquotes and errors in "lies" for political reason. Perhaps Ed can explain why everyone is supposed to ignore this?

Consider also the way Wesley attempts to paint all ID proponents as characterized and composed of innuendo. Did we forget about the OSC report concerning Richard Sternberg? From one of the e-mails of a Smithsonian scientist:

Like you, I would like to know who the alleged reviewer were, but [____] has not told me anything. People at the NCSE suspect that some or all of them may have been co-authors on a previous paper by Meyer, which was substantially copied into the PBSW paper.

Ed, how did this Smithsonian scientist learn about what the people at the NCSE suspected and why is this not innuendo?

Otherwise, you have a whole other set of problems.

I agree. I am wondering when the ACLU "experts" will be charged.

edarrell:
Judge Jones, a Bush appointee, a Lutheran, a fine federal judge, made the findings that the ID advocates were liars.

Calling the school board members "ID advocates" is a stretch.

As for lies the judge's decision also contains them. ID is NOT Creation(ism) repackaged. ID is not religious- that is two lies right there.

"Here's a link to the afternoon testimony "” you may want to pay particular attention to pages 30 through 34, in which it becomes clear Mr. Bonsell had earlier lied about his involvement in putting creationism books in the libraries of the schools:…."

I read the entirety of pages 30 through 34, and find no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Bonsell attempted to put creationism books in the libraries of the schools. Are you sure you referred me to the correct pages?