Judge Lauded for Plagiarized Work

This time last year, a federal judge ruled on whether or not schools in the Dover School District in Pennsylvania could teach intelligent design. To the shegrin of clear-thinkers and the scientifically honest, Jones ruled that teaching intelligent design is unconstitutional.

But as it turns out, Jones' ruling isn't so much a thoroughly and fairly considered opinion from the bench, it is more like the echo of opinions stated by liberal ACLU lawyers.

From an official document released by Discovery Institute:

In December of 2005, critics of the theory of intelligent design (ID) hailed federal judge John E. Jones’ ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover, which declared unconstitutional the reading of a statement about intelligent design in public school science classrooms in Dover, Pennsylvania. Since thed ecision was issued, Jones’ 139-page judicial opinion has been lavished with praise as a“masterful decision” based on careful and independent analysis of the evidence. However, a new analysis of the text of the Kitzmiller decision reveals that nearly all of Judge Jones’ lengthy examination of “whether ID is science” came not from his own efforts or analysis but from wording supplied by ACLU attorneys.

That this judge would copy and paste 5400+ words without either crediting the source or treating it as an excerpt is absurd at best and unethical at worst. This is to say nothing of Judge Jones' willingness to let a lobbyist and pressure group to essentioally dictate what goes into law.

In fact, 90.9% (or 5,458 words) of Judge Jones’ 6,004-word section on intelligent design as science was taken virtually verbatim from the ACLU’s proposed "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law" submitted to Judge Jones nearly a month before his ruling. Judge Jones even copied several clearly erroneous factual claims made by the ACLU. The finding that most of Judge Jones’ analysis of intelligent design was apparently not the product of his own original deliberative activity seriously undercuts the credibility of Judge Jones’ examination of the scientific validity of intelligent design.

Please GO HERE to read the entire finding. It not only reveals Judge Jones' bias (in parts, his decision didn't even coincide with court testimony and it makes you wonder if Jones even read the portions of the ACLU document he was plagiarizing from!), but you might learn something about intelligent design while you're at it.

Great find - hat tip to Melinda at Stand to Reason. I won't hold my breath to find this news story in any of the main stream media outlets.

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UPDATE: I've updated Judge Jones' Wikipedia entry to reflect the latest findings as reported here and elsewhere. :-)