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.
Either the Constitution gives a crap about the merits of the label, or it doesn't. As it happens, it doesn't.
Well, in fact, it does give a poop about the scientific merits of the label, since the proposed change favors, and is actively supported in court, by people of a specific religeous pursuasion.
That is the crux of the issue in court...
Whether those should have been the cruxes of the issues is highly debatable.
Perhaps so. But whether there is any significant scientific merit to pasting a creationist talking point on a biology textbook isn't very debatable, because we, quite rightly, don't want to spend public funds supporting religion under the US Constitution.
If you, a non-scientist, want to put a label on a science textbook casting doubt on a particular branch of science, don't you think it's just an eensy-teensy bit relevant to ask you to justify your action?
If I want to justify the stickers as a good idea, absolutely. If I want to justify the stickers as necessary to achieve educational goals, absolutely. If I want to justify the stickers as being not unconstitution, absolutely not.
Than, I respectfully, but drastically, disagree.
You (or a layman on a schoolboard) aren't a scientist, so you don't know squat about what should be in a science textbook, and you have no competent business slapping labels on one.
Yes yes, for that we must defer to the scientific priesthood, with their holy white robes and their papal writs granted by the cardinals of the academy.
Yes, indeed. Just as we don't entrust the musical education of our children to the tone-deaf, or the english education of our children to the illiterate.
Come now. Biology doesn't want special treatment. Biology isn't begging to have a special mark of Cain slapped on it, exclusively.
If I continue to point out that your statements are entirely without relevance to the question of constitutionality, will you knock it off? I doubt it.
I didn't bring up the notion that biology was begging for special treatment, you did. If you will tag all your irrelevant sentences with "[this is irrelevant]", than I'll know which of your claims not to respond to.
My remarks here are directed specifically against fundamentalist creationists who are trying to get biology textbooks wear a ghetto star, not christians in general, why don't you wait until you are pricked before you whine about the needle?
Because you're tarring with an awfully wide brush. I support the district in this court action, because they are right on the legal merits. I'm no fundamentalist creationist, so it's plain on its face that not all supporters of the district are wacko fundies.
Well, that's interesting, but of course I have NOT, as you have suggested, said anything significantly defamatory about christians in general on this thread, many of whom, according to their official pronouncements, do NOT think the schoolboard has a leg to stand on, and has pretty much conducted itself in a disgraceful, perhaps illegal manner. This is a remarkably feeble justification for your contention that I have insulted ALL christians.
The case for teaching ID in the classroom, in any slightest form...
...is about as strong as the case that applying a sticker that says "keep an open mind" constitutes teaching ID in the classroom.
Here, lets try out your theory in another way. Suppose I wanted to put a station of the cross, a podium, a crucifix and a confessional in the rec room of my school, and invite a priest to come in part time to supervise my philosophy class, allowing to attend, oddly enough, only devote catholics.
I think you made a typo in your first sentence; I think you meant to write, "here, lets [sic] try out something that's completely different from your theory." Do you really not see why your example might be more properly considered an "establishment of religion" than a sticker that says "keep an open mind?"
Let's try out your theory in another way. Suppose a geology textbook has a chapter on global warming. It says, in essence, that global warming exists, that the scientific consensus is that it's all due to human agency, and that if we don't impose strict environmental controls soon we will all die. In fact, it's not just a geology textbook that says this, it's all geology textbooks. A schoolboard decides that this is controversial and decides not to teach the material; it's successfully sued. So it stickers the books, cautioning students to keep an open mind about the material. Is this unconstitutional?
No. Because A question of using public funds to argue in favor of a religous tenate is not at issue, and so the Constitution is mute. Incidently, regarding questions about which there is, actually, controversy between a significant portion of the relevant scientific community, the schoolboard and/or textbook publishers can legitimately call this science, since science classes are supposed to report on what scientists think.
It's not--if it were, we would have lost it long ago, as several other primate species have.
It's not--if it were, we would have lost it long ago, as several other primate species have.
The merits of the label are indeed irrelevant, excepting if they relate to the PURPOSE and the effect of the label. It's patently obvious that a religious motivation drove most, if not all, of those arguing for the label. If there is no valid secular purpose for the label (and if there is no objective merit to them, it's hard to see how there can be) then the religious motivation remains, and the Constitution certainly does care about that.
You can under some circumstances enact Constitutional policy that advances (or inhibits) religion incidental to some valid secular purpose, but you can never do so if that is the sole or principle purpose or effect!
I'm not advocating that. School boards do not have free speech rights - individuals do. School boards are official government bodies. They have the power to set the curriculum.
I'm saying that taking actions that misrepresent the status of evolution in the science of biology, or by otherwise trying to force teachers to lie to children, is an abuse of the board's power. Impeachment and prosecution on fraud (or other) charges seem entirely appropriate to me.
Me: I really don't see how upholding standards in science or any other subject is either leftwing or fascist. IMO it's 100% conservative.
You: What you just stated is a valid opinion that deserves airing. When you seek to jail the opposition for exercising the same right you have crossed a very serious line.
I don't have the right or power to put misleading stickers in books children are forced to read.
No. Because A question of using public funds to argue in favor of a religous tenate is not at issue, and so the Constitution is mute.
There are religious groups that believe that the Earth was created by God for the sole use and benefit of mankind, and would thus have a religious objection to a textbook claim that Man must reduce CO2 emissions for the good of the planet. Would that suffice to make the proposed warning labels unconstitutional? Would it matter what percentage of the people clamoring for the labels had such a religious belief? After all, a certain percentage of people who do not object to the stickers on Cobb's textbooks are not religious... is there a certain threshhold beyond which "keep an open mind" becomes an establishment of religion? Where is that threshhold spelled out in the Constitution?
Suppose a town, at the behest of a strong Flat Earth Society contingent, put stickers on textbooks cautioning students to view material on the spherical Earth with an open mind. Would this be unconstitutional? The Flat Earthers, after all, are not religious, they're idiots. Is it an "establishment of religion" to place stickers on behalf of secular morons? And if not, weren't you people arguing that it's unconstitutional to single biology out for special treatment? How is it not singling biology out for special treatment if biology is the only field where students may not be told to keep an open mind?
By the way, it certainly appears that the three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sees things my way.
Didn't we just go through this exact same argument with a different example? The Constitutional separation of church and state is not in question when the label is affixed by flat-earthers. They would deserve to be horse-whipped by parents of children forced to attend public schools, of course, but not by constitutional lawyers.
By the way, it certainly appears that the three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sees things my way.
I strongly recommend to any lurkers here that you actually read Politicalities' reference. Taken at face value, you might conclude that the circuit court has rendered a verdict, or even made an official gesture toward the Dover case, and in supposing that, you would have been mislead.
This is a mind-bogglingly irrelevant argument: if creationists try to put the same label on astronomy textbooks, the arguments will all the the same regarding Separation of church and state. If flat-earthers try to put labels on on astronomy books, all the same arguments will be applied to them, BUT, not by constitutional lawyers.
Please learn what the fallacy of the excluded middle is, and don't make any more arguments based on it, this isn't remedial logic class, and I won't spend time again trying to untangle your brainteasers.
The Supremes, long ago, and quite properly, decided to cope with people trying to, for example, refuse to pay taxes, or demand the right to take LSD, because of newly minted religeous beliefs, by creating an historical proviso: it reads approximately like this--"If it was already a central, major, traditional religeous belief prior to the establishment of the principle of freedom of religion, then it was supreme court business to uphold, otherwise, not. That God created the heavens and the earth is pretty undisputably a central, important tenate of numerous well-established religions, some of whom are overtly involved in this court case, to see a central tenate of their creed alluded to on a label in a science book.
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