11th Circuit vacates decision against Cobb County science textbook stickers

Alliance Defense Fund ^ | 5/25/06

[dukeman]

ADF filed friend-of-the-court brief in defense of textbook stickers which accurately stated that evolution is a theory

ATLANTA — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit today vacated a lower court decision that declared Cobb County science textbook stickers which stated “evolution is a theory, not a fact” unconstitutional. The court was critical of the district court for issuing its ruling against the stickers despite holes in the evidentiary record in the case and remanded the case back to the district court for new proceedings.

“No school should be in trouble for simply stating the facts. That’s what schools are supposed to do. Though we wish the appeals court would have ruled on the constitutional merits of the case without sending it back to the district court, we are pleased that the district court’s ruling against the school district has been vacated,” said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster.

In its ruling today, the 11th Circuit wrote, “The problems presented by a record containing significant evidentiary gaps are compounded because at least some key findings of the district court are not supported by the evidence that is contained in the record.” The full text of the court’s ruling in the case Selman v. Cobb County School District can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/CobbCountyDecision.pdf.

The lower court judge agreed that the stickers were not applied to the textbooks for a religious purpose and were devoid of religious content. Nonetheless, he deemed the stickers a violation of the so-called “separation of church and state” for the sole reason that many people were aware that Christians supported the stickers.

According to the friend-of-the-court brief ADF attorneys filed in the case, “The District Court’s analysis will lead to absurd results…. The Establishment Clause was never meant to prohibit the passage of a secular law, for a secular purpose, simply because Christians actively lobbied for the law” (www.telladf.org/news/story.aspx?cid=3404).

The sticker which had been applied to each textbook read, “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”

ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

[longshadow]

In other words, no decision at all. No celebrations by either side.

Insightful summary. Basically, it sounds like the trial court was sloppy identifying evidence cited during testimony.

[Right Wing Professor]

So you do not believe in paternity testing?

LOL.

(on reading your post, a half-dozen NBA players called their lawyers and said 'tell me about Intelligent Design')

[thomaswest]

Re151: We could rephrase the theory: "Over the years, evolution theory has had changing facts."

We could consider medicine. Over the years, the notion that disease was caused by "bad vapours" and/or "displeasure from a god" has had changing acceptance from churches.

Initially, organized religions, preachers, and priests railed against the Germ Theory of Disease. The shamans felt really threatened--one of their chief reasons to hold power and get money for their support was challenged. The attacks on the Germ Theory, however, quickly lost traction, as parishioners were more interested in having their children not die than in a pastor's view of holiness and devil possession.

This has not stopped 'faith-healers', Christian Scientists [sic], prayer-advocates, and other anti-science types from trying to collect many bucks from the desperate faithful.

[Ichneumon]

I'm sure I can look of the textbooks of the 60's and show you that "protein stew" was taught as part of evolutionary theory. I'm positive.

You've been positive about a lot of things which happened not to be true. This may be another of them. The textbooks I had in school in the 60's didn't say what you attribute to them. They did *mention* the "protein stew" origin hypothesis, in the same general section as evolution (because they both deal with the processes which resulted in life as we know it today), but they did *not*, as you assert, claim that this was the *same* thing *as* evolutionary theory.

Were they wrong?

I don't know, why don't you toodle off and find some of these textbooks and then come back and quote for us exactly what they actually said? Then we can tell you whether they were wrong in what they actually said or not.

You seem to be saying that you think they were.

Only if we accept your hazy memory of what you think you remember they said. Remember how poorly you read and/or "remembered" the Dover court decision? Given your past track record, especially on the topic of science issues, we're not willing to do that.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Evolution is a physical process last time I checked. Those who espouse it as taking place apart from intelligent intervention tend to use physical evidence ranging from geology to biology to astronomy. They also tend to assume these processes have taken place at the same rate throughout all time, even though recent theory posits an expansion of matter at the beginning that was dang near instantaneous. Anyway, that is why I said "all" physical processes.

Meanwhile, why not take a moment to abandon thread? You'll feel better.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Not to mention the Duke Lacrosse team.

[RobbyS]

Evolution also cannot predict future events.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Sure it can. Just like astrologers and weather forecasters. It's an exact science, dontcha know.

[longshadow]

So name one person doing scientific work in the area of ID, and identify some of the work.

I think this question was addressed during the Dover ID trial:

Behe Cross-X Day 12
http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/Day12AM.pdf

p22 line 25 [plaintiffs' attorney]:
Q. "And in fact there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred, is that correct?"

[defendants' expert witness]:
A. "That is correct, yes." [emphasis added] <

[RobbyS]

The sexular purpose is to declare the districts's neutrality in the contraversy between Evolutionists and their opponents. Darwinism has never been a matter of science alone but of competing world views.

[freedomlover]

There is no spoon.

[Virginia-American]

Evolution also cannot predict future events.

I predict that our descendents in, say, another few nillion years, will lack wisdom teeth.

Kinda hard to test...

[Ichneumon]

[So name one person doing scientific work in the area of ID, and identify some of the work.]

http://home.online.no/~albvoie/index.cfm

Nice try, but that's not a scientific paper based on any kind of scientific work, that's someone expressing his philosophical beliefs devoid of any kind of scientific research, evidence, or validation whatsoever.

Care to try again?

[RobbyS]

The Dover case ignored the fact that the purpose of a high school biology course is not to train scientists but to teach biology to the general student.

[Ichneumon]

Evolution also cannot predict future events.

Sure it can. And does. Successfully.

Do you have any other false impressions you'd like to share with us?

[Sofa King]

What we really need is a sticker on science textbooks that explains what the word "theory" means in science.

[RobbyS]

I would be happy if they could predict if the bird flu virus will "evolve" into something that can be passed from human to human. Now THAT would be useful.

[P-Marlowe]

This thread has deteriorated into another typical crevo flame fest. I'm outa here. Nobody seems to care about the legal issues anyway.

[thomaswest]

Re151: We could rephrase the theory: "Over the years, evolution theory has had changing facts."

We could consider flying. In the late 1800s there were thousands of preachers and priests working up sweats against mankind being able to have 'heavier-than-air' craft to fly. It was "obviously" against god's will. They "knew" this, somehow.

After the Wright Brothers, these preachers of "doom and god's displeasure" quickly shut up. They were at risk of having their "faith-contributions" to their non-working (sleep late, pray, till no fields, fight in no wars) life-style dry up.

It turns out that aerodynamics and engineering make airplanes fly--and this is done without prayer. In fact, not a single priest, pastor, shaman, has ever made a single contribution to any aspect of modern transportation. Nor made any significant contribution to medicine, biology, geology or chemistry.

This is quite a record of getting alms and doing nothing productive, and then criticizing those who actually do productive work.

[Almagest]

"The Dover case ignored the fact that the purpose of a high school biology course is not to train scientists but to teach biology to the general student."


Wrong. The Dover case was all about teaching biology to students. It clearly revealed that ID was not about biology, and should not be included in a class with the purpose of teaching biology to the general student.

ID is about questioning evolution and sneaking theism into the curriculum -- according to the internal communications of the Discovery Institute. The Wedge document revealed the real purpose of ID for all to see.