Science Education

It’s the holiday season, which means that cheer and values like charity, academic freedom, tolerance, and diversity are abounding–but apparently not among Darwin’s defenders in the United Kingdom. A recent angry editorial by the “Atheist Examiner” titled “Creationists try to sneak Intelligent Design into school libraries” tells the story — except that it’s not the actual story. The correct story is that “Truth in Science,” a British organization allied with a number of credible British scientists and academics, is offering Explore Evolution to school libraries. Contra the “Atheist Examiner” article, the textbook Explore Evolution does not argue for intelligent design, but rather presents students with the scientific evidence both for and against neo-Darwinian evolution. Intelligent design is not advocated in Read More ›

May a teacher answer questions from students about her personal religious beliefs or her beliefs on Darwin’s theory of evolution? That’s the issue addressed in Moore v. Gaston County Board of Education, where a lower federal court found it legal for a agnostic teacher who supported evolution to express his views in response to student questions about what he believed. Would a teacher who doubts Darwinism also be granted the academic freedom to openly answer student questions about whether she finds evolutionary biology persuasive? 1. Summary A student teacher, George Moore, sued the Gaston County School District in North Carolina after being dismissed because he supported evolution in class by giving “unorthodox answers to student questions (derived from the day’s Read More ›

Crowley v. Smithsonian Institution is another case where a federal court found that the government does not violate the Establishment clause when it advocates evolution. Yet the reasoning the court used to find it permissible to teach evolution could, if applied fairly, also validate the teaching of intelligent design as constitutional. 1. Summary Plaintiffs sued the Smithsonian Institution, arguing that displays featuring evolution at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History established secular humanism and violated the constitutional mandate requiring the government to remain neutral in matters of religion.70 Plaintiffs requested an order compelling the Smithsonian to “expend an amount equal to the amount extended in the promulgation of the evolutionary theory . . . on the Biblical account of Read More ›

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.