Posted by Timothy Sandefur on August 11, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Overlawyered.com reports that the Kennewick Man litigation appears not to be quite finished.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on August 06, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Reason magazine has a long and good article about NAGPRA and related controversies.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on August 06, 2004 | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

...on the creationism/evolution conflict, via Physics Today.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on August 05, 2004 | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

I realized that in previous posts, I’ve used a lot of legal jargon and terminology with which our readers may not be familiar. Law is a very different thing than science, with its own language and ways of thinking; so I thought it might be helpful to post a “Guide for the Legally Perplexed.”

Continue reading "A Guide for The Legally Perplexed"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on July 23, 2004 | Comments (15) | TrackBack (0)

For those following the Kennewick Man case, involving attempts by Native American creationists to block the study of a 10,000 year old skeleton discovered in Washington State, there’s a new development. As reported by inappropriate response, the Army Corps of Engineers is still trying to interfere with study of the bones. Now, you may recall that, in April of 1998, the Corps, evidently on direct orders from the Clinton Administration*, dumped 500 tons of rocks on the discovery site, destroying any possibility of further excavation.

Continue reading "Kennewick Man update"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on July 21, 2004 | Comments (28) | TrackBack (2)

The current issue of Nexus: A Journal of Opinion* features a deeply flawed student article by Crystal V. Hodgson, Coercion in The Classroom: The Inherent Tension between The Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses in The Context of Evolution. Hodgson’s analysis is more honest than that of most proponents of creationism; nevertheless, her understanding of the First Amendment partakes of the confusion so common among them.

Continue reading "Get Out of Evolution Free?"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on July 18, 2004 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

Tribes have announced that they will not ask the Supreme Court to take the Kennwick Man case (Bonnichsen, et al. v. United States). That decision, as I blogged earlier, held that a skeleton found on federal land is not automatically a “Native American” simply because it predates the arrival of Columbus.

Much more info at the Friends of America’s Past website.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on June 28, 2004 | Comments (118) | TrackBack (0)

A new article in the Wake Forest Law Review provides a shoddy legal which is, alas, all too common in the religion context. Beginning with a deeply flawed understanding of the roles of the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, the article ends up making foolish statements about creationism in the classroom.

Patrick M. Garry, Inequality Among Equals: Disparities in The Judicial Treatment of Free Speech And Religious Exercise Claims 39 Wake Forest L. Rev. 361 (2004), argues that courts tend to pay too much attention to freedom of speech, as opposed to other freedoms, and that they ought not to do this. Now, broadly speaking, this is true.

Continue reading "More bad legal analysis"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on June 09, 2004 | Comments (23) | TrackBack (0)

Blogger Kathy Shaidle has a review here of a new creationism book, By Design Or By Chance: The Growing Controversy On The Origins Of Life In The Universe by Denyse O'Leary.

But the review is so full of mischaracterizations and misleading statements that it’s hard to know where to begin.

Continue reading "An empty review of an empty book"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on May 12, 2004 | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

Reed Cartwright is correct about how the Lemon test ought to be applied—and of course he’s right about the real intent of the authors of the law in question. What I find interesting about the law is its careful, even scrupulous avoidance of the teaching of religion.

Continue reading "A Few More Comments on The Alabama Academic Freedom Act"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on May 03, 2004 | Comments (9) | TrackBack (1)

Greg Goelzhauser, Jack Balkin, and Brian Leiter have some fine posts about a creationist theme park in Florida.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on April 15, 2004 | Comments (27) | TrackBack (0)

There’s rumbling in Darby, Montana. The school board there seems to be ready to adopt an ID curriculum, and they anticipate lawsuits over it, although they have support from the Speaker of the House of the state legislature. But now, the board’s in trouble because they held a behind-closed-doors meeting where they apparently decided to rescind a job offer extended to a new superintendent of schools, and offer it instead to another person because of his “a sense of strong spirituality.”

The Ravalli Republic, a local newspaper, has filed suit against the board for its closed meetings. Now, Montana law on open meetings appears to be pretty strong—the state Constitution, Art. II s 9, declares that “No person shall be deprived of the right to...observe the deliberations of all public bodies...except in cases in which the demand of individual privacy clearly exceeds the merits of public disclosure,” and under the statutes enforcing open meetings requirements, courts can void decisions made at closed-door meetings. See, e.g., Bryan v. Yellowstone County Elementary School Dist. No. 2, 312 Mont. 257, 274 (Mont.,2002) (“open meetings violations remain of utmost concern to this Court. Nothing in this opinion should be interpreted to suggest that violations of open meeting laws by any entity subject to those laws will not result in voiding decisions so reached. We will not hesitate to affirm a district court’s determination to void such decisions or reverse a court's refusal to do so.” quoting Common Cause of Montana v. Statutory Committee to Nominate Candidates for Com’r of Political Practices, 263 Mont. 324, 333-34 (1994)). Why the school board secrecy, though? Because not all the parents are real thrilled about their kids being taught lies. Not to mention the fact that “Both federal and Montana’s civil rights acts forbid religious discrimination by employers.” Wolfe v. State, Dept. of Labor and Industry, Bd. of Personnel Appeals ex rel. Helena Educ. Ass’n, 255 Mont. 336, 339 (1992). See also McCann v. Trustees, Dodson School Dist., 249 Mont. 362, 364 (1991).

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on April 14, 2004 | Comments (15) | TrackBack (0)

Francis Beckwith has posted a more well thought-out response to my posts criticizing his claim that the NCSE website violates the Establishment Clause. Some quick notes:

Continue reading "Beckwith’s Reply on the Establishment Clause Posts"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on April 10, 2004 | Comments (26) | TrackBack (0)

Just in case you aren’t as tired with the whole NCSE-violating-the-Establishment-Clause thing as I am…

Continue reading "Last Word on Establishment (I Hope)"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on April 07, 2004 | Comments (47) | TrackBack (2)

I’ve dealt already with the argument that the NCSE website’s funding by the National Science Foundation violates the Establishment Clause, and Francis Beckwith’s article really makes no new points. But I have a few more thoughts about it—and about the sloppy thinking it reveals (which is pretty common among creationists).

Continue reading "More on Establishment"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on April 06, 2004 | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)

A judge in Atlanta, Georgia, has refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a group of parents against the Cobb County School District. The parents are arguing that the district’s placement of stickers bearing a “disclaimer” about evolution is illegal.

The disclaimer says “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.” The parents, who are represented by the Georgia ACLU argue that the School Board’s use of this sticker violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Although I think such disclaimers are incredibly stupid, I don’t think that they violate the Constitution.

Continue reading "Disclaimer news"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on April 03, 2004 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Unfortunately, The American Scholar is not online, so you’ll have to pick up a copy at Borders, but I recommend you do so and give a look to the spring 2004 issue’s “Scientific Method” column by Natalie Angier. She explains her reaction when biologists approach her and urge her to teach people about evolution. Aside from its rather lame humor, I think her response is right on target—but you’ll have to read it to see.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on April 02, 2004 | Comments (10) | TrackBack (2)

Dr. Rosenhouse pointed out an absurd article on National Review Online which accuses the National Center for Science Education of “using federal tax dollars to insert religion into biology classrooms,” because it has posted a website which says, in its entirety, that

The misconception that one has to choose between science and religion is divisive. Most Christian and Jewish religious groups have no conflict with the theory of evolution or other scientific findings. In fact, many religious people, including theologians, feel that a deeper understanding of nature actually enriches their faith. Moreover, in the scientific community there are thousands of scientists who are devoutly religious and also accept evolution.

According to Prof. West, this represents an “effort to use religion to endorse evolution [a]s part of a larger public-relations strategy...to defuse skepticism of neo-Darwinism.” By which he means, it’s part of an attempt to explain to people that they really can accept the fact of evolution without abandoning their religious faith. Whether NCSE is right about that or not isn’t relevant to West’s allegation that NCSE’s use of government grants to create this website violates “Supreme Court precedents on the establishment clause of the First Amendment.” He is wrong about this.

Continue reading "NCSE violating the Constitution?"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on April 02, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A while back, Wesley Elsberry explained how Reader’s Digest and various other things led him to science. For myself, it was a longer and more tortuous route.

Continue reading "How I discovered evolution"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on March 31, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A common charge of anti-evolutionists is to say “but what are the chances of this all happening by mechanistic and unguided processes?” Well, in this article (which I saw on Arts & Letters Daily), Freeman Dyson explains “Littlewood’s Law of Miracles,” which “states that in the course of any normal person’s life, miracles happen at a rate of roughly one per month.” Reminds me of how Richard Feynman used to put it. “Today on the freeway, I drove behind a car whose license plate was 3SVD543. Can you imagine how small the chances are of that happening?”

For more on the unremarkability of extremely rare coincidences, see chapter 7 of Richard Dawkins’ magnificent Unweaving The Rainbow.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on March 29, 2004 | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Here’s a nice news story about the new Teaching Evolution site from UC Berkeley.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on March 29, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The Institute for Creation Research is a well known young-earth creationist outfit in California, which describes itself as a “Christ-Focused Creation Ministry.” But it also operates a graduate school which awards advanced degrees in biology, geology, and geophysics. That’s not a shocker—anyone who wants to can legally set up a “school” and award “degrees” (although some states do prohibit schools from using words like “degree” without state authorization). What’s troublesome is the ICR’s school is actually accredited by a nationally recognized accreditation agency.

Continue reading "How the ICR got its accreditation"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on March 28, 2004 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)

This morning, I bought a copy of Jonathan Weiner’s Pulitzer-prize winning The Beak of The Finch. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to read it—I’ve got a half dozen books I’m now halfway through—but I got it because a few weeks ago I caught a fascinating nature special called Islands of The Vampire Birds. The birds in question are finches—you know, the cute little birds that you see in pet shops all the time (or, for that matter, hanging around the patios of Starbucks waiting for handouts); when I was a kid I called then “deeder birds,” after the “deeder-deeder” sound they make. Well, these ones are not quite so cute: during an awful drought on the Galapagos Islands, these finches learn to drink blood—and even to peck at the flesh of other birds on the islands, to start them bleeding. It’s an awesome, and slightly disturbing show about evolution in action right before your eyes, and if you can catch it, it’s definitely worth watching. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be available on tape or DVD. (If I’m wrong about this, I’m sure a helpful reader will let me know!)

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on March 25, 2004 | Comments (7) | TrackBack (5)

When we talk about the legal problems of creationism, we tend to focus on the fundamentalist Christian churches, but there are other varieties of creationism out there. There are even creationists among Indian tribes, and they are also causing problems for scientists. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (“NAGPRA,” 25 U.S.C. §§ 3001-3013), is a federal law which says that if a skeleton is discovered on federal land, and that skeleton is related to an Indian tribe, then the government must give that skeleton to the Indian tribe.

The law was written to address the graverobbery and other abuses of 19th century archaeologists, who often raided Indian burial grounds. But in a recent case, the law was almost used to shut down research on a 9,000 year old skeleton discovered in Washington, which was never shown to have any relationship to any modern Indian tribe. Instead, the Clinton Administration’s Department of the Interior declared that the skeleton—called “Kennewick Man”—was an Indian skeleton simply because it was found in American soil and it predated the arrival of Columbus. Umatilla tribe religious leader Armand Minthorn explained that the tribe hoped to rebury the skeleton and thus remove it from scientific scrutiny; it did not want experiments performed on the bones because “[f]rom our oral histories, we know that our people have been part of this land since the beginning of time…. We already know our history…. My people have been here since time began…. I know how the world began, and I know how the world will end.”

A group of scientists sued, arguing that this was an irrational, politically-motivated decision. After years of litigation—which included many very shady tactics on the government’s part—a federal court agreed with the scientists that the government’s decision was arbitrary and irrational. Bonnichsen v. United States, 217 F.Supp.2d 1116 (D.Or. 2002) A few months ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. 357 F.3d 962 (9th Cir. 2004). (I filed a friend of the court brief in support of the scientists, on behalf of the Pacific Legal Foundation.) Tribes have asked for en banc rehearing of that decision, but it looks as though scientists will be allowed to research the skeleton. Unfortunately, NAGPRA has led to the destruction of several ancient skeletons. And it, and proposed state versions of the act, require universities to go through their collections, perform studies on the skeletons, and turn them over to tribes for burial and destruction. (England is considering a similar requirement). This threat to science needs to be addressed.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on March 25, 2004 | Comments (10) | TrackBack (1)

The comments to my earlier post on neutrality suggest that I have not been entirely clear. Matt Brauer says that “the issue is of the state ‘preferring’ rationality to non-rationality, as it should.” I agree it ought to. But if we’re talking about the Constitution, then we aren’t talking about what the state ought to do; we’re talking about what the state may or must do. The state certainly ought to prefer rationality. But the First Amendment, even as incorporated to the states through the Fourteenth, does not clearly say that the state must do that; indeed, it doesn’t even clearly say that the state may do that.

Continue reading "More on neutrality"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on March 25, 2004 | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

I can’t resist adding one little bit to the dogpile on VanDyke. So far as I know, none of the many critics of the book review seized on the catchy conclusion to the article, which also managed to get something wrong. VanDyke writes that “the most ironic aspect of this debate is that Darwinists are even opposed to the inclusion of ID in the public school curriculum,” because evolution’s “fundamental tenet” is “that competition leads inexorably to progress[.]” Thus defenders of science ought not “fear…a little rivalry,” because the fittest argument will win. 117 Harv. L. Rev. at 971.

Of course, Dawkins and Dennett have written extensively on the question of just why false claims to truth manage to survive in this “competition.” This is the subject of memetics, which VanDyke does not mention or cite to. The fact is that the best argument does not always win. If a theory (or “memeplex”) is true, then it will have a competitive advantage, but other memeplexes have other advantages. Nazi bookburners had such a competitive advantage over Jewish scientists like Einstein or Szilard that they were forced to evacuate the country—but Nazism certainly wasn’t popular because of its truth value. Science has much to fear from “rivalry,” where that rivalry is based on methods and ideas which do not pursue and cannot reach, the truth. It has much to fear from dogma, superstition, coercion, censorship, ignorance, illiteracy, fanaticism, or blind adherence to tradition. These things all have their competitive advantages in the great cultural competition. But the simple fact is that evolution does not teach that “competition leads inexorably to progress,” if by progress we mean improvement, or the attainment of the good. The late Stephen Jay Gould spent a large portion of his life attacking that notion. Evolution leads only to the next step, not necessarily to a “higher” step. In seeking the truth, therefore, we must be constantly on guard for those memeplexes that “rival” the rational pursuit of the truth.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on March 24, 2004 | Comments (12) | TrackBack (1)

I finally got around to reading the infamous student article by Lawrence VanDyke, Not Your Daddy’s Fundamentalism: Intelligent Design in The Classroom, 117 Harv. L. Rev. 964 (2004). Most of the criticism leveled at the article was based on the fact that ID creationism is scientifically baseless, as indeed it is, as well as on the intellectual dishonesty of several of VanDyke’s statements, both in the article and in the ensuing ruckus. But right as these criticisms are, I think they overlook the main problem of VanDyke’s argument. That problem is one that goes to the heart of the legal aspects of the debate over the place of evolution in public schools.

Continue reading "Neutrality and world-views"