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.
Yes, eliminating possible alternative explanations beforehand is wrong.
That's why I know you'll agree with me that the "MARTIANS-ACTUALLY-CREATED-US" theory must be taught as well, along with Evolution and Intelligent Design.
After all, there's no way to disprove it, so it's just as valid as well, right?
Does it matter? If it's reasonable to believe that all the stuff of the universe always existed, I don't think there's a great leap from there to the belief that a Mind that always existed created the universe.
I wonder how much of this would go away if kids were allowed to study religion in school as an elective?
I send my kids to a Christian School were Evolution in taught in the Science class and they learn about the Creator in Religion.
It's just no big deal when Science and Religion both have a voice.
How about the Creationism vs Physics debate ? Creationism vs Astrology ? Geology ? Oceonography ?
Because before the first single cell organism existed the universe, galaxy, solar system, planet, and ocean needed to exist and creationism hasn't even come with a compelling explanation of these events, never mind anything else.
Or do creationists accept people who are expert in these branches of science have the most plausible explanations ?
The Martians All Created Us theory could work if we were only talking about who or what created/formed us. It fails to explain the existance of other created things we see, like the universe.
I don't have a problem with that-the problem is when creationists try to push their views as legitimate science.
You mean those luddites like Gregor Mendel and Georges Lemaitre?
Get real - we're talking about evolution, which talks about terrestrial life and has nothing to do with how the rest of the universe was created.
The "Martians Created Us" theory has the exact same amount of hard evidence backing it up as Intelligent Design does - absolutely nothing.
So if you can accept ID without any evidence, then surely you can accept the MCU theory as equally plausible, yes?
To do otherwise would suggest bias.
D-12 is the first part of it. The rest of it just doesn't fit into a small grid. Besides, I'm avoiding Arthur Clarke's Nine Billion Names of God scenario. I've got to leave some out so we still have debates.
No need to make such an assumption. This matter differs from creationism/ID because in this matter we actually have hard evidence of a composer.
As soon as you take such evidence that DOES point to a composer and claim that must be the answer, then you are violating the premise from the onset that no composer be used to explain the origin of the piece.
Then you will be subjected to a lot of alternate arguments and how unscientific you are being.
The C/E debate is a counterbalance to the Global Warming debate on a different level. In one case science is being abused and in the other it is being used appropriately. But, which is which and by whom?
I've deduced that there is no point in discussing this with you as we have no common ground for discussion.
On reflection, if I can get a few more, I'll add another line to the toolkit. One will be: "Lab work proves ID." Another candidate is: "But it's still a mammal!"
"so little willingness to self examine."
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