Son of Monkey Glue

You should know that, albeit early in the life of this august organ, The Referee is beginning to have an influence in the upper echelons of US society, including none other than the Supreme Court. (You should also know that The Referee occasionally likes to refer to himself in the third person, like boxers and dictators.)

Anyway, returning to the first person, for fear of being tedious (heaven forbid!), I explained in my message of 25 November why I think the age-old argument between evolutionists and creationists is a huge waste of effort based on a false premise - ie that mainstream scientific and religious views on the origin of things are necessarily contradictory.

Well, it is now clear, on the balance of probabilities, although not necessarily beyond reasonable doubt, that that message was taken to heart by one Judge John Jones III (a Republican, by the way, appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bush). Just before the start of the "holiday vacation", Judge Jones delivered his ruling in the leading case of Kitzmiller et al v Dover. (Tammy Kitzmiller is one of the parents who challenged the local school board on the basis that teaching "intelligent design" was unconstitutional, in the sense of muddling Church and State; and Dover is the small town in Philadelphia where the (Republican) school board attempted to introduce intelligent design into science classes and was subsequently ousted at the recent local elections in favour of an entirely new (Democratic) school board (in a traditionally Republican-voting area) which swifty reversed the policy.)

If you will permit me (and even if you won't) I think that a section of Judge Jones' ruling bears setting out verbatim here. He says this: "Both defendants and many of the leading proponents of I.D. 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."

I'm sure you will agree that there is little doubt that that passage was written in the light of The Referee's message of 25 November (or 11/25 as it is known here).

Just think of the potential benefits which could be unleashed if creationists and evolutionists would stop fighting a battle which doesn't need to be fought. For a start, those of us with a religious bent would save a huge amount of time and effort which could be put to much better use. Helping the poor and needy, for example. Just a thought!

Happy holidays.