Jan
31
Does Anyone Out There Really Care About Dover
∇ Category:Design | → |
Judge John E. Jones III’s decision in the Dover trial has been heralded as a great victory for science and science education and a major setback for intelligent design and creationism.
It is neither of these. The Dover trial is simply the latest certainly not the last in a long line of largely irrelevant and inconsequential legal challenges to the teaching of evolution in America. The most famous of these is certainly the Scopes Trial. Nominally, Scopes lost and was fined in this historic encounter, but the real loser was the teaching of evolution weakened in the wake of the verdict as skittish textbook publishers downplayed the controversial theory.
Another celebrated legal encounter occurred in 1982 in Little Rock, Ark., when that state proposed to mandate “equal time” high school pedagogy, requiring creationism to be taught alongside evolution. The judge concluded that there was no basis for teaching creationism with evolution in Arkansas public schools. In an about-face from Scopes, creationism lost this battle, but continued to dominate the cultural battle among Americans at large.
A similar challenge originated in Louisiana in 1987 and eventually made its way to the Supreme Court where, presumably, once and for all, creationism was declared unscientific, religious and not appropriate for America’s high school biology classes. But polls continued to show that America’s rejection of evolution was as widespread as ever.
Intelligent design creationism’s successor suffered its first major legal defeat in Dover late last year. But like similar legal defeats of its parent species, the defeat means next to nothing to the American public. Polls will continue to show opposition to evolution. The real effect of the Dover ruling will prove to be as inconsequential as its predecessors in Tennessee, Louisiana or Arkansas.
America’s battle over evolution is not about science nor even about education. It is about religion, and, as such, can only be understood as a culture war between religion and secularism. The legal hairsplitting we have seen about how science is religiously neutral and religion can be reconciled with evolution is an ivory-tower perspective that may warm the hearts of philosophers but does little to thaw the chill between the culture warriors who disagree.
The careful, sober language of Judge Jones stands in marked contrast to the rhetorically charged commentary that has emerged from both sides over the past few decades as religious and secular visions of origins have competed for the allegiance of Americans.
Liberal publications produced cartoons heaping ridicule on the opponents of evolution, portraying them as “missing links.” Anti-religious spokespeople for science described the illiteracy and backwardness of the creationists. Richard Dawkins called creationists “cavemen,” an insult that Isaac Asimov seconded on the back cover of Dawkins’ influential book The Blind Watchmaker. In his review of Blueprints in The New York Times, Dawkins charged that people who did not believe in evolution were “stupid, wicked, or insane.” Dawkins is considered by many to be the leading public intellectual in the English-speaking world, and there are countless other leading anti-religious intellectuals who share his views, such as Daniel C. Dennett, Peter Atkins and Stephen Pinker.
Creationists countered that science was trying to undermine religion. Their leader Henry Morris argued in his influential book The Long War Against God that evolution was a part of Satan’s strategy to destroy faith in God. His views are shared by many of today’s influential religious leaders, such as Ken Ham, James Dobson and D. James Kennedy.
So, while major confrontations like the Dover trial get headlines and give the impression that important battles are being won and lost, they are really nothing more than highly visible skirmishes while the real battle the one for hearts and minds, not stickers and textbooks continues unabated.
Karl Giberson is editor of Science & Theology News.
