Legal Science (jurisprudence)

Supervisors at NASA’s prestigious Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) illegally harassed and demoted a high-level computer system administrator for expressing support of intelligent design to co-workers, according to a discrimination lawsuit filed in California Superior Court. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys on behalf of David Coppedge, an information technology specialist and system administrator on JPL’s Cassini mission to Saturn, the most ambitious interplanetary exploration ever launched. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a NASA laboratory managed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where robotic planetary spacecraft, such as the Mars Rovers, are built and operated. Coppedge was a “Team Lead” Systems Administrator on the Cassini mission until JPL demoted him for allegedly “pushing religion” by loaning interested co-workers DVDs supportive Read More ›

Last week’s New York Times article on academic freedom legislation makes a false assertion that the Selman v. Cobb County Board of Education claimed it was illegal to single out evolution in a curricular policy. The NY Times article wrongly states: The legal incentive to pair global warming with evolution in curriculum battles stems in part from a 2005 ruling by a United States District Court judge in Atlanta that the Cobb County Board of Education, which had placed stickers on certain textbooks encouraging students to view evolution as only a theory, had violated First Amendment strictures on the separation of church and state. Although the sticker was not overtly religious, the judge said, its use was unconstitutional because evolution Read More ›

Links to our 8-Part Series, “The NCSE, Judge Jones, and Citation Bluffs About the Origin of New Functional Genetic Information”: • Part 1 (This Article): Judge Jones’s Misguided NCSE-Scripted Kitzmiller Ruling and the Origin of New Functional Genetic Information• Part 2: The Evolution-Lobby’s Useless Definition of Biological Information• Part 3: The Evolution-Lobby’s Misguided Definition of “New”• Part 4: Finding Darwin in All the Wrong Places• Part 5: How to Play the Gene Evolution Game• Part 6: Asking the Right Questions about the Evolutionary Origin of New Biological Information• Part 7: Assessing the NCSE’s Citation Bluffs on the Evolution of New Genetic Information• Part 8: The NCSE’s Citation Bluffs Reveal Little About the Evolutionary Origin of Information Read the Full Article: Read More ›

In this LeVake v. Independent School District, the Minnesota Court of Appeals did NOT find it was illegal to offer scientific critiques of evolution. What they did find is that administrators may exercise tight control over the curriculum, and may discipline teachers who would express doubts Darwin in the classroom. Cases like this show the need for academic freedom legislation to protect the rights of teachers to discuss both the evidence for and against evolution in the classroom. For podcast interviews with the plaintiff in this case, Rodney LeVake, see here and here. 1. SummaryIn LeVake v. Independent School District, high school biology teacher Rodney LeVake was reassigned after he allegedly failed to adequately cover the curriculum requirements for evolution Read More ›

In Segraves v. California, a California state court found it legal for a public school to teach evolution. Now, if only California’s anti-dogmatism policy would likewise protect teachers who inform students about scientific dissent from neo-Darwinian evolution. Update: For those who protest me discussing this case, I want to note that I would not have even known of this case were it not for the fact that the NCSE has been touting it and citing it for years on its Ten Major Court Cases about Evolution and Creationism page. 1. SummaryPlaintiff Kelly Segraves, a parent of children in California public schools, challenged the California State Board of Education’s Science Framework that mandated the teaching of evolution.84 Segraves alleged that the Read More ›

Peloza v. Capistrano Independent Unified School District is a well-known case from the 9th Circuit in 1994 where a federal court of appeals found that it is legal to teach evolution even if a teacher feels it conflicts with his religious beliefs. While the court was correct to hold that it is perfectly legal to require that evolution be part of the curriculum, unfortunately they expressed no sympathy whatsoever for the millions of Americans who feel that teaching evolution is not religiously neutral. 1. SummaryIn Peloza v. Capistrano, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a teacher can be ordered to teach evolution, even if the theory conflicts with his or her religious beliefs.93 John Peloza, a high school Read More ›