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Samplings from the wide variety of essays, letters and emails on this subject, received by The Mountain Enterprise
Jan. 20, 2006 issue
Casey Luskin
Attorney for Discovery Institute
This is my statement to El Tejon Unified School District Board of Trustees, January 13, 2006 made during their 2:00 p.m. session, just before they went into closed deliberation as to what action to take regarding the “Philosophy of Design” course. I spoke as an attorney for Discovery Institute, a think tank based in Seattle, Washington representing scholars and scientists who do scientific research into intelligent design.
I am a California licensed attorney and I sent a letter to Superintendent Wight earlier this week regarding our position on the course. Discovery is very concerned about the legal standing of this course.
From what I can tell, this course was originally formulated as if it would promote young earth or Biblical creationism as scientific fact. Although I understand that the course has since been reformulated to remove the creationist material, a course description was sent out to students around December 1 which described this course as promoting young earth or Biblical creationism as scientific fact.
Courts have made it clear—specifically the U.S. Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard—that young earth creationism is unconstitutional to teach as fact in public schools.
Intelligent design is very different from young earth creationism. We at the Discovery Institute believe that intelligent design is constitutional to teach as a science.
Americans United probably disagrees with that. But the fact is that this course originally mixed up intelligent design with the young earth creationist viewpoint. I want you to know that we support your efforts to present different views about biological origins in this philosophy course. We also applaud your efforts to remove the legally problematic creationist materials from the course. But even if this course has been changed and improved, unless you get a very sympathetic judge, this course will be struck down as unconstitutional because of its problematic history.
Discovery believes that the Dover case was wrongly decided, and that it is constitutional to teach about intelligent design in a science or a philosophy course. However, this course threatens to become a dangerous legal precedent which could threaten the teaching of intelligent design on the national level. I’m not here to tell you that you should like the law, but this is what the law is, and the young earth creationist history of this course makes it extremely problematic and places it on extremely shaky legal ground.
There is a legal train coming at you and we can see it coming down the tracks.
Unfortunately this course was not formulated properly in the beginning and students were told it would promote young earth creationism as fact. Thus, the only remedy at this point to avoid creating a dangerous legal precedent is to simply cancel the course.
I do not want you to think that you are without options, however.
Cancel the course for this year, and then if you want to teach it again next year, take your time, and consult people from all sides to construct a course that everyone agrees on. You could consult people from Americans United, you could consult the Discovery Institute, you could consult other experts, and you could create a philosophy course which people on all sides agree would be acceptable. Then you could re-teach the philosophy course on origins next year.
But if you do not cancel this course, and if you let this lawsuit go forward, you are going to lose and there will be a dangerous legal precedent set which could threaten the teaching of intelligent design on the national level. Such a decision would also threaten the scientific research of many scientists who support intelligent design.
Because of the young earth creationist history of this course, this course is not legally defensible and should be cancelled.
Sarah Edwards,
Ecopsychologist
Pine Mountain:
January 9, 2006
Dear Editor:
There really isn’t any question from either a religious or scientific point of view that life and living systems reflect the presence of intelligent, complex, observable patterns or designs. From a scientific point of view it is now understood that living systems are self-regulating, self-organizing, and capable of self-generating novel structures and behavior.
Research scientists around the world from a variety of fields have contributed to the recognition of this self-organizing, self-generating, and self-regulating nature of life. They include neuroscientist Warren McCulloch, mathematician Walter Pitts, cyberneticist Ross Ashby, cyberneticist and physicist Heinz von Foerster, biochemist Manfred Eigen, physicist Ilya Prigogine, biologist Lynn Margulis, physicist Herman Haken, neuroscientists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, and atmospheric chemist James Lovelock.
At this point there is no evidence that this intelligent design occurs outside the laws of nature and science, however. Rather it appears that it is fully within the laws of nature and science. But should one choose to believe that a designer outside of nature designed the intelligence within nature, it is their right to do so, but then it would be based on faith or presupposition, not science. If this distinction is made clear in the intersession course then it could be an interesting subject of study, but if not, it wouldn’t justify the use of public funds.
[Paster] Tim Arensmeier,
Sonoma Valley Community Church,
Sonoma, CA
January 10, 2006
Dear Editor:
You actually have the position of the small-town editor of a newspaper on the frontier. I respect this kind of open dissent immensely.
While I occasionally wonder about tolerance and who is actually practicing it, I value the opportunity you are providing the people of your area to express themselves.
John Burloe ,
Fairlawn, OH
January 10, 2006
Dear Editor:
I saw in the paper [and then at www.MountainEnterprise.com] where there is a lawsuit over the philosophy class that teaches intelligent design (ID).
Science should, first and foremost, be about the truth. Most of us agree that science should be neutral with regard to the religions of the world. Yet, a religious belief is being propagated in the science classes of our public schools. I am not referring to intelligent design. Rather, certain tenets of the religious belief atheism are taught in science class.
Science is often defined as “The study of ‘natural processes.’...By definition, supernatural influences are excluded. With the term “natural processes” the religious belief, atheism—the belief that God does not exist—is superimposed onto science. Yet, Science is “the study of cause and effect relationships.” The ‘Cause and Effect’ definition of science does not care if something is naturally or supernaturally caused. The statisticians look for any statistically significant correlation between the predictions and the results. At least one study has been done on the effects of prayer and medical results.
Based on our repeated observations (observations and repeatability are the bedrock of science), we see that it takes an intelligent mind, a living soul, to write a letter. Likewise, it takes an intelligent mind to write a computer program. The more intelligent the programmer, the better the program.
What caused the information needed for life to be programmed into the DNA structure? Intelligence is needed to write and program things. And where there is an intelligence, there is a living soul, or spirit.
Yet science blinds itself to these obvious truths. The blindness is caused by superimposing the religious belief of atheism into its definition. Because of this atheistic bias, many scientific publications refuse to publish articles about intelligent design.
It is time to remove these blinders. After all, school is about teaching the truth.
Finally, don’t we want our children to make intelligent decisions regarding their lives, rather than living life in a random, haphazard way—as evolution teaches?
Jenny Dollar
Frazier Park
January 11, 2006
Dear Editor:
I become quite aggravated when children are deprived of information that would lead them to be able to make an intelligent decision (on anything). If the parents had utilized their “parenting privilages’ they should not be concerned that children are given the information on the ‘other side of the coin.’ In most instances, hopefully, the values their parents had instilled in them would be re-affirmed and they would be able to “just plain enjoy the excitement of learning.” But that is my opinion and I do believe I am still entitled to it; aren’t I?
Kurt Graves
Pine Mountain
January 12, 2006
Dear Editor:
I’ve been following the coverage you’re getting in the LA Times this week, visibility can be a very good thing.
As to the question in play [about origins], I’d sure prefer to think I was designed by something intelligent versus losing my feathers and tail over the course of time.
Karen Vion
Gorman
January 12, 2006
Dear Editor:
It was really exciting the other morning driving to work and hearing you on the radio! I’ve enjoyed your coverage of the ID issue in the The Mountain Enterprise too, good job!
Stephanie Ladd
Pine Mountain
January 17, 2006
Dear Editor:
I heard you quoted on National Public Radio this morning. You did a great job reporting all this with balance and overall good journalism.
Last week I wrote a letter about the comment by the instructor. She said the ideas presented in her class “represent atheistic, agnostic, liberal and Christian views,” as if that covers the gamut of belief systems, as if liberals and Christians are mutually exclusive, as if you must be an atheist, agnostic or liberal if you are not a [fundamentalist] Christian.
I didn’t send the letter, deciding that in this small community it is probably not worth it, since she is probably a nice person even if I do disagree with her (and other fundamentalist’s) views that sound so arrogant, maybe without meaning to.
However, after hearing you on NPR, I have decided to write this so I can tell my neighbors that I am concerned about a trend among evangelical Christians who seem self-righteous in promoting their opinions, while we who do not share “one size fits all” thinking have to worry about being labeled atheists, anti-Christian, and God forbid liberals, with the added concern that many in this community will put us on their “blacklist.”
Is there a type of McCarthyism present here?
Your quote at the end of your NPR interview is what I wish we could all keep in mind. You said: “Come Monday morning we all have to live side by side.” I write in the hope that our evangelical neighbors will give that idea as much thought as I have.
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