At 1 pm today, there is a press conference at the state capital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to announce the filing of a federal lawsuit against the Dover School District over its new policy to mandate the teaching of Intelligent Design Creationism in public school science classrooms in that district. The suit is being filed by the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, represented in this case by the Pepper Hamilton Law Firm. This could very well end up being the big test case that everyone has been anticipating for several years now. Let me give some background.
In 1981 and 1987, major federal court rulings struck down state laws requiring the teaching of "creation science" because they violated the Establishment Clause. The 1981 case, McLean v. Arkansas, was the more interesting of the two, but the 1987 case, Edwards v. Aguillard, set the national precedent because it was a 7-2 Supreme Court ruling. In the wake of those two losses, the creationist movement regrouped and changed their tactics. The courts were not going to let them put something explicitly religious in to science classrooms as an alternative to a well established scientific theory, so Phillip Johnson came up with the Wedge Strategy. Essentially, it boils down to "don't mention God". Hence, they refer to "intelligent design theory" (though there is no theory attached to it) and pretend that they have no idea who or what this anonymous "intelligent designer" might be. It's rather dishonest, of course, and more importantly they've left lots of textual evidence behind that this is nothing more than a public relations strategy to change the way an idea is sold. All of that will no doubt be part of the testimony in court.
Since this new strategy began, both sides have been looking for a test case, knowing that ultimately the courts will decide this as they did before. In the last couple years, as the ID movement has won some battles in states and localities politically, several potential situations have arisen that could serve as such a case, but Dover is the first one in which a school board has publicly and explicitly required the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution (though we now know that there are others in which it has been going on without public knowledge - stay tuned for more news on one of those situations that could prove more explosive than the Dover situation). So as of now, it looks as though Dover will be the test case, assuming that the Dover school board actually lets it go to court and get beyond the district court level. The Thomas More Law Center has offered to defend the district in any lawsuit for free, and if they do I suspect the district will be happy to fight it out on someone else's dime.
So stay tuned. If this turns into a full-fledged district court trial, it promises to be even more interesting than the McLean case, which was surely among the most fascinating trials of the last century. At the District Court level, there will likely be testimony from a wide range of scholars on both sides debating the question of whether ID is good science, or is science at all. I anticipate that most of the Discovery Institute fellows will be called to the stand, including William Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells and Phillip Johnson (although it should be noted that the DI is not happy about this and does not support what the school board is doing, at least publicly. They think it's too soon to jump from "teach the controversy" to "teach ID", strictly as a matter of political reality). From our side, folks like Ken Miller, Rob Pennock, Paul Gross and many others could be called as expert witnesses as well.
Update: You can find the actual lawsuit here.
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Ed: Been to the ACLU and AU websites and haven't seen any mention of this. Do you know if/where pleadings and other filings will be posted online? I'd like to follow this one closely. Has MCSE considered participating, at the appropriate point, as an amicus? If so, I'd be glad to help out.
I never would have thought this thing would have hit so close to my hometown (I live in Lebanon, about 40 minutes east of Harrisburg). I certainly hope that ID gets shot down, and not just in a small way. I hope it gets demolished to a point that no one will consider it again!
Dan-
I don't think it's been posted to their webpages yet, but there has been a release to the press about it. I don't know if pleadings and briefs will be made available online, but if there is no plan to do so currently, I'll request permission to post them here or at the Panda's Thumb. I don't know at this point if MCFS will be filing a brief, but I imagine we may join forces with other state science groups to do so again as we did in the Cobb County case.
This case is considerably more important than the Cobb County case and it promises, as I said above, to become the test case, the one everyone has been waiting for. The other side will likely be represented by the Thomas More Law Center, which I know you're familiar with because they are practically neighbors of yours. They are easily the most credible of the various Christian legal organizations, in my view. The ACLJ and the ADF get more media attention, perhaps, but Thomas More has done better legal work. They are a formidable opponent, to be sure.
As things move along, I'll post new developments here and at PT.
I've only briefly glanced at the Complaint, but I'm a bit surprised. I question the strategies involved here, both generally (there is an awful lot there that doesn't need to be there, and there are things missing that should be there), in terms of plaintiffs (only parents of schoolchildren in the district -- no teachers or others), and in terms of the claims for relief and their bases (based solely on the U.S. & PA constitutions; no statutory or common law claims). Of course, it is possible that there are different attacks planned on different fronts. Wish I knew more about the litigation strategies at work here. Thanks, Ed, for posting the link.
Dan wrote:
I've only briefly glanced at the Complaint, but I'm a bit surprised. I question the strategies involved here, both generally (there is an awful lot there that doesn't need to be there, and there are things missing that should be there), in terms of plaintiffs (only parents of schoolchildren in the district -- no teachers or others), and in terms of the claims for relief and their bases (based solely on the U.S. & PA constitutions; no statutory or common law claims).
That was my first reaction as well, but I haven't had time to really go over it in any detail. It seems oddly argued on the face of it.
Tsk, tsk, several mentions of the McLean v. Arkansas case without mentioning the McLean v. Arkansas Documentation Project web site?
For shame Ed, for shame...
I just noticed this, in the statement that the teacher is supposed to read:
"Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence."
Now, I'm not the smartest man, but that reads to me as if they're saying there's no evidence for the gaps in the Theory.