Creationism in science classrooms (an argument for)

I think we all agree that this type of advocacy does not belong in a K-12 public school science class. And it is not presented there. If you don't believe that one sided propaganda should exist, that's probably a topic for another thread.

Your reasoning is off in a number of places. Here's my take on one of them.Your premise about what the object is is not correct.Science is about uncovering knowledge through application of the scientific method. It is not about uncovering truth using Ouija Boards, prayer and fasting, reading the Bible, or mystical divination even if those particular things happen to work.Even without the first amendment, reading Genesis or the Prose Edda would not be proper lines of inquiry about anything in a K-12 science class.

Yes it is the law that bans creationism in pubic school. It seems that you have finally learned to read the first amendment. This is progress on your part. Fantastic!Now we just need to work on your knowledge of what science is about. Can you explain the basis for your assertion that science is conclusion on matters of natural history and has nothing to do with process? Your own statement about a claimed higher standard of investigation seems to conflict with your assertion.

Assuming this to be true, what processes were used in those former investigations Mr. Byers? Did those former investigations not use the scientific method?Apparently you have never taken a science course with a lab.

While Robert does seems to be pursuing a record of being wrong about the largest number of fields of human endeavor in a single post, he is not completely wrong here. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.As Dr. Adequate has already pointed out, at the time the Bill of Rights was written, the first amendment was surely understood as a limit on federal power only. In fact, during the late 1700s there were state churches in at least a few states with the Church of England being the most common one. Some state constitutions still include provisions that prevent atheist from holding state office. These provisions are of course null and void under modern first amendment jurisprudence. But the Supreme Court decision explicitly establishing this date from 1961. See Torcaso v. Watkins.The point is that at the time of adopting the Bill of Rights, states fully expected that they would be able to keep the federal government from establishing a federal church while imposing their own brand of religious constraints. As understood at time of adoption, the Establishment Clause would not have prevented teaching religious doctrine by the state even in public schools.The problem with citing Reynolds v. United States is that the case apples the Establishment Clause to a federal law. It does not rely directly on Fourteenth Amendment incorporation. The doctrine of incorporation that results in applying some of the constraints in the Bill of Rights to the limit state government as well as the federal government is a still developing portion of legal jurisprudence. For example, early court cases after adoption of the fourteenth amendment held that the first amendment did not apply to the states. Incorporation began piecemeal in the late 1890s and incorporation of the 2nd amendment was decided very recently.The court cases in 1947 and later were the first explicit holdings that the Establishment Clause applied to the states although some 1930 cases did apply other portions of the first amendment to the states. At least a couple of the current Justices probably do not agree with the current application of the Establishment Clause to the states.

I think the side issue is relevant to his original intent arguments and to his complaints that the current application of the First Amendment to public school education is relatively new. The idea does date back to the mid 1800s, but the Supreme Court did not apply incorporation in that way. In fact the SC held that the First and Second amendments did not apply to the states in some 1870s cases. Further, the SC essentially read the Privileges and Immunities Clause, the natural clause for incorporation doctrine, out of the 14th Amendment in the Slaughterhouse cases in the 1870s.Even now there is not complete incorporation of the first eight amendments. For example, the Fifth amendment requirement for indictment by grand jury has been specifically held not to be incorporated against the states. The Seventh Amendment right to jury trial in civil cases is not incorporated. The Eight amendment is not fully incorporated. Second Amendment corporation was decided by the SCt last year and third amendment incorporation is mostly theoretical. True, but that would not be enough to counter Robert's complaint that the current Establishment Clause jurisprudence dates from the 1900s. I think he can make a good case for that.Of course Robert's argument is still nonsense. Original intent is not the be all and end all of Constitutional interpretation particularly if it does not take into account the amendments. We know that the "separate but equal" interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment lasted until even later than 1947, but most of us aren't still moaning for the good old days of Plessy v. Ferguson.

Roberts has said any number of times that the current interpretation of the Establishment Clause dates from the 1900s and that the founders would never have agreed to it. Message 330 contains one example. Yes it is relevant. We both agree that incorporation dates from the 1800s, and we seem to agree that the original intent of the first amendment was federal scope only.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

eLooks like I did not select the best example. But Robert has repeatedly said things the following from message 360:

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In fact its none existent and a dumb invention from the middle 1900's to ban creationism on the intent of 1700's constitution creating American settlers.

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I think the only interpretation of that sentence that makes any sense is that Byers is complaining that the current interpretation of the first amendment is 1) different from the original intent of the first amendment, and 2) dates from 1947.The argument is given in greater detail and with greater eloquence on countless Creationist web pages, with more explicit references to Everson v. Board of Education (1947).Perhaps I'm just being a little more charitable to Mr. Byers than you are. I agree that Robert is making a losing argument, but it is not quite the leap into insanity you make it out to be.I do agree that Roberts statement about the intent of the Justices in 1947 is off base. Correct. However original intent is not the sole method for interpreting the constitution. Also original intent is not merely the intent of the drafter. It should also include the understanding of the members of the constitutional convention and possibly even the understanding of the adopters. I'll defer to you on that point. But do Jefferon's feelings support your argument or mine? If state legislation would be needed, does not that support an argument that Jefferson knew that the First Amendment alone would not apply to the states. Aren't we talking about the Bill of Rights and then the later Fourteenth Amendment? Do you disagree that the adopters of the Bill of Rights expected the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law...") to apply only to the federal government? In fact, wasn't the Establishment Clauses intended to keep the federal government's paws off of churches established by the states?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I never said that court verdicts were relevant to original intent. But they are relevant to what the state of the law is at the time of the decision. Constitutional law is not strictly about original intent.My clean up of Mr. Byers' slop is as follows:The original intent of the first amendment (1700s) was federal application only despite the fact that Jefferson believed in universal application.Incorporation of the Establishment Clause was affirmed in 1947 after a previous Supreme Court holding in 1870 it was not incorporated. Incorporation begin in the 1890s and was piecemeal. Even now, it does not apply completely to the first eight amendments.Yes it is pretty sloppy to say that incorporation was "invented in the 1900s" but we can say that incorporation of the Establishment Clause was not the law until at least the early 1900s.

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That would again ignore the context. The Religious Freedom statute in Virginia came before the Bill of Rights - as I pointed out Jefferson applied his experience in Virginia when drafting the First Amendment. The First Amendment could not apply before it was even written !

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I cannot tell when you are you insisting on original intent of the first amendment and when you are not. You seem to restrict me to relying on original intent when I want to talk about court cases. On the other hand, you talk about Jefferson's belief that states should enact legislation. Jefferson's idea simply did not make it into the first amendment. Most likely, he knew such a thing could not be ratified in 1789-1791.So, the original intent of the first amendment, at the time of ratification ("1700s"), was not application to the states. Enactment of local laws extending similar protection at state level was originally left to the discretion of the states. Many states did no such thing. Although most states did get rid of the idea of state churches prior to ratification of the 14th Amendment, those states continued to enact other religious-based policies.

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However it does support my point that Robert is wrong to say that the ideas were invented in the mid-1900s

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I don't disagree. But we could also say that the idea of equal rights for all men was invented well before 1865. Nevertheless, we know that universal equality was neither enshrined in the Constitution nor enacted in the Bill of Rights. Evidence for that can be found in the exposition on race relations found in the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott, even though that court decision came in 1857.Regardless of what Bingham himself wanted, his ideas were explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court throughout the 1870s. I don't understand why you consider that to be irrelevant simply because it was not in Bingham's head.To continue my analogy, we might legitimately date the modern version of equal rights from Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 rather than from the enactment of the 14th Amendment in 1865 or from the equality in ancient Athens. Similarly, we might date the modern version of the Establishment Clause at 1947 rather than 1865 or 1789.

No, I wasn't. I've gone back through my posts and I'm at a loss to find any such thing. I did cite court cases, but not in an attempt to establish the original intent of the first amendment. If you can point to the message where I did so, I'll post an apology.Or you can accept my subsequent denials that I meant any such thing. Surely I've made clear my intended argument plain by now. No I didn't miss that. I've already acknowledged that Robert's saying the idea was "invented" in the 1900s was wrong. I don't buy into the creationist conspiracy theory regarding the Establishment Clause.From message 385: Robert seems to struggle quite a bit with the English language. I'll admit that I have cut him considerable slack, in part because I've seen the argument that he's attempting to use elsewhere.

I've put the text from message 381 here.

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Yes it is relevant. We both agree that incorporation dates from the 1800s, and we seem to agree that the original intent of the first amendment was federal scope only.

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While I did respond to your statement that the court cases were not relevant with the above statement, my response cites the actual original intent of the first and fourteenth amendments and does not cite case law. I apologize for the resulting confusion, but I think it is clear that I am not citing case law as evidence of original intent. It is not quite that simple. There is more to the discussion than simply arriving at the correct conclusion. Arguments based on the original intent of the first amendment are simply wrong.I'll summarize my argument for a final time.Robert is correct that the first amendment, as ratified, would not have prevented teaching the Genesis origin story in state sponsored public schools as science. At the time, it was fully expected that regulation of religion would remain within the police powers of individual states, and states actually did exercise those powers. In my opinion, your original intent arguments to the contrary are simply wrong. If Jefferson thought that the Virginia model was correct, he did not manage to draft an amendment that accomplished anything other than federal restraint.It is also the case that actual incorporation of the Establishment Clause via the fourteenth amendment is a relatively recent development and represents a significant change in the thinking of the Supreme Court from shortly after the passage of the 14th Amendment. The case law we've discussed certainly shows that.I'll leave the conspiracy theories regarding the source of that change in thinking to creationists. I've also tried to explain why Byers' post is evocative of the incorporation argument at least three times. I won't go over that again.

Because, as I've said repeatedly, (including, I note, in message 379) original intent is not the entire story. In particular, when discussing the incorporation piece of the discussion, the evolution of the law is important. If someone is complaining that the current meaning of the first amendment is not what was originally intended in the 1700s, what else could they be talking about other than changes in how the law has been applied or amended since its adoption.

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Obviously I disagree. Let me remind you again that Robert claimed that the ideas were invented in the mid-1900s.

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Yes. I think we've flogged that pretty thoroughly. I don't take Robert's words quite so literally. As I've explained, I believe Robert is simply doing a poor job of presenting a PRATT.

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Excepting the sole issue of applicability to the States, Jefferson's and Madison's interpretation of the Establishment clause may well be sufficient to refute Robert's position.

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In my opinion, that sole issue is rather important. If we are discussing the teaching of religious doctrine in public schools operated by the states, we must discuss the application of the first amendment to the states. I'm not even the first person to point that out in this thread.I think your method of determining the original intent of the first amendment is fundamentally incorrect. I can agree with you about what Jefferson advocated, but the point of original intent is to establish the meaning of the law that was actually enacted and not the law Jefferson and Madison would like to have passed. What was actually ratified was an amendment specifically limiting Congress. And my point is that regardless of the origin date of those ideas, they were not the law prior in the US prior to the early 1900s. Getting the law to its current state required a civil war, another amendment to the Constitution, and more than 50 years worth of development in the Supreme Court. I don't think I need to do that. Perhaps you can expand a bit on why you believe that I do. I'll give a couple reasons why I think not. For one thing, Jefferson is just one dude and we need to consider the intent of others who participated in actually drafting the amendment. For another, Jefferson and Madison were not able to enact an amendment with wording similar to Virginia's statute.During the process of drafting the first amendment Madison proposed the following more sweeping language:http://spider.georgetowncollege.edu/...s/his338/1stamend.htm

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No religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed.

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But such an amendment was not enacted. I think our discussion should be about the meaning of the amendment that we did get. For that Further, Madison was quite clear that even the more sweeping language he originally proposed was supposed to limit federal action and not state action.Amendment I. Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, and Petition | U.S. Constitution Annotated | US Law | LII / Legal Information InstituteFrom footnote 5.

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During House debate, Madison told his fellow Members that he apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.

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PaulK, I've already indicated that I did not intend to do any such thing. I've apologized for my part in creating that impression. At this point I think it's way past time to drop that line of argument and to deal with the arguments I did intend.

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Moreover it seems to be a narrow legal point which misses the very important fact that the principles involved DO go back to the 1700s.

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The principles existed, but they were not the law in 1791 any more than were civil rights for African Americans. At time of ratification, the first amendment strictly limited action to create a national church. The change in the law occurred only after incorporation via the fourteenth amendment, and in fact occurred substantially later. I say that I can defend portions of Robert's remarks on that basis. You don't accept that reasoning, so we disagree. And that's fine. But I don't lack reading comprehension abilities simply because I disagree with your arguments to the contrary.

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By my understanding Jefferson and Madison both interpreted it in much the same way as the courts do today.

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I've provided at least some contrary evidence for Madison. I'd be interested to see your reasoning on this point. Why don't you go ahead and make that point then? But why isn't what Madison said to the his fellow drafters more relevant than what Madison said later. After all, the earlier audience was the one Madison needed in order to get the amendment to pass.Edited by NoNukes, : Remove some snarky stuff...Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Just to be clear, are you saying that "Congress shall make no law..." could have been validly applied to limit the actions in state legislatures prior to the ratification of the fourteenth amendment? I'm extremely skeptical about that notion. It'd be interested in any evidence or support your could provide for that contention. PaulK, you seem to be making my point rather than yours. As best I can tell, we don't disagree on the meaning of the limitations in the Establishment Clause. What we degree on is whether those limitations reach action by the states, and whether Madison and Jefferson expected the Establishment Clause (i.e. the version actually ratified) to do so.Madison's veto and his remarks address federal action, and in particular Congressional action to use federal funds to support a church in Mississippi. This is exactly what I suggest the Establishment Clause does target even absent the Fourteenth Amendment. A true counter example would be in invalidation in federal court of a law passed by the Mississippi legislature to set aside state funds to purchase land for a Baptist church. Perhaps Madison did make some appropriate remarks elsewhere, but these aren't those remarks.

Then I don't understand your position and I've wasted a bunch of our time arguing against what I thought to be your position.My question to you is how does the Establishment Clause reach state policy on what gets taught in public schools without the Fourteenth Amendment.