The Dover case has me so confused that I cant see what its implications are beyond its narrow facts. A couple of questions came to mind as I read it. Maybe someone can help me sort them out.
1. One of the attorneys for the plaintiffs said last night on one of the news shows that all this (ID) would be fine if relegated to a class on comparative religion or philosophy. Why should the ostensible subject matter or title of a class make any difference? The case wasnt about policing the content of science classes but rather the establishment clause. It seems like it ought not matter which door the establishment effort enters. What am I missing here?
2. If, as the Dover court says, the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science, then wouldnt the principal version of the now-regnant big bang theory be constitutionally prohibited as well? Its now generally accepted that the age of the observable cosmos is 12-20 billion years and thus that the universe was created (in an act of exnihilation) in a big bang. This theorys predecessor, the steady state theory, held that the cosmos had always existed and that the steady state of the universe was maintained by the continuous creation (coming into existence out of nothing) of hydrogen nuclei. Both of these theories employ the idea of creation in precisely the same sense !
as in the Dover case: the coming into existence of something (life, hydrogen nuclei, the cosmos, whatever) ab initio, ex nihilo. Its true that many modern physicists have claimed that things can come into existence from nothing by natural processes, but they do so after leaving science and inadvertently turning philosopher, thus failing to understand the difference between creation and natural generation. Surely, we cant legally distinguish the creationism of the ID proponents from the creationism of the big bang proponents solely on the basis that the former acknowledge that creation implies a creator and the latter doesnt. That would make the distinction entirely conventional, it seems. So it can't just be that it's the level of controversy within science either. Might there be "good" creationis!
m and "bad" creationism now?
Ive also been puzzled why some ID people havent picked up the big bang as supporting the notion that scientists themselves view creationism as a proper object of science (wrongly, I think) and as accepting the idea that the cosmos was created. One of the most interesting factors in the Dover case was the way the plaintiffs expert witness relied on Aquinas. Aquinas drew a sharp distinction between creation and natural generation (motion and change), and defended the idea that, since we cant know whether the cosmos had a beginning or end, we should keep a completely open mind on the subject philosophically and scientifically. I dont think that Aquinas would have had much difficulty accepting the idea of evolution. It looks like the plaintiff's "expert" theologian ignor!
ed the stronger arguments for the plaintiffs' position in Aquinas and contented himself with disparaging the defendants' position. Maybe that was just a tactical decision.
Davis Nelson
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