Breaking the Wedge

Breaking the Wedge

Justice Felix Frankfurter stated in his opinion in McCollum v. Board of Education, “We have staked the very existence of our country on the faith that complete separation between the state and religion is best for the state and best for religion. If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, good fences make good neighbors.” (Moore 1) For the last century in America and ideological war has been fought in our legislatures, courts, and schools. Some parts of the fundamentalist Christian movement have tried repeatedly to prevent the teaching of the Darwinian theory of evolution in public schools because they see it as a threat to their religious beliefs. Darwin’s theory posits that species evolve over eons of time, changing in ancestor-descendant relationships from one species to another. This is often perceived as standing in direct conflict with the Bible account of the creation of the world as told in Genesis, which states that the world is only a few millennia old and that god created man and all of the species of animals in a single epoch. The latest battle in this conflict is over the theory of Intelligent Design (ID). Robert Weitzel states that “IDers maintain that life is too complex to have developed solely by evolutionary mechanisms. They believe this complexity could only have been engineered by an intelligent designer. Strategically, they refrain from identifying the nature of the designer. This tactic is designed to give their notion of creation a patina of scientific credibility and protection from First Amendment challenges” (1). Intelligent Design advocates have pushed forward on many fronts to try and introduce it into school curricula all over the country and they are meeting with a measure of success and a good deal of popular support. While the ID movement enjoys wide support from the populace, especially in traditionally conservative areas, it is imperative that the teaching of Intelligent Design is kept out of public school curricula because of the separation that must be maintained between religion and state.

The First Amendment to our Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (The Bill of Rights: A Transcription). While there are potential conflicts within the amendment, specifically between the establishment clause and the freedom of speech clause that are germane to this subject, it has been interpreted by our highest courts time and time again both to uphold the teaching of evolution and to prohibit the teaching of creationism in public schools. One of the most relevant cases is Epperson v. Arkansas, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held as unconstitutional an Arkansas law which prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. In the primary opinion written by Justice Fortas, he states “The overriding fact is that Arkansas’ law selects from the body of knowledge a particular segment which it proscribes for the sole reason that it is deemed to conflict with a particular religious doctrine; that is, with a particular interpretation of the book of Genesis by a particular religious group” (3). Justice Fortas goes on to state “There is and can be no doubt that the First Amendment does not permit the state to require that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any religious sect or dogma” (4). In another case which deals with the teaching of “creation science”, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a teacher did not have the First Amendment right to teach creation science in a public school because creation science is a form of religious advocacy (Moore R., Jensen, Hatch 4). Finally a court has ruled specifically on the teaching of intelligent design. Moore, Jensen, and Hatch state “In Freiler v. Tongipahoa Parish Board of Education, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1999 that proposals for teaching ‘intelligent design’ are equivalent to proposals for teaching ’creation science’” (6) In these and numerous other similar cases the courts have consistently ruled to keep religion out of the classroom. It is important therefore, to determine whether Intelligent Design is in fact scientific or religious in nature.

As cited in the Freiler v. Tongipahoa Parish Board of Education case, the court ruled that in the eyes of the law, intelligent design is the same as creation science and therefore is religious in nature and falls under the establishment clause of the First Amendment; however, it is impossible to determine how a higher court might rule on the matter. Because of this it is prudent to make an independent analysis of the matter. It