The Anti-scientific Method

THIS WEEK'S FORWARD has a terrific piece on the role, and point of view, of Jewish organizations concerning the struggle to keep public school science focused and constitutional -- that is, not another forum for religion.

Advocates of teaching Intelligent Design in public schools suffered a major loss last month, when a judge in Dover, Pa., struck down a proposed curriculum based on the concept. But this was not the last word on the subject. In fact, battles over Intelligent Design continue to rage, with fronts spreading across America.

Parents in Lebec, Calif., a mountain town 60 miles north of Los Angeles, filed suit last week challenging the teaching of Intelligent Design in their local school; the rural school district agreed Tuesday to stop teaching the curriculum. The Ohio Board of Education set the stage for a similar suit this month, when it refused to withdraw a proposed high school curriculum that offers a critique of evolution. The Republican governor of Kentucky, Ernie Fletcher, caused a stir in his State of the Commonwealth speech January 9 by calling for his state's schools to teach Intelligent Design.

Jewish educators, parents and attorneys have been deeply involved in the debate, and national organizations have taken public positions on the subject. All are gearing up for the battles to come.

 

The ADL is exactly right:

 

In Dover, where eight Intelligent Design advocates were voted off the school board in 2005, [George W. Bush appointee] United States District Court Judge John E. Jones III was clear about where he stood when he ruled in December that high school biology teachers could not be required to introduce Intelligent Design to their students: "We have concluded that [Intelligent Design] is not [science], and moreover that I.D. cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious antecedents," he wrote, arguing that the plan violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

 

The Anti-Defamation League voiced concern during the Dover debate, rallying against a perceived threat to church-state separation. After Jones's decision came down, the ADL praised it as a "win for public school students and science education."

 

"For Jews and other religious minorities, it's an important issue because the religious freedom we have through the separation of church and state has allowed us to flourish as communities and has enabled us to be equal partners in this country," said David Barkey, associate director of national legal affairs for the ADL.
 

The Jewish community has a particularly high degree of consesnsus here:

 

If teaching both the theory of evolution and some variation of creationism does not, in itself, pose a religious paradox for many Jews, teaching it in public schools remains a thorny civil-liberties issue for people concerned about the separation of church and state.

 

"The Intelligent Design thing is clearly an attempt of the right wing to get religion in public schools," said Rabbi Mark Levin of Congregation Beth Torah, a Reform synagogue in Overland Park. Levin — founder of MAINstream Coalition, a moderate group advocating for civil rights, reproductive rights and the separation of church and state — called Intelligent Design the major social justice issue facing Jews in Kansas and others wary of the religious right, and argued that "the moderate Jewish voice needs to be out there."

 

According to Robert Wolfson, regional director of the ADL's Plain States Region, the debate over Intelligent Design "demonstrates the chipping away at the consensus we had on separation of church and state."

 

"Intelligent Design and creationism are both based on literalist Christian understandings of the Bible," said Stern, of the AJCongress. "It's not a leap from our usual church-state position to say that you don't teach that in public schools."