The Discovery Institute had its ass handed to it on a plate when federal district court judge John E. Jones, a Bush appointee, ruled against a Pennsylvania school district that had required an evolution disclaimer to be read aloud by ninth-grade biology teachers. (This statement, available near the top of the Kitzmiller decision here, suggested that students seek out an intelligent design textbook in the school library.) A full year after the decision was handed down, the hacks at the Discovery Institute have made a stunning discovery: Judge Jones is a stupidhead! And he copies other people’s work!

The DI’s belated “analysis” of Jones’s opinion (accomplished with the assistance of such advanced technological tools as Microsoft Word’s Word Count) concludes, with carefully chosen diction, that “90.0% (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.”

Uh-oh, sounds like plagiarism! The AP pounced on the story, and Martha Raffaele’s confusing article appeared in the P-I on Tuesday. What the he said-she said story conspicuously omits is the Discovery Institute’s own admission that “judges routinely invite lawyers to propose findings of fact in order to verify what the lawyers believe to be the key factual issues in the case. Thus, in legal circles Judge Jones’ use of the ACLU’s proposed ‘Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law’ would not be considered ‘plagiarism’ nor a violation of judicial ethics.” Judges ask both plaintiffs and defendants to submit proposed findings of fact, which are actually written in the voice of the court so as to ease adoption by the judge if he or she agrees with a given statement. Note also that the DI “analyzed” a mere 6,004 words of Jones’s 139-page opinion.

The science claims in the Discovery Institute’s report have been adequately fisked by Ed Brayton, but there are plenty of other annoying distortions. First, the proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law (available at the National Center for Science Education website) were not written by ACLU bogeymen. It was submitted by the lawyers for the plaintiffs, which included a team of six lawyers from Pepper Hamilton LLP, two lawyers from the ACLU of Pennsylvania, and three from Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It was signed by Eric Rothschild of Pepper Hamilton LLP.

Jones clearly adopted the plaintiffs’ persuasive arguments; but more importantly, he also cleaned up their English. Check out this masterful piece of editing:

Plaintiffs:

Intelligent design is not science. It fails on three distinct levels, any one of which invalidates the proposition: a) by invoking and permitting supernatural causation, intelligent design violates the centuries-old ground rules of science; b) intelligent design, including it’s [sic] poster child argument, irreducible complexity, employs the same flawed and illogical, contrived dualism that doomed creation sciences in the 1980’s; and c) intelligent design has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, generate peer-reviewed publications, or been the subject of testing and research.

Jones:

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.

Bravo, Judge Jones. You’ve made the anti-ID argument that much more stylish.

(Thanks to Gavin for the hot tip.)