2 replies on “Guest Post on Science and the Sacred on Dover”
Interesting post, I found out about it from Luskin’s critique on the DI website.
A few comments/thoughts:
1. The Scopes trial was 1925, not 1926, and was about the teacher Scopes suing to overturn Tennessee’s ban on teaching evolution, not a case “in which a legal challenge to the teaching of evolution in public schools failed.” (In the 1970s the creationists filed many court challenges allegeding that evolution was unconstitutional, but those all failed.)
Scopes actually lost the trial in 1925 (although he “won” in the media) and was convicted of teaching evolution and fined $100. The case was overturned on a technicality in 1927 but the ban on evolution remained in effect, and such bans remained constitutional, and common across the country, until the Epperson case in 1968.
2. “In a separate post, I’ll address Judge Jones’ ruling about whether ID is “science,” which I believe reflects a number of problems in how the law handles the question of how to define “science.””
Many critiques of Judge Jones on this point ignore the fact that the Defense’s *defense* of the ID policy was that “hey, we’re just teaching science here, so it doesn’t matter what the personal motives of the school board members were, their legislative purpose and legislative effect were to teach science.” Those who say Jones should have not ruled on the science question (a) are saying that Jones should have just ignored the defense’s arguments, despite their putting the arguments forward to be ruled upon (and if he had ignored the defense’s arguments, he was thereby weakening his decision should it be appealed, when appeal was explicitly and publicly the Defense’s original plan), (b) don’t realize that courts rule on science in innumerable questions every day — environmental, forensic, medical, etc. — and the Supreme Court has even set forth standards for doing so. I think I have yet to see a criticism of the Kitzmiller decision that actually goes back and reads the briefs and testimony from each side, and looks at how the evidence an arguments developed throughout the case. Once all of this is taken into account, it is almost impossible to see a judge punting on the science question. The assertion that ID was science was literally the key contention that made the school board think they would get away with this in a science class in the first place, it was the key thing that made them think they had a chance at trial, and it was the primary defense that the Defendants offered.
“I’ve come to believe that the misuse of ID theory by those Dover school board members reflects a common misuse of ID in the Church generally. In my experience, it’s widely assumed by evangelical church-goers – contrary to the official statements of leaders in the ID movement – that ID supports belief in God, or more specifically supports young earth creationism, over and against evolution. Countless apologetics programs, websites, and publications designed for evangelicals respond to any suggestion that biological evolution may be true (or that direct creationism may be false) with a passing reference to Mike Behe and Bill Dembski.”
I think it is wildly naive to think that this all can be blamed on the the ID followers and not on the ID leaders. Any objective analysis of the actions & writings of the ID leaders indicates that by-and-large they, too, see ID as basically an apologetics program. Much of this was introduced at trial.
“These would-be apologists are sometimes shocked to learn that many ID theorists accept common descent,”
This is a common myth about ID. Behe is essentially the only ID leader that accepts common ancestry. Dembski doesn’t for instance. Neither do Paul Nelson, Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells, Phillip Johnson, etc.
“which definitely is not compatible with special creationism (or sometimes they know better and conveniently fail to mention that fact in their presentations!).”
Again, one can’t blame this all on the ID followers. ID leaders often obfuscate on the common ancestry question, on the one hand sometimes deflecting scientific criticism and appealing to religious moderates by saying ID is OK with common ancestry, but on the other hand a great amount of the ID movement’s effort and rhetoric is devoted to overturning common ancestry. E.g. Casey Luskin’s hominid posts on the DI evolutionnews blog, the entire first half of the new DI book “Explore Evolution”, most of Wells’s work, all the stuff about the Cambrian explosion, alleged lack of transitional fossils, trying to explain away every new fossil find as irrelevant, etc.
A few things I recommend reading on all of the above:
Scott, E. C., and Matzke, N. (2007). “Biological design in science classrooms.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104(suppl. 1), 8669-8676. May 15, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0701505104
Matzke, N. (2009). “But Isn’t It Creationism? The beginnings of ‘intelligent design’ and Of Pandas and People in the midst of the Arkansas and Louisiana litigation.” But Is It Science?: The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy, Updated Edition, Prometheus Books, edited by Robert Pennock and Michael Ruse. Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, pp. 377-413.
Thanks for the comment Nick. Some of these concerns I will address in my next guest post. I hear what you’re saying about ID leadership vs. people in the pews. There is a very unhealthy dynamic there.
2 replies on “Guest Post on Science and the Sacred on Dover”
Interesting post, I found out about it from Luskin’s critique on the DI website.
A few comments/thoughts:
1. The Scopes trial was 1925, not 1926, and was about the teacher Scopes suing to overturn Tennessee’s ban on teaching evolution, not a case “in which a legal challenge to the teaching of evolution in public schools failed.” (In the 1970s the creationists filed many court challenges allegeding that evolution was unconstitutional, but those all failed.)
Scopes actually lost the trial in 1925 (although he “won” in the media) and was convicted of teaching evolution and fined $100. The case was overturned on a technicality in 1927 but the ban on evolution remained in effect, and such bans remained constitutional, and common across the country, until the Epperson case in 1968.
2. “In a separate post, I’ll address Judge Jones’ ruling about whether ID is “science,” which I believe reflects a number of problems in how the law handles the question of how to define “science.””
Many critiques of Judge Jones on this point ignore the fact that the Defense’s *defense* of the ID policy was that “hey, we’re just teaching science here, so it doesn’t matter what the personal motives of the school board members were, their legislative purpose and legislative effect were to teach science.” Those who say Jones should have not ruled on the science question (a) are saying that Jones should have just ignored the defense’s arguments, despite their putting the arguments forward to be ruled upon (and if he had ignored the defense’s arguments, he was thereby weakening his decision should it be appealed, when appeal was explicitly and publicly the Defense’s original plan), (b) don’t realize that courts rule on science in innumerable questions every day — environmental, forensic, medical, etc. — and the Supreme Court has even set forth standards for doing so. I think I have yet to see a criticism of the Kitzmiller decision that actually goes back and reads the briefs and testimony from each side, and looks at how the evidence an arguments developed throughout the case. Once all of this is taken into account, it is almost impossible to see a judge punting on the science question. The assertion that ID was science was literally the key contention that made the school board think they would get away with this in a science class in the first place, it was the key thing that made them think they had a chance at trial, and it was the primary defense that the Defendants offered.
“I’ve come to believe that the misuse of ID theory by those Dover school board members reflects a common misuse of ID in the Church generally. In my experience, it’s widely assumed by evangelical church-goers – contrary to the official statements of leaders in the ID movement – that ID supports belief in God, or more specifically supports young earth creationism, over and against evolution. Countless apologetics programs, websites, and publications designed for evangelicals respond to any suggestion that biological evolution may be true (or that direct creationism may be false) with a passing reference to Mike Behe and Bill Dembski.”
I think it is wildly naive to think that this all can be blamed on the the ID followers and not on the ID leaders. Any objective analysis of the actions & writings of the ID leaders indicates that by-and-large they, too, see ID as basically an apologetics program. Much of this was introduced at trial.
“These would-be apologists are sometimes shocked to learn that many ID theorists accept common descent,”
This is a common myth about ID. Behe is essentially the only ID leader that accepts common ancestry. Dembski doesn’t for instance. Neither do Paul Nelson, Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells, Phillip Johnson, etc.
“which definitely is not compatible with special creationism (or sometimes they know better and conveniently fail to mention that fact in their presentations!).”
Again, one can’t blame this all on the ID followers. ID leaders often obfuscate on the common ancestry question, on the one hand sometimes deflecting scientific criticism and appealing to religious moderates by saying ID is OK with common ancestry, but on the other hand a great amount of the ID movement’s effort and rhetoric is devoted to overturning common ancestry. E.g. Casey Luskin’s hominid posts on the DI evolutionnews blog, the entire first half of the new DI book “Explore Evolution”, most of Wells’s work, all the stuff about the Cambrian explosion, alleged lack of transitional fossils, trying to explain away every new fossil find as irrelevant, etc.
A few things I recommend reading on all of the above:
Scott, E. C., and Matzke, N. (2007). “Biological design in science classrooms.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104(suppl. 1), 8669-8676. May 15, 2007.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0701505104
Matzke, N. (2009). “But Isn’t It Creationism? The beginnings of ‘intelligent design’ and Of Pandas and People in the midst of the Arkansas and Louisiana litigation.” But Is It Science?: The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy, Updated Edition, Prometheus Books, edited by Robert Pennock and Michael Ruse. Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, pp. 377-413.
Thanks for the comment Nick. Some of these concerns I will address in my next guest post. I hear what you’re saying about ID leadership vs. people in the pews. There is a very unhealthy dynamic there.