Science Education

The case Wright v. Houston was decided by the lowest level of the federal courts in 1973, and it effectively ruled that it is not illegal to teach just the evidence supporting evolution. This is one case in a line of cases that found that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause. 1. Summary Students in the Houston Independent School District sued their district and the Texas State Board of Education for teaching evolution but not including any other views about origins, such as the Biblical story of creation.43 The student-plaintiffs contended that the study of evolution constituted the establishment of a sectarian, atheistic religion and inhibited the free exercise of their own religion in violation of the First Read More ›

Tomorrow, Tuesday November 10th, University of St. Thomas School of Law is hosting a legal symposium titled “Intelligent Design and the Constitution.” Participants include Peter M. J. Hess (NCSE), David DeWolf (Professor of Law, Gonzaga University; senior fellow, Discovery Institute), Josh Rosenau (NCSE), Thomas D. Sullivan (Aquinas Chair in Philosophy and Theology, University of St. Thomas), Patrick Gillen (Lead Defense Counsel, Kitzmiller v. Dover), Russell Pannier (Emeritus Professor of Law, William Mitchel College of the Law), and myself. The title of my talk will be “The Constitutionality and Pedagogical Benefits of Teaching Evolution Scientifically.” According to the website: The symposium, free and open to the public, will bring together scholars to debate and analyze various constitutional and philosophical issues surrounding Read More ›

David Opderbeck, Professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law, has in the past offered some insightful criticisms of the Dover ruling, including the facts that Judge Jones: Now over at the pro-Darwin BioLogos blog, Professor Opderbeck writes “In Defense of Dover.” Well, only sort of. Professor Opderbeck qualifies his post’s pro-Judge Jones title, stating: “I still think Judge Jones’ opinion in Kitzmiller missed the mark in some important ways, even though I think (and have always thought) the end result was correct.” Truthfully, I don’t disagree with a word of Professor Opderbeck’s praise of the Dover ruling when he writes: It seems clear from the trial record that the Dover, Pennsylvania school board officials who promoted the Read More ›

Epperson v. Arkansas was the first case regarding the teaching of evolution to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision was handed down in 1968, where the Court effectively declared it illegal to ban the teaching of evolution. 1. Summary An Arkansas statute descended from the Tennessee “Monkey Law” made it a criminal misdemeanor for teachers in state-supported schools to teach evolution and to use textbooks that taught the theory.28 Despite this law, in 1965 the Little Rock, Arkansas School Board gave biology teacher Susan Epperson a new textbook containing material on evolution.29 To avoid criminal penalty and dismissal, she sought a declaration that the Arkansas statute was unconstitutional.30 The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Epperson and held that the Read More ›

Updated photo from Friday night: Castle Rock, Colorado — Despite the first major snowstorm of the season, and unrelenting efforts by malicious Darwinists to prevent people from registering, a huge crowd of around 1,000 people showed up Friday night to hear Dr. Stephen Meyer present the DNA evidence for intelligent design based on his new book Signature in the Cell. Meyer, Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and myself are in Colorado to speak at the Legacy of Darwin ID Conference sponsored by Shepherd Project Ministries. On Saturday, Michael Behe will present the evidence against modern Darwinism from his books Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution; David Berlinski will talk about The Devil’s Delusion and The Deniable Darwin; and I Read More ›

Supporters of Darwin’s theory continue to distinguish themselves on America’s college campuses—not for their reason and logic, but for their incredible ill manners and an almost pathological inability to engage in civil discussion. Last week, a factually-challenged attack on intelligent design was published in The Nevada Sagebrush, the student newspaper at the University of Nevada, Reno. Nothing new in that; I see ill-informed articles on intelligent design all the time. But after my colleague Rob Crowther posted a short comment suggesting that readers might actually want to hear from intelligent design proponents themselves (imagine that!), the Darwinist thought-police came out in force. One writer who is so courageous that he hides behind the pseudonym “bobxxxx” fulminated:

Robert Crowther… and the rest of the theocratic morons of the Dishonesty Institute are traitors who want to destroy America’s science education. If it was up to me they would be put in prison for treason. They are enemies of America, no better than terrorists, and they should be treated like terrorists.

Traitors? Terrorists? Enemies of America? ID proponents should be “put in prison” for freely expressing their views?!! Perhaps the University of Nevada should consider requiring its students to take a course on the First Amendment. It’s pretty obvious that some of them don’t understand the value of free speech.

Introduction Scopes v. State is probably the most famous court case in the history of the evolution controversy. It’s most well known because a play, Inherit the Wind, was turned into a movie based loosely upon the trial, and has been shown in countless college and high school classrooms promoting a stereotype that Darwin-skeptics are ignorant, close-minded, intolerant ignoramuses. Ironically, today it’s the evolutionists who behave like the fundamentalists in the Scopes trial, holding all the power and banning viewpoints they don’t like. 1. Summary In 1925, teacher John T. Scopes was convicted under the recently adopted Tennessee “Monkey Law” that had criminalized the teaching of evolution.10 In Scopes’s defense, attorneys working with the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) argued Read More ›

I thought Richard Dawkins’ science was outdated, but I didn’t realize just how badly outdated until I watched this amazing You Tube clip from “The Genius of Charles Darwin,” a science documentary Dawkins hosted last year. If you watch until 7 minutes and 30 seconds into the clip, you will see Ernst Haeckel’s bogus embryo diagrams magically appear onscreen right before your very eyes: That’s right, Richard Dawkins circa 2008 was still peddling fraudulent “evidence” for evolution that no self-respecting embryologist would defend, and that most biology textbooks dropped years ago due in large part to biologist Jonathan Wells’ masterful book Icons of Evolution, which shamed Darwinists into cleaning up their act. Randy Olson, call home. Armed with retro science Read More ›

Barbara Forrest has issued a press release protesting good rules adopted in September, 2009 by the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) for implementing Louisiana’s Science Education Act (LSEA). The LSEA is an academic freedom bill passed into law in Louisiana last year. Dr. Forrest seems to think that by frequently inserting the word “creationist” into her press release and falsely labeling people like Darwin-doubting biologist Dr. Don Ewert as “creationists,” she can logically argue that the rules are “pro-creationist.” The reality is that BESE’s new rules are fair and pro-academic freedom, not “pro-creationist.” But as will be seen, fairness and academic freedom are exactly what evolution lobbyists like Dr. Forrest fear the most. Blatant Misrepresentations of Read More ›

There are a lot of false urban legends promoted in academia about intelligent design (ID). They often start with myths promoted by misinformed critiques in scientific journals, court rulings, or even talks by activists at scientific conferences. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for this misinformation to then be passed down to college students, who may know very little about ID and lack the resources to correct their professors’ misinformed and misplaced attacks on ID. Not anymore. If you’re a college student, recently gone back to school and expecting to hear a lot of anti-ID views from your professors, we’re pleased to present this “Back to School Guide” for students as follows: The College Student’s Back to School Guide to Intelligent DesignThe Read More ›