Getting Over Dover
As readers will know, on December 20 of last year, federal district judge John E. Jones of the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced his decision in a heavily publicized case involving the Dover, Pennsylvania school board. The board had required teachers in high-school biology classes to read a statement mentioning gaps or problems in Darwin’s theory.
It informed students that there are alternative theories, including Intelligent Design, and urged them to keep an open mind with respect to any theory. It also told them of the availability of a reference book titled Of Pandas and People, “for those interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.” When teachers refused to read the statement in their classes, the board arranged for an administrator to come to the class and read it to the students.
Even before the court decision, the voters of the district had elected new members to the school board, who formed a majority that quickly rescinded the requirement. Some of us thought or hoped that the lawsuit might be declared moot, as the challenged policy had become a dead letter.
Intelligent Freedom
The judge, however, was evidently eager to assume a leading role in the national controversy over the scientific legitimacy of the concept of Intelligent Design in biology, and the possibility that this concept might be taught in some public schools as a possible alternative to the reigning Darwinian theory of evolution solely by unintelligent causes.
That Judge Jones held the Dover policy unconstitutional is the least disturbing aspect of his opinion. Like other leaders of the Intelligent Design movement, I had viewed the Dover case as a loser for several reasons. We thought that the concept of Intelligent Design needed further development before it would be ready to be presented in science classes as a theory, in competition with the reigning Darwinian theory.
There is plenty of reason for dissatisfaction with the orthodox neo-Darwinian theory, which I and many others have presented in a growing number of books, but working out a satisfactory alternative will require time and resources. For some time to come, opponents of the Darwinian monopoly need to be doing research and publishing papers, and it would be best to avoid messy controversies involving public schools that reinforce in the public’s mind the self-evident truth of Darwinism as “science” and the religious nature of any challenger.
Such controversies arise not because we encourage them, but because local citizens object to the dogmatic way in which evolution is taught to their children, and often to the religious doctrines that are sometimes at least implied along with the biological theory. They mistakenly suppose that their local school board has the power to change this state of affairs, if it were only sufficiently motivated to do so.
Typically, these ordinary citizens are understandably inexpert in matters of science, law, and media relations. The outcome, as in Dover, may be a measure intended to advance freedom, but it is clumsy, ineffective, and an easy target for litigation. The Dover resolution was just the sort of measure that draws overwhelming fire from lawyers and hostile media, without accomplishing anything sufficiently important to justify the legal risk and community hostility.
We in the Intelligent Design movement want to be defending the intellectual freedom of capable teachers who choose to inform their students about some of the difficulties of proving the alleged creative power of the Darwinian mutation/selection mechanism. We do not want to support a resolution that requires teachers to recite a board-drafted statement with which they disagree.
I have long believed that the Intelligent Design movement can make progress only if it is seen to be firmly on the side of academic and intellectual freedom. This is a hard role to maintain even when would-be local supporters do not start off on the wrong foot, because dogmatic Darwinists sincerely believe that science is being censored when they are told that they should allow fair consideration of views opposing evolutionary naturalism. Reporters overly influenced by the movie Inherit the Wind sometimes accept that way of thinking uncritically, as though allowing dissent were equivalent to making it a crime to teach evolution.
Phillip E. Johnson is Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Darwin on Trial, The Wedge of Truth, The Right Questions (InterVarsity Press), and other books challenging the naturalistic assumptions that dominate modern culture. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
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