Dover Panda Trial
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[edit] Summary
The Dover Panda Trial, formally Kitzmiller, et. al. vs. Dover Area School District et al., was a Federal trial regarding the legality of teaching so-called Intelligent Design in public biology classrooms. In a Memorandum Opinion issued on December 20,2005 by Judge John E. Jones III of the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, the ID was held to be religion, not science, and the school district's policy was found to therefore be an unconstitutional establishment of religion.
[edit] Discussion
[edit] Factual Background
On October 24, 2004, the Dover Area School Board voted to amend the teaching policies for tenth-grade students, to make them "aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's theory and other theories of evolution, including, but not limited to, intelligent design. About a month later (November 29, 2004), the Board issued a press release that, starting in January 2005, teachers would be required to read a statement regarding biology lessons at the start of the unit on evolution, running as follows:
- "The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's theory of evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.
- "Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.
- "Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available in the library along with other resources for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.
- "With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments."
The Plaintiffs, mostly a group of concerned area parents, filed suit, claiming that this policy amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion.
[edit] Legal Background
[edit] The Lemon test
Under US Law, issues of religious establishment are mostly governed by two controlling precedents. The first, Lemon vs. Kurtzman (1971), establishes a three-pronged "test" for whether or not a policy is constitutional. Under Lemon, a policy or government action is constitutional if:
- The government's action has a legitimate secular purpose;
- The government's action does not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion; and
- The government's actioy will and does not result in an "excessive entanglement" of the government and religion.
If any of these three "prongs" are violated,the policy is unconstitutional.
[edit] The Endorsement test
A similar test, the so-called Endorsement Test, was established in the case Lynch vs. Donnelly (1983). This test largely duplicates the content of the first prong of Lemon, by inquiring whether a reasonable observer would interpret the government's action as "communicating a message of government endorsement or disapproval of religion." [1]"Endorsement sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. Disapproval sends the opposite message."
Under this test, a government action sending such a message is unconstitutional.
[edit] Expert Opinion
The testimony in the case occupied more than a month in late 2005, including testimony by noted experts on both sides. Experts for the Plaintiffs included evolutionary biologists Ken Miller and Kevin Padian, theologian John Haught, and sociologist and historian of science Barbara Forrest. Experts for the Defense included ID biochemist Michael Behe and sociologist Steve Fuller. Additional defense witnesses had originally been scheduled to testify,but withdrew -- these witnesses included William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, and John Campbell, noted fellows from the Discovery Institute. Some analysts have suggested that the weakness of the defense's case was a major factor in this withdrawal.[2]
The central question discussed in testimony was whether ID was a "science" (and so by extension, teaching ID is a legitimate secular method of improving science education), or merely a "religion." Dr. Forrest testified at length about the historical relationship between creationism (which under US case law, specifically McLean vs. Arkansas has been held to be a form of religion) and ID. Dr. Haught provided a detailed discussion of the meaning and definition of "religion" and argued that ID specifically met that definition. Drs. Miller and Padian discussed the metaphysical and methodological basis of modern science, including issues such as peer review and publication, arguing that ID was not science because it had failed to publish appropriate peer-reviewed results. Finally, the plaintiffs' experts argued that the form and content of the disclaimer were simply bad teaching.
The defense was largely unable to answer these arguments. After the defense tried (unsuccessfully) to keep Dr. Forrest off the stand, Drs. Behe and Fuller attempted to argue that the definition of "science" proposed by the plaintiffs (and supported by written policy statements of nearly every major scientific organization in the United States) was too narrow. Dr. Behe proposed a different and broader definition, but was forced to admit that his proposed definition would include astrology as a kind of "science," while Dr. Fuller stated outright that what would be needed was a form of "affimative action" for unsupported scientific hypotheses. Much of the scientific testimony, such as Behe's arguments about the blood clotting and the bacterial flagellum were shown to be out-of-date and based on factual inaccuracies.
[edit] Perjury
A more damning aspect of the defense's case was revealed when it became clear that board members William Buckingham and Alan Bonsell had lied -- committed perjury -- in an attempt to disguise their motivations and actions. In particular, Buckingham strenuously denied that he had ever spoken of the proposed policy as "creationism" (as above, "creationism" has been held to be an unacceptable establishment of religion) and that "creationism" was different than "intelligent design." This claim was shattered when a tape of a TV interview was presented in court in which Buckingham was talking about how this new policy supported "creationism" to an interviewer.
More seriously, copies of the book under discussion, Of Pandas and People, had been "donated" to the school board to be placed in the classrooms (and were eventually placed in the high school library). In their deposition, both men had claimed that the donations were anonymous and that they did not know the source either of the books or of the money by which they were purchased. During the trial, it came out that "Buckingham raised money for the books in his church, then wrote a check for $850 to Bonsell's father, who bought the texts and donated them to the school district. Neither man disclosed the transaction in their deposition."
'"The inescapable truth is that both Bonsell and Buckingham lied at their Jan. 3, 2005, depositions about their knowledge of the source of the donation for Pandas. ... ," Jones said in his ruling. "This mendacity was a clear and deliberate attempt to hide the source of the donations by [Bonsell and Buckingham] to further ensure that Dover students received a creationist alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution."' [3]
[edit] The Decision
Judge Jones issued a sweeping 139-page decision[4] that accepted the plaintiff's claims as clearly proven. In particular, he ruled that the Dover policy did, in fact, violate both the Endorsement test and the first two prongs of the Lemon test. He further found that teaching ID has no secular purpose, in part becase "ID is [not] Science," because "ID and Teaching about 'Gaps' and 'Problems' in Evolutionary Theory are Creationist, Religious Strategies that Evolved from Earlier Forms of Creationism," and that as a result, both an objective Dover student and an objective Dover citizen "would percieve Defendants' Conduct to be an Endorsement of Religion."
This widely analyzed and disseminated decision has, of course, been the subject of much controversy, but most independent analysts consider it to be a well-written and -reasoned argument (see, for example, this article by law professor Stephen Gey, or this article in the Legal Intelligencer).
[edit] The Aftermath
From a strictly legal perspective, Kitzmiller is only binding precedent in Dover, PA, itself. However, the closely reasoned arguments are have been cited in other cases regarding the teaching of intelligent design, most notably in the case of Hurst vs. Newman in the El Tejon School District in Lebec, California. In this case, the school district attempted to offer ID teaching in an elective philosophy course; under pressure from Americans United For the Separation of Church and State, fortified by extensive arguments and quotations from Kitzmiller, the school board reversed itself, cancelled the teaching of the class, and agreed not to offer "creationism, creation science, or intelligent design" in any future classes in the El Tejon School District.
As might be expected, Judge Jones himself is being widely (and inaccurately) criticized for his role in this decision. Ironically, he himself predicted the criticisms he would receive in the decision itself:
- "Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as a result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."
