Posted on 12/14/2005 12:02:42 PM PST by doc30
Atlanta — Nearly seven months after schools in a suburban Atlanta county were forced to peel off textbook stickers that called evolution a theory rather than fact, a federal appeals court is set to consider whether the disclaimers were unconstitutional.
In January, a federal judge ordered Cobb County school officials to remove the stickers immediately, saying they were an endorsement of religion. The ruling was appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear arguments on Thursday.
Advocates on both sides say the appeals court's decision will go a long way toward shaping a debate between science and religion that has cropped up in various forms around the country.
“If it's unconstitutional to tell students to study evolution with an open mind, then what's not unconstitutional?” said John West, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that supports intelligent design, the belief that the universe is so complex it must have been created by a higher power. “The judge is basically trying to make it unconstitutional for anyone to have a divergent view, and we think that has a chilling effect on free speech.”
Opponents of the sticker campaign see it as a backdoor attempt to introduce creationism – the biblical story of creation – into the public schools after the U.S. Supreme Court disallowed it in a 1987 case from Louisiana.
“The anti-evolution forces have been searching for a new strategy that would accomplish the same end,” said Kenneth Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University and co-author of the science book that was stickered. “That purpose is, if not to get evolution out of the schools altogether, then at least undermine it as much as possible in the minds of students.”
The disclaimers were placed in the books in 2002 by school officials in Cobb County, a suburb of about 650,000. The stickers were printed up after more than 2,000 parents complained that science texts presented evolution as a fact, with no mention of other theories.
The stickers 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.”
The school board called the stickers “a reasonable and evenhanded guide to science instruction” that encourages students to be critical thinkers.
Some parents, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, sued, arguing that the stickers violated the constitutional separation of church and state.
U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that the sticker “conveys an impermissible message of endorsement and tells some citizens that they are political outsiders while telling others they are political insiders.”
In Pennsylvania, a federal judge has yet to decide whether the Dover Area School District can require ninth-grade biology students to learn about intelligent design. A few days after the trial ended earlier this fall, Dover voters ousted eight of the nine school board members who adopted the policy.
The same week, state education officials in Kansas adopted new classroom science standards that call the theory of evolution into question.
In 2004, Georgia's school superintendent proposed a statewide science curriculum that dropped the word “evolution” in favour of “changes over time.” That plan was soon scrapped amid protests from teachers.
"You see the difference now sharpy?
Nope. We have a significant difference of opinion on the relation between the voters and the politicians I'm afraid. No matter, let's stop the bickering about Canadian and US politics, and get back to the nuts and bolts of the ID/Evolution debate. Canadians and Americans aren't all that different as far a countries go anyway.
I'll be back later, I have to go tell a bedtime story to my grandson.
Not sure I understand what you are saying.
Are you saying that irrationality and emotionalism are the hallmarks of religion?
OK, here's a blast from the past boys and girls:
The continuation of Michael Behe’s cross-examination:
Transcript, Wednesday October 19, AM
http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/trans/2005_1019_day12_am.pdf"
Transcript, Wednesday October 19, PM
http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/trans/2005_1019_day12_pm.pdf
Q. "Now yesterday, I asked you some questions about the designer's abilities. And you said, all we know about its abilities is that it was capable of making whatever we have determined is design. That's the only statement we can make about the designer's abilities?"Behe "Yes."
Q. "And in terms of the designer's -- as a scientific statement?"
Behe: "That's correct."
Q. "And the only thing we know scientifically about the designer's motives or desires or needs is that, according to your argument, the only thing we would know scientifically about that is that it must have wanted to make what we have concluded as design?"
Behe: "Yes, that's right."
Q. "In fact, the only way we can make the statement scientifically that a designer exists is that it made whatever we conclude was design?"
Behe: "Yes, that's right."
Exactly the right answer. I take back the statist digs.
LOL, you took the words right off the tip of my fingers!
I am being a (bit) over-the-top in this series of posts, but there is a serious question of misfeasance and malfeasance when a political body attempts to redefine science, or to mandate the teaching of non-science as though it were science.
Being voted out is good, but not always realistic. EG, Marion Barry was first elected to the DC School Board, and was easily reelected to higher office after serving time on cocaine charges. [For all his faults, I'm not accusing him of anything here, just using him as an example of an undefeatable officeholder.]
Let's say he fraudulently pushed for the teachnig of Afrocentric history, or Ebonics-as-English, or creationism. If the people won't vote him out for coke, why would they do so for something a lot of them probably agree with? But IMO it's criminal to allow such goings-on in schools; it really is fraud and (nonsexual) child abuse.
IMO, it fits the classic definition of "high crimes": offenses against the state that can, by their nature, only be committed by officers or employees of the state.
It is hard to imagine a physicist that would want to imprison people for doubting or questioning the theory of general relativity.
I really am not sure what you mean by this. I did six years of grad school, and took numerous evolution courses and seminars; I had fossil man and human osteology as two of four subjects on my Ph.D. exams.
I have kept up a bit since then in the literature. In all that time I have never heard of some "agenda" such as you seem to be referring. Maybe my invitations to the conspiracy meetings just got lost in the mail, but I think you're just seeing things.
As far as putting people in jail? Where is this coming from? Have evolutionists taken to the street with pitchforks (no, that would be rock hammers and trowels)? Not likely.
More to be feared is a return to religious fundamentalists domination of the government. You know, Nehemiah Scudder et al.? Now that's scary.
How about for mandating the teaching of N-ray theory?
What do you think the appropriate reaction of astronomers should be if the government decides that astrology is as good as astronomy? What if the Legislature in, say, California, declares that crystal therapy will be taught along side normal medicine in medical schools?
I'm not advocating punishing anyone for "doubting or questioning the theory "; I do think that governmant officials who commit fraud by misrepresenting the status of evolution in science need to be held accountable, and not just by the electorate.
If life was created from non life in the lab tomorrow, it would not affect my views at all.
And what color is the sky on your planet? Good, Lord. There's not a single theory that is taught LESS dogmatically than evolution. We never read of any other theory in textbooks that "some scientists believe" it. Indeed in a typical textbooks HUNDREDS of theories are presently so matter of factly that they aren't even unidentified as theories. But evolution ALWAYS is. The glaring evidence of dogma is that sticker plastering activists only care about ONE theory and never, ever evidence the slightest concern about how science in general is taught.
In conservative America the remedy is to win the debate in the public square. In liberal America the remedy is to entice the ACLU into taking the debate out of the public square and finding a plurality of judges to read emanations from penumbras.
The prohibition on the government against enacting anything "respecting an establishment of religion" is explicit. You may argue about how and when it ought apply, but that argument has not a thing to do with penumbras or their emanations.
The hell it doesn't. The term "seperation of church and state" emanated from a letter sent by a sitting President to a Danbury Baptist minister. The penumbral effect of that emanation is well documented. But thanks for the advice, the advice bin was a little low.
#####The glaring evidence of dogma is that sticker plastering activists only care about ONE theory and never, ever evidence the slightest concern about how science in general is taught.#####
This would tend to indicate that Christians are not generally in disagreement with science. The huge majority of scientific theories don't meet with any disagreement from us.
Evolution does, however, because we often perceive it to be part of an overall ideological agenda. We don't think that without justification. Many hardcore (fundamentalist) evolutionists have had second careers as leftist-secularist political activists (Huxley, Gould, etc.) and others (Sagan, Hawking) have tied evolution into their militantly atheist worldview.
We have no problem with other theories because they aren't generally used to bash Christians. All you have to do is read some of the evo-threads right here at FreeRepublic to see how many Christian bashers come out of the woodwork when this issue arises.
I don't see the ACLU or other anti-Christian groups getting upset when discussion of, let's say, gender differences in math ability is squashed, or when someone who suggests that such differences exist is forced to recant (Harvard's president, for example). There is scientific evidence that male and female brains differ, but a school teacher would likely be fired if he or she told a classroom full of kids about this evidence. A school textbook containing such evidence wouldn't see the light of day.
The left censors scientific inquiry all the time with not a peep of opposition from the people who scream bloody murder if Christians simply suggest that the theory of evolution isn't a fact, which it isn't.
In conservative America the remedy is to win the debate in the public square. In liberal America the remedy is ... finding a plurality of judges
Both of these are important. So far, all the court cases have been on 1st Amendment Establishment Clause grounds; my argument is that fraud and high crimes are also involved. One difference being that conviction of fraud, (nonsexual) child abuse, or high crimes affects the individual school board member or bureaucrat, not just the organization they work for.
Other appropriate (IMO) actions (not just by scientists) include strikes by science teachers, demonstrations, ridicule, actions by accrediting agencies, withholding of No Child Left Behind money, and I'm sure other things I haven't thought of.
Your argument smacks of fascism. Congrats.
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