Posted on 12/30/2005 2:29:22 PM PST by PatrickHenry
In this last month of the year, when many Americans' thoughts are turning to holidays -- and what to call them -- we may miss another large story about the intersections of religion and public life. Last week a federal appeals court in Atlanta listened to oral arguments about a sticker pasted, and now removed, from suburban Cobb County, Georgia’s high school science textbooks warning that evolution is a "theory, not a fact." The three-judge panel will take their time deciding the complex issues in the case. But on Tuesday, a federal district court in Pennsylvania ruled the Dover Area ( Penn.) School Board’s oral disclaimers about scientific evolution to be an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The school district's statement to students and parents directed them to an "alternative" theory, that of Intelligent Design (ID); the court ruled found "that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism." (Kitzmiller opinion, p. 31.) Apparently in a case about evolution, genealogical metaphors are unavoidable.
Seemingly every news story about the modern trials feels it necessary to refer to the 1925 Tennessee Monkey Trial, the clash of the larger-than-life legal and political personalities of William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow in the prosecution of high school teacher John Scopes for teaching evolution in violation of state law. As an historian who has written about evolution, education, and the era of the Scopes trial, I will admit the continuities between 1925 and today can seem striking. But, these continuities are deceiving. Though the modern court challenges still pit scientists supporting evolution against some parents, churches, and others opposing its unchallenged place in public school curriculum; the changes in the last eighty years seem even stronger evidence for a form of legal or cultural evolution.
First, the continuities. In the late 19th century religious commentators like the southern Methodist editor and professor Thomas O. Summers, Sr. loved to repeat a little ditty: "When doctors disagree,/ disciples then are free" to believe what they wanted about science and the natural world. Modern anti-evolutionists, most prominently under the sponsorship of Seattle's Discovery Institute, urge school boards to "teach the controversy" about evolution, purposefully inflating disagreements among scientists about the particulars of evolutionary biology into specious claims that evolutionary biology is a house of cards ready to fall at any time. The court in the Dover case concluded that although there were some scientific disagreements about evolutionary theory, ID is "an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion" not science. In a second continuity, supporters of ID reach back, even before Darwin, to the 19th century theology of William Paley, who pointed to intricate structures like the human eye as proof of God's design of humans and the world. Though many ID supporters are circumspect about the exact identity of the intelligent designer, it seems unlikely that the legions of conservative Christian supporters of ID are assuming that Martians, time-travelers, or extra-terrestrial meatballs could be behind the creation and complexity of their world.
While these issues suggest that the Scopes Trial is still relevant and would seem to offer support for the statement most often quoted to me by first year history students on why they should study history -- because it repeats itself -- this new act in the drama shows some remarkable changes. Arguing that a majority of parents in any given state, acting through legislatures, could outlaw evolution because it contradicted their religious beliefs, William Jennings Bryan campaigned successfully in Tennessee and several other states to ban the teaching of evolution and to strike it from state-adopted textbooks.
Legal challenges to the Tennessee law never made it to the federal courts, but the constitutional hurdles for anti-evolutionists grew higher in 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas. that an Arkansas law very similar to the Tennessee statute was an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The law's purpose, the court found, was expressly religious. So anti-evolution was forced to evolve, seeking a new form more likely to pass constitutional muster. Enter Creation Science, a movement that added scientific language to the book of Genesis, and demanded that schools provide "equal time" to both Creation Science and biological evolution. Creation Science is an important transitional fossil of the anti-evolution movement, demonstrating two adaptations: first, the adoption of scientific language sought to shield the religious purpose of the statute and second, the appeal to an American sense of fairness in teaching both sides of an apparent controversy. The Supreme Court in 1987 found this new evolution constitutionally unfit, overturning a Louisiana law (Edwards v. Aguillard).
Since the 1987 Edwards v Aguillard decision, the anti-evolution movement has attempted several new adaptations, all of which show direct ties to previous forms. The appeal to public opinion has grown: recent national opinion polls reveal that nearly two-thirds of Americans (and even higher numbers of Alabamians) support teaching both scientific evolution and creationism in public schools. School board elections and textbook adoption battles show the strength of these arguments in a democratic society. The new variants have been far more successful at clothing themselves in the language -- but not the methods -- of science. Whether by rewriting state school standards to teach criticisms of scientific evolution (as in Ohio or Kansas) or in written disclaimers to be placed in school textbooks (as in Alabama or Cobb County, Georgia) or in the now discredited oral disclaimers of the Dover Area School Board, the religious goal has been the same: by casting doubt on scientific evolution, they hope to open room to wedge religion back into public school curricula. [Discovery Institute's "Wedge Project".] But as the court in yesterday's Dover case correctly concluded, Intelligent Design is "an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion" not science. Old arguments of a religious majority, though still potent in public debate, have again proven constitutionally unfit; Creationists and other anti-evolutionists will now have to evolve new arguments to survive constitutional tests.
I hope you are not talking about those on FR who support the theory of evolution.
Seriously.
I think he was joking.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Would make a good t-shirt for somebody or a punk rock band name...
Wow.
Anybody got a tissue to clean the spittle off the inside of my monitor?
You posted an avalanche of nonsense, that you've posted before, and that has been refuted before. CG refuted it yet again, and you ignore his refutations, just like you always do. I confidently predict that you will appear again soon with the same tired nonsense.
proving evolutionists lie again, just like Piltdown...
Please present your evidence that Piltdown was specifically an evolutionist lie, and not some other form of hoax or fraud.
Actually, it gets better. Creationists bang on and on and on about a hoax that was perpetrated 90 years ago, doubted 75 years ago, and finally debunked 60 years ago. The fact that again and again this one tiny incident appears to be their best killer argument against evolutionary science demonstrates the witlessness and threadbare nature of evolution rejection.
Among other things they are going to say it is a common ape man ancestor, like thats any different
Oh wolf, you still haven't learned anything. Actually the response to that one is that humans *are* apes.
And all the best to you.
*bow*
Happy New Year. :-)
And to you to.
So you're a Christian evolutionist are you? What's it like?
Happy New Year. :-)
Well, if he isn't James Bancroft then either James B or RaceB is a plagiarist.
Not bad, but I'm waiting for better. I really want something from this particular poster, and I've been following the "debate" with great interest. But as so often is the case, it's not easy to find one great sentence that perfectly captures the madness.
***THIS IS A GENERAL RESPONSE - NOT DIRECTED AT YOU PERSONALLY***
The Pro-Evo group posts a thread looking for an argument, not a debate. They can't do it alone, so they ping all their pro-Evo buddies. They also know full well that the debate will never be settled in these threads, they are looking to elicit a fight and to rub people's noses in it (primordial slime).
After recieving the response they don't like they cry a river about someone not being able to prove a matter of faith. Jeez, give me some crackers with that whine!
The most hypocritical aspect of the Evos is their desire to constantly have this debate on Freerepublic. Hypocritical? Yes, they are charged up, ping lists ready and look forward to this debate with sole purpose of sticking it to people of faith, but would never allow a similar debate to happen in a classroom.
Personally, I find this debate on Freerepublic entertaining, thought provoking, disgusting, irrational, and sometimes enlightening. It is too bad that this debate could not happen in classrooms across America. The kids might even enjoy school more and stay awake in science class.
Prove it.
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