UPDATE: It's actually just a procedural thing - a governmental entity can't be sued under the State's Unfair Practices Act. So the issue of relative cow happiness remains unresolved.
The Cobb County, Georgia textbook warning stickers are unconstitutional. The sticker had read: "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 Court noted the process by which the stickers were voted upon, and the rather vociforous arguments of either side. It found under the Lemon Test that the stickers served two secular purposes: Fostering critical thinking among the district's students, and presenting evolution in a manner that is not unnecessarily hostile to those with conflicting religious beliefs.
However, the Court found that the effect of the stickers was religious, as a whole, was impermissible:
"In this case, the Court believes that an informed, reasonable observer would interpret the Sticker to convey a message of endorsement of religion That is, the Sticker sends a message to those who oppose evolution for religious reasons that they are favored members of the political community, while the Sticker sends a message to those who believe in evolution that they are political outsiders . . .
The critical language in the Sticker that supports the conclusion that the Sticker runs afoul of the Establishment Clause is the statement that "[e]volution is a theory, not a fact, concerning the origin of living things " This statement as not problematic because of its truth or falsity, rather . . . the School Board appears to have sided with the proponents of religious theories of origin in violation of the Establishment Clause. The Sticker is a statement composed of only three sentences, and the Sucker makes up only a very small part of a text that contains hundreds of pages on evolution. Nevertheless, the Sticker is prominently featured at the front of the textbooks, and the Sticker focuses exclusively on evolution. The Sticker is the only one of its kind in the science textbooks, and there are no other stickers placed in any other textbooks used in the Cobb County School District regarding any other subjects. Therefore, although the message on the Sticker might be small in size when compared to the numerous pages of material on evolution in the textbook, the message has an overwhelming presence The School Board has explicitly endorsed its approval of this message, and students are bound to see the message when they open their textbooks."
At first, I was not persuaded that the sticker would necessarily be a violation. It is facially neutral where religion is concerned and there were plenty of potential secular purposes to be invoked. But as the Court points out, the problem lies in the singling out of evolution as a theory - thus implying that all the other theories that were not so singled out had some ethereal factual standing higher than evolution. Of course, they could always adopt a sticker that looks something like this:
NEWS FLASH: We weren't here when the universe and/or humankind began, so we don't exactly know how the whole thing started. We can have theories, but until we can replicate them and observe the results of interesting government-funded experiments, we can't exactly prove any of them to be true per se. Zip. Nada. None. No "intelligent design," no "big bang," nothing. In fact, you are free to approach the facts with an open mind an come up with alternate theories. Who knows, your theory may be the next big trend in earth science. That said, some of these theories have a lot more facts backing them up than others. If you don't learn the facts, it doesn't matter to which theory you ascribe. You are guaranteed to look like an idiot. Others will laugh at you, you will be familiar with the phrasing "barking moonbat," and you will flunk this class. Consider yourself warned.
My slight problem with all this lies in this quote:
". . . Dr McCoy testified that the Board's misuse of the word "theory" in the Sticker causes "confusion" in his science class and consequently requires him to spend significantly more time trying to distinguish "fact" and "theory" for his students . . . Dr. McCoy stated that some of his students translate the Sticker to state that evolution is "just" a theory, which he believes has the effect of diminishing the status of evolution among all other theories."
Please tell me you're not arguing to remove the sticker because it's too hard to teach the difference between a theory and a fact in high school. Okay, this isn't third grade. Even if it makes the school day a touch difficult, don't you think it's a good idea to have your students fully hash out the idea of 'theory' vs 'hypothesis' vs 'fact,' so they have a good handle on the concept before they get to college? Just a thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment