JUDGE HANDS SCIENCE A DEFEAT
An Essay by Greg Stone
Federal District Court Judge John Jones in Kitzmiller et al v. Dover Area School District delivered a stunning blow to science, allowing religious demagogues to neuter science with a definition that renders the discipline irrelevant to our understanding of the universe.
That may be the opposite of what you read in the papers. According to those accounts, Christian demagogues were soundly defeated, rebuked, and led away with heads lowered in shame. But the press missed the real story. The actual demagogues strolled out of court smiling, after artfully deceiving Judge Jones.
To understand the real story, we must start at the beginning. What crime did the Dover School Board commit? The Board asked teachers to read a statement to ninth grade biology students. The offending statement reads as follows (with emphasis added):
The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.
Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.
Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.
With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses on preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.
For me, the mystery remains. How is the above statement not true, and how does it establish or endorse a religion?
What offense exists in advising students to “keep an open mind?” In distinguishing between fact and theory? In alerting students to alternatives they can study on their own? What rational person could possibly be offended?
[Note: The Court, in an exercise not likely to win an award for critical thinking, ignored the plain meaning of the Dover Board’s statement and postulated an “objective observer”—a mythical teen. The Court then projected a subjective stream of consciousness into the teen’s mind, telling us what the teen would be thinking as he heard the statement. The content of this stream of consciousness amounted to nothing more than the Plaintiffs’ prejudices. The exercise was not only unconvincing, it was offensive.]
Returning to the question of who could possibly be offended, we ask why Plaintiffs Kitzmiller et al took offense. Could it be the board’s statement challenged their religion? Plaintiffs reacted as though the statement was blasphemy. There was no civil discourse; rather a lawsuit was filed. In what appeared to be simply dogmatic reaction, the Inquisition drama known as the Dover trial began.
The Court, caught up in the Plaintiffs’ inquisition demeanor, interrogated the Defendants, put their souls and character on trial, and recounted the history of Fundamentalism in a search for religious intent—but failed to concentrate on the proposed statement, which was “the offense.”
Swept up in the Plaintiffs’ dogmatic hunt for religious views, the Court itself exhibited offensive religious prejudice. The opinion reads: “The religious movement known as Fundamentalism began in nineteenth century America as a response to social changes, new religious thought and Darwinism.” Fundamentalism, not the “offending” statement, was on trial.
The Court recounted history, “Religiously motivated groups pushed state legislatures to adopt laws prohibiting public schools from teaching evolution, culminating in the Scopes ‘monkey trial’ of 1925.” In its lesson on stare decisis, the Court demonized Fundamentalism. The Court roamed far from the legal question before it. What should have been an adjudication of the narrow legal question—whether or not the offending statement endorsed or established a religion—turned into a witch hunt.
Once the Court launched into a cultural history lesson, it was incumbent upon the Court to be thorough. Incomplete histories are prejudicial.
The facts of the Scopes trial should have been revealed. The fact no offense had been committed in what was essentially a show trial orchestrated by the ACLU (also involved in the Dover trial) was relevant. The Court, purporting to offer a history lesson on Fundamentalism, had an equal duty to deliver a history lesson on atheism and the ACLU. If the Court sought motive in the annals of history, it had a duty to consider all motives, including the Plaintiffs’ religious viewpoint motive.
The Court failed to introduce the fact the biology text in question in Scopes extolled the virtues of eugenics, the movement behind the forced sterilization of over 65,000 people in the US. Why not cite eugenics court cases that arose out of the “science” the Fundamentalists opposed in the Scopes trial? Why not trace eugenics as it was exported into Nazi death camps by champions of the text the Fundamentalists opposed?
My critics might argue the Court could not possibly present a comprehensive account of relevant cultural history in an opinion. That is precisely my point. The Court, by selectively recounting history, entered bias into the opinion and violated First and Fourteenth Amendment protections.
The court, led astray by Plaintiffs’ counsel, failed to address pertinent issues raised in previous judicial decisions. The only question before the court was whether or not the defendants established or endorsed a religion by asking teachers to read the “offending” statement.
An analogy clarifies the issue. I appear at a school board meeting and enter into a disagreement with Fred. The disagreement leaves me so upset I express a desire to see Fred dropped into the Chesapeake wearing a brand new pair of cement shoes. Motive is established: I don’t like the guy. My character is evident: I’m a violent hothead. Opportunity exists: my buddy owns a struggling cement shoe factory. Unless Fred is dead, however, I cannot be tried for murder.
Unless I commit an offense, my motive, my character, and my opportunity are irrelevant. In the Dover case, where is the crime? Fred is not dead. The statement issued by the school board does not establish nor endorse a religion. Thus, impugning the motives of the Defendants was out of bounds. Their motives, their associations, their opportunity, and their character were irrelevant, as no transgression took place.
In essence, Defendants were accused of committing a concealed thought crime. There was no unlawful act; they were “convicted” on the basis of implied motive, beliefs, and associations. Unless the statement issued to the ninth graders was an act of establishment or endorsement of a particular religion, there was no crime. Fred is not dead. I cannot be convicted for my desire to see Fred wearing size sixteen cement loafers swimming with the fishes.
The government, through the Court, violated the bounds of neutrality. The opinion reads, “The endorsement test recognizes that when government transgresses the limits of neutrality and acts in ways that show religious favoritism or sponsorship, they have violated the Establishment Clause.” The Plaintiffs presented a case based upon their religious viewpoint. The decision in their favor transgressed the limits of neutrality.
The court, inadvertently, by not understanding the issue in depth, endorsed the religious viewpoint of atheism. The government violated the prohibition against “conveying or attempting to convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred.”
The government conducted an analysis (Inquisition) of the Defendants’ views, but failed to conduct an analysis of the Plaintiffs’ religious views. As there was a religious motive behind the Plaintiffs’ suit, the court discriminated against one religious view on behalf of another.
The Plaintiffs would have us believe their religious view, atheism, can be established and endorsed by the government by virtue of it being “not religious.” They would have us believe the Founding Fathers crafted the Establishment Clause intending to give the religious view of atheism a protected position in our public institutions. When the Dover court failed to query the religious motives, views, statements, and history of Plaintiffs, they failed to provide “equal protection.” The Court demonstrated bias when it performed “purpose” and “motive” tests on one side without performing the same tests on the other side.
But, you might say, Plaintiffs deny they were motivated by religious views. They were only advocating for “science.” Yet, in the text of the Dover opinion, we find this is not the case. Plaintiffs’ argument, in the end, rests upon a metaphysical position, not upon science. In failing to recognize this critical fact, Judge Jones blessed a religious view that neutered science.
In order to fully understand these facts, consider the following quote (emphasis added) from the Dover opinion citing the district court in the McLean decision, “The court concluded that creation science ‘is simply not science’ because it depends upon ‘supernatural intervention,’ which cannot be explained by natural causes, or be proven through empirical investigation, and therefore is neither testable nor falsifiable.” The Court adds, “ID aspires to change the ground rules of science to make room for religion.” And, “… the ground rules of science have to be broadened so that supernatural forces can be considered.”
The Dover Court accepts as its authority, “Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena.” What scientific event in the 16th, or 17th century, or in the 18th, 19th, 20th, or 21st century determined there were only natural causes in this universe? What scientific proof exists? What experiment was conducted? If no such experiment exists, why do scientists limit their search to natural causes? The decision to limit the scope of science is capricious and arbitrary.
The Dover Court determined ID failed as science because, “it fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science.” The first level reads (emphasis added), “1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation…” The Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a scientific reason for excluding supernatural causes; they invoked “ground rules.” GROUND RULES?!
Science has not determined there are only natural causes in this universe; there is not one iota of scientific evidence that this universe is limited to natural causes. And yet Plaintiffs argue, and the Court agrees, we can eliminate supernatural causes on the basis of arbitrary “ground rules.”
The Court opinion continues, “While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science.” This means, in essence, that Science, according to the Plaintiffs, opts out of explaining the universe. Science, although it understands there may be supernatural causes, chooses not to explore these causes, thus, it must always be incomplete and uninformed. Science no longer offers explanations relevant to the universe in which we live. You want answers? Forgetaboutit. Science is now irrelevant.
Expert testimony leads the Court to opine, “This self-imposed convention of science, which limits inquiry to testable, natural explanations about the natural world, is referred to by philosophers as ‘methodological naturalism’….” The opinion goes on to state, “Methodological naturalism is a ‘ground rule’ of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.”
Setting aside the problem that evolutionary history cannot be observed, tested, replicated or verified, but must remain an inference based upon an incomplete data set, the argument fails because Plaintiffs misrepresent science and arbitrarily limit its scope. Plaintiffs offer no scientific evidence or proof the universe in which we live does not contain both supernatural and natural causes; they offer a metaphysical view that the world contains only natural causes.
The critical reader might argue Plaintiffs only argue for methodological naturalism; they would be correct if they accept the Plaintiffs’ perjured testimony. If the Court investigated the beliefs of the Plaintiffs, however, it would find them more dishonest than the Defendants that were chastised. The Plaintiffs, however, were cleverly deceptive. They hid from view their metaphysical and religious belief there are only natural causes—known as philosophical naturalism or materialism.
The Plaintiffs’ position is a religious view unsupported by science. They know it, and hide it. Plaintiffs cleverly deceived the Court and gained special treatment for their religious view in the schools.
The Court stated “… we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science.” This reasoning is faulty in the extreme. If ID is true, it simply means there are both supernatural and natural causes. That is still science.
The Court states, “…the [mission of] Intelligent Design Movement itself, is to change the ground rules of science to allow supernatural causation of the natural world, which the Supreme Court in Edwards and the court in McLean correctly recognized as an inherently religious concept.” The Supreme Court engaged in faulty reasoning. If the universe consists of both supernatural and natural causes, then that is what science must study.
Scientists cannot arbitrarily decide, based upon their metaphysical views, based upon their religious views, that the universe contains only natural causes. That is religion, not science. Science must be unfettered from demagogues who preach philosophical naturalism and insist their religious view deserves a special place in our schools.
Real science looks at what is; real science is not limited by the ideological agenda of the Plaintiffs, the ACLU, or Americans United for Separation.
When the Court ruled, “It is therefore readily apparent to the Court that ID fails to meet the essential ground rules that limit science to testable, natural explanations,” the Court violated the Constitution and endorsed metaphysical naturalism, a religious view. The Court endorsed one religious view over others. And the Court failed to understand science.
Quoting from the opinion, “As articulated by the Supreme Court, under the Lemon test, a government-sponsored message violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment if 1) it does not have a secular purpose; 2) its principal or primary effect advances or inhibits religion; or, 3) it creates an excessive entanglement of the government with religion.”
In the Dover case, the Board’s message had a secular purpose: enhancement and improvement of the science curriculum. The Plaintiffs lawsuit served no secular purpose; it was intended to limit the pursuit of science and narrow science education to conform to their bias.
The Dover Board’s message had nothing to do with religion; it addressed how students are taught science. Plaintiffs’ lawsuit was intended to attack religion.
The Dover message created no entanglement of government with religion, it simply noted alternative theories of evolution were available to the student who cared to investigate on their own and keep an open mind. Plaintiffs’ lawsuit entangled the Court with a metaphysical and religious view, that of atheism, and entangled the Court in restricting science education to theories that met the litmus test of a specific metaphysical and religious view.
The Court, as an arm of the government, violated the Establishment Clause it set out to protect.
The Court’s self-appraisal, “… the Court is confident that no other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than we are to traipse into this controversial area,” proved to be manifestly untrue. The Court’s arrogance left it wide open to Plaintiffs’ deception and perjury.
The day the Dover Court opinion was issued was a sad day in American jurisprudence. Science was redefined to fit the prejudice of religious demagogues.
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