Wow, the Discovery Institute must be slipping. They allowed David Klinghoffer, a journalist with a background in neither science nor theology to represent the their response to Judge Jones’s verdict in their own hometown? The neocon Klinghoffer, a former editor at the National Review, can hardly be said be to be the Discovery Institute’s ideal objective intellectual. (His next two books are to be called Broken Tablets: The War on the Ten Commandments and Why God is a Republican: An Honest Look at the Politics of the Bible, for gosh sakes.)

Beside the obvious PR problem, Klinghoffer’s editorial is riddled with bad reasoning.

First Klinghoffer observes that Jones wrote the following: “Repeatedly in this trial, [p]laintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution… in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.” Then Klinghoffer makes the wild assertion that “As a matter of fact, Jones is wrong. Darwinism is indeed ‘antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general.’ ” As a matter of fact—the recorded evidence on which Jones was legally bound to base his decision—the scientists for the plaintiffs did argue that the theory of evolution doesn’t conflict with a belief in God. Many if not most scientists hold this belief, even when they don’t themselves believe in a God who personally authored Scripture and who listens to your prayers. Hell, even Pope John Paul II thought the two didn’t conflict.

Klinghoffer goes on to cite four (4) examples of evolutionary scientists who don’t believe in God. How simply overwhelming. If you’re convinced by this idiotic, purely anecdotal argument, you have no grasp of logic whatsoever.

Then we have this zinger of a closing statement: “The idea that it is constitutional to expose young people to one such worldview, but not lawful to introduce them to another, is not really education. It is indoctrination.” Excuse me, Mr. Klinghoffer, THE IDEA THAT IT IS CONSTITUTIONAL is a legal opinion. It isn’t even claiming to be “education.” What an incredibly sloppy sentence. As we all know, sloppy sentences mean sloppy minds. Where was Klinghoffer “indoctrinated”? And who at the Seattle Times thought this was okay?