Outlawing Criticism

Sometimes history is relevant.

My last post highlighted the troubling violence in our society, which I attributed to a godless society.  I’m going to revisit one of the first signs that we were going away from God in the modern era, and hopefully challenge one of the biggest giants opposing godly reform in our modern society: Kitzmiller v. Dover.

I know some of you might be staring at the computer screen with a rage comics poker face, completely oblivious to the last statement.  I know you are, but frankly I wish you weren’t.  This is something that we ought to be educated on.

Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. is a federal U.S. court case from 2004.  The short version of the story is that the Dover area school district had made a textbook supporting intelligent design a mandatory reading, which was challenged on the basis of the First Amendment (no establishment respecting a particular religion).  The court ruled that requiring the book to be read was unconstitutional.  The rest is history.  Now any theory outside of macroevolution is scorned and ridiculed as musings of a moron.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.  After all, as a Christian I wouldn’t want my kids to be required to read a text promoting Buddha.  Should we be upset about this?  Let’s take a look at the book itself.

Of Pandas and People, the textbook that started this whole debate, is not what it has been proposed as.  Having read my summary, you probably assume that it is basically a religious text, right?  This is not the case.  The book points out several problems with macroevolution, then goes on to propose intelligent design as a viable alternative without pointing to any particular designer.  Here’s my question: do you want your kids to be a taught a theory which has flaws in it, and the book which shows the flaws in it has been banned?  

This is not good science and it is not good education.

Secondly, let’s talk about the legal grounds of objection.  I said earlier that the objection was made on the grounds of the First Amendment, which is often referred to as “The separation of church and state.”  Here’s the kicker: those words are nowhere in the Constitution. 

Here’s what the First Amendment says:

                “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In this circumstance, did Congress make any law respecting the establishment of religion?  No.  As a matter of fact, this text does not respect the establishment of religion.  As a matter of fact, I would argue that the case’s decision was ultimately an infringement of the First Amendment.

In the decision, the following was stated:

The school board was barred from “maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and 

from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID.”

On the surface, this appears to say that the board cannot force teachers to teach something against their beliefs.  That is good.  However, what does this mean in practicality?  If you are an evolutionist, you’re protected.  You can preach evolution in the classroom until your feet fall off and you collapse of hunger.  Believe intelligent design?  Tough luck.  Done your homework and believe that evolution is flawed?  Too bad.  Your beliefs are not as valid as the evolutionists and therefore you have to teach evolution.  This is respecting establishment of beliefs.  We may not call it a religion, but the same concept is there. 

The unfortunate truth as that as upset as we may or may not be about this case, the damage has been done.  This is why it is more important now than ever to educate ourselves and others about evolution and intelligent design so we can counteract the bias within our current system.  At the end of the day, we cannot blame our society on the school system.  It is the responsibility of parents as well as individuals to educate their kids (and themselves).  We were asking for trouble when we made the education system the parents of our children.

Don’t eat what others feed you.

Before you comment a single word, search the facts.  The facts from both sides.

Intellectual honesty is the path to freedom.