The Tuesday before Christmas, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that a public school district in Dover, PA cannot require the inclusion of “Intelligent Design” (ID) in biology classes as an alternative to evolution.  US District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that the school board violated the Constitution (i.e., the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause) when it ordered high school biology teachers to read students a short statement that raised doubts about the Darwinian hypothesis and offered Intelligent Design as an alternative theory on the origin and development of life.  He ruled that the requirement unlawfully promoted a religious purpose in a public school.  In an obviously provocative ruling, Judge Jones did not settle the issue.  How should we think through this complex issue in terms of law?

• First some background to the case.  The Dover school board required that the following statement be read in the 9th grade biology class to students at the beginning of the lessons on evolution:  “Because Darwin’s theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered.  The theory is not a fact.  Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.  Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view.”  The statement referred students to the book, Of Pandas and People, if they were “interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.”  After the Dover board issued its requirement, 11 parents, working with the support and guidance of the ACLU, filed a lawsuit in federal court to block it on the grounds that ID was actually a thinly veiled new version of biblical creationism, which the US Supreme Court has already ruled cannot be taught in public schools.  During the trial, Michael J. Behe, a Lehigh University biochemistry professor and one of the intellectual leaders of the ID movement, testified that “the appearance of design in aspects of biology is overwhelming” and that “intelligent design is based on observed, empirical, physical evidence from nature.”  During the course of the trial, all eight of the school board incumbents who favored teaching ID were defeated in an election in November by candidates who opposed including it in the curriculum.

• Second, a word about the decision itself.  Judge Jones took proponents of ID to task in his 139-page opinion, saying that they wished to “change the ground rules of science to make room for religion, specifically beliefs consonant with a particular version of Christianity.”  He cited the “breathtaking inanity” of the board’s decision and the board members’ “striking ignorance” about the concept of intelligent design.  He wrote that “The citizens of Dover area were poorly served by the members of the board who voted for the ID policy.  It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID policy.”  The judge likewise had harsh words for the ID proponents in general, arguing that “at bottom [it is] premised upon a false dichotomy, namely, that to the extent evolutionary theory is discredited, ID is confirmed.”  He even stated plainly that “ID is not science.”  In his long opinion, Judge Jones went way beyond the issue of law.  He developed both philosophical and practical arguments against ID.  He developed a clear definition of science, and recounted how the scientific method evolved over the centuries.  He described in his opinion how scientists go about their task of supporting and/or challenging ideas about the world that can only be observed and measured.  He concluded that ID is a religious idea, not a scientific idea.  Judge Jones presented two arguments for why ID is not science, but instead “an old religious argument for the existence of God.”  The first is that ID involves a “supernatural designer,” while science, by definition, deals only with natural phenomenon.  Second, he found that ID suffers from blatant flaws in logic, one of the key tools of science.  He contended that the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century was explicitly about the rejection of “revelation in favor of empirical evidence.”  He continued that “science has been a discipline in which testability, rather than any ecclesiastical authority or philosophical coherence, has been the measure of a scientific idea’s worth.”  Science goes out of its way to avoid any discussion of “meaning or purpose.”  He went on, “Just because scientists cannot explain today how biological systems evolved does not mean that they cannot, and will not, be able to explain them tomorrow.”  “ID is a religious and not a scientific proposition,” Jones concluded. 

• Finally, an evaluation of the decision.  Unquestionably, Judge Jones went way beyond the idea of law in his opinion.  He wrote a treatise on the validity of ID as science.  I am not certain this is totally under the purview of a judge.  However, the case also points to an incontrovertible fact:  A board cannot mandate the teaching of ID.  School boards all over the nation can mandate the teaching of the evolutionary hypothesis, but ID cannot be mandated.  Arguably a double standard, this is the reality of where our culture is right now.  So, what should have been the strategy?  The Dover board overplayed its hand.  The issue is how to get discussion going in the classroom on the validity of the Darwinian hypothesis.  There should be a free exchange of ideas about the evidence for the Darwinian hypothesis and the evidence for ID.  That is the reason that the leading proponent of ID, the Discovery Institute, opposes “efforts to get the government to require the teaching of intelligent design.”  It argues instead for a “fair and open discussion of the merits of intelligent design among scholars and within the scientific community. . .”  ID is a hypothesis as well and must be tested and discussed.  It is not wise to mandate that it be taught.  The wiser strategy is to teach ID and the evolutionary hypothesis together.  Both need scrutiny and intellectual rigor, debate and discussion.  In the end, the truth will win and that truth will always involve God as Creator and Sustainer of His world.

See Washington Post news article by William Branigin (20 December 2005); “Today’s News,” Chronicle of Higher Education (20 December 2005); David Brown and Rick Weiss, “Defending Science by Defining It,” Washington Post (21 December 2005); news article ChristianityToday.com (21 December 2005); and “Breakpoint” (21 December 2005).

President Bush recently admitted that shortly after 9/11 he authorized the National Security Agency to tap cell phone conversations between al Qaeda supporters and suspects within the US as they conversed with individuals in other countries.  It is an issue of domestic surveillance of Americans, something that is governed by previous laws of Congress.  At least on the surface, it seems that the President surpassed those laws.  In so many ways, this situation gets to the heart of defining and confining executive power.  And, as George Will has so eloquently put it, “in times of war or the threat of war, government must have concentrated decisiveness—a capacity for swift and nimble action that legislatures normally cannot manage.  But the inescapable corollary of this need is the danger of arbitrary power.”  How should we think about this complex issue?

• First, what were the alternatives for President Bush?  Based on previous legislation, he could have ordered the Attorney General to go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.  He would ask the panel of federal judges for a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to begin eavesdropping on those telephone numbers, to determine whether any individual associated with those numbers was involved in terrorist activities.  FISA requires the attorney general to convince the panel that there is “probable cause to believe” that the target of surveillance is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist.  But this is often cumbersome and difficult and could cost lives, if the FISA court rules against the warrant.  Further, the Supreme Court has always sought to balance 4th Amendment rights with security imperatives and has always upheld “the inherent authority” under the Constitution of the president to acquire necessary intelligence for national security purposes.  So, in a time of international terrorism when our nation has already been attacked, the President argued that his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution included domestic eavesdropping on conversations of American citizens or registered aliens who are suspected of links with international terrorists.

• Second, Judge Richard A. Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals argues that the US must have a new debate on the nature and necessity of domestic intelligence.  He writes that “the goal of national security intelligence is to prevent a terrorist attack, not just punish the attacker after it occurs.  And the information that enables the detection of an impending attack may be scattered around the world in tiny bits.  A much wider, finer-meshed net must be cast than when investigating a specific crime.  Many of the relevant bits may be in the emails, phone conversations or banking records of US citizens, some innocent, some not so innocent.  The government is entitled to those data, but just for the limited purpose of protecting national security.”  We must allow our government the authority to gather these “tiny bits” of information.  This is what President Bush was trying to do in giving his order to the National Security Agency.  In this discussion it has now become public knowledge that Presidents Carter and Clinton did something similar during their administrations.  The debate has now become politicized—and that is tragic.  This nation must have a debate on the boundaries of eavesdropping as a source of intelligence data—Posner’s “tiny bits” of information analogy.  The Congress and the media must end this “imperial presidency” talk about Bush’s actions.  I believe that history will show that Bush’s actions were within the boundaries of his Chief Executive and Commander in Chief powers.  He has not denied his order nor has he sugar-coated it.  He has stated clearly that he seeks to protect the American people from attack.  We must debate and discuss the balance between security and liberty—and end the absurd political posturing that is going on right now.

See Judge Posner’s article in the Washington Post (21 December 2005); George Will’s editorial in the same paper (20 December 2005); and  William Kristol and Gary Schmitt, “Vital Presidential Power,” Washington Post (20 December 2005).

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in mid-December called the extermination of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust a “myth.”  He said that “They have created a myth in the name of the Holocaust and consider it above God, religion and the prophets.”  Earlier he had suggested that the European nations had established Israel out of guilt over the Nazi campaign and that the Europeans now should carve out a new state within Europe for the Jews.  The nation state of Israel should be obliterated!  He said, that “if someone were to deny the myth of the Jews’ massacre, all the Zionist mouthpieces and the governments subservient to the Zionists tear their larynxes and scream against the person as much as they can.” 

The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, correctly summarized the gravity of this situation:  “The combination of extremist ideology, a warped understanding of reality and nuclear weapons is a combination that no one in the international community can accept.”  Iran’s President is playing with fire!  He is raging against the lessons of history and the Scriptures, that those who bless the Jewish people will be blessed and those who curse the Jewish people will be cursed.  History is filled with the truth of that proposition. 

But there is a greater danger here as well.  Columnist Charles Krauthammer has correctly observed that “Everyone knows where Iran’s nuclear weapons will be aimed.  Everyone knows they will be put on Shahab rockets so that they can reach Israel.  And everyone knows that if the button is ever pushed, it will be the end of Israel.”  Ahmadinejad also is motivated by his peculiar apocalyptic beliefs.  Like most Shiites, he believes in the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam.  The more devout Shiites in Iran pray at the Jamkaran mosque, which houses a well from which, some believe, he will emerge.  The new President of Iran believes that the main mission of the Islamic Revolution is to pave the way for the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam.  He believes that the apocalypse is near and his actions will pave the way for its completion.  His fanatical theology is merging with his fanatical foreign policy.  As Krauthammer comments, “Negotiations to deny this certifiable lunatic genocidal weapons have been going nowhere.  Everyone knows they will go nowhere.  And no one will do anything about it.”  How absurd and how tragic!!

See Krauthammer’s editorial in the Washington Post (16 December 2005) and Karl Vick in the same newspaper (15 December 2005).