Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

How school vouchers might help religion-science debate evolve
(David Skeel, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 16, 2006)

Scientists have just discovered yet another missing link: fish with necks, the football linemen of ancient seas. It is thought that Tiktaalik roseae may have been a transitional species between ocean-based and earth-walking animals.

But these versatile fish won't end the debate over science and religion in the schools, any more than federal court rejection of the Dover, Pa., school board's intelligent design policy did. There's a good reason for this: The debate over evolution's validity is only half of the battle, and it isn't the most important half.

Since a 1968 Supreme Court decision explicitly striking down an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution, it has become clear that kicking religion out of the schools is no more "neutral" than letting religion in. Banning references to God or the Bible simply enforces one well-defined world view (materialism) at the expense of another (theistic religion). Just as intelligent design theory - in the words of Judge John E. Jones 3d, who issued the Dover opinion - could not "uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," evolutionary theorists (especially popularizers such as Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins) often propound their own belief system, one that explicitly excludes God.

Perhaps the only way to resolve the impasse is to rethink the line between church and state. In his much-discussed book Divided by God, New York University law professor Noah Feldman argues that the Supreme Court should "offer greater latitude for public religious discourse and religious symbolism, and at the same time insist on a stricter ban on state funding of religious institutions."

Religious symbols and language such as the Ten Commandments are fine, in other words, but government funds should never make their way to a religious organization. When advocates of intelligent design "persuade a local school board to put it in the curriculum," Feldman has written, "the courts need not strike it down as an establishment of religion."

Feldman's proposal for symbols but no money is a fresh idea in the debate over church and state. But courts still would be forced to decide how much intelligent design was too much. A better solution would look to a strategy Feldman rejects: school vouchers, which the Supreme Court explicitly upheld in a Cleveland-area case several years ago.

Here's how vouchers could transform the religion-science debate. If the state or locality in question did not have a meaningful voucher program in place, the court would adopt a strict interpretation of the prohibition against establishment of religion. In the Pennsylvania case, this would have meant striking down the Dover intelligent design policy, as was done. In districts that did offer substantial vouchers for students who attended nonpublic schools, on the other hand, the court would presumptively uphold a school board's decision to teach only evolution or to include intelligent design or anything in between.

This proposal would give school boards flexibility in selecting their science curriculum, as long as there was a voucher program in place that gave students and their parents a realistic choice of schools. In effect, the proposal would ensure that the principal decisions were made by local officials. Rather than trying to decide how much intelligent design was too much, courts would need only to determine whether a given voucher program was substantial enough to assure students a meaningful choice.

This approach would shift the focus of the religion-science battle. Evangelicals or others who wished to alter the public school curriculum would need to start by lobbying for a school voucher program. Religion and science would not disappear from the debate, of course, but the principal question would be whether to adopt a particular voucher proposal. The new focus would prove far less divisive to local communities in the long run, and might even help improve the performance of our schools.

the article wrote:

But these versatile fish won't end the debate over science and religion in the schools, any more than federal court rejection of the Dover, Pa., school board's intelligent design policy did. There's a good reason for this: The debate over evolution's validity is only half of the battle, and it isn't the most important half.

the article wrote:

Since a 1968 Supreme Court decision explicitly striking down an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution, it has become clear that kicking religion out of the schools is no more "neutral" than letting religion in. Banning references to God or the Bible simply enforces one well-defined world view (materialism) at the expense of another (theistic religion).

the article wrote:

Just as intelligent design theory - in the words of Judge John E. Jones 3d, who issued the Dover opinion - could not "uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," evolutionary theorists (especially popularizers such as Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins) often propound their own belief system, one that explicitly excludes God.

In the Pennsylvania case, this would have meant striking down the Dover intelligent design policy, as was done. In districts that did offer substantial vouchers for students who attended nonpublic schools, on the other hand, the court would presumptively uphold a school board's decision to teach only evolution or to include intelligent design or anything in between.

That would possibly make for some very hotly contested elections for school board members. I have a feeling that this could further demarcate the red/blue borders of states.

Since a 1968 Supreme Court decision explicitly striking down an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution, it has become clear that kicking religion out of the schools is no more "neutral" than letting religion in.

ignorant, superstitious, arrogant misconceived, dead-end worldview,

For urban secularists to force rural religionists to accept an educational process anathema to their deepest feelings has the potential to divide the nation and,in extreme cases,to split it.

Since a 1968 Supreme Court decision explicitly striking down an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution, it has become clear that kicking religion out of the schools is no more "neutral" than letting religion in.