RE: science professor lecture
Marc also was asking about the flip side: what if a science professor dedicated a class every year to demonstrating why in his view the science points to intelligent design? And what if he further took the Genesis account of creation and explained how particulars of it lined up with the science of intelligent design? What if he included this on the final exam for the class? Maybe we would all in the end agree that in light of academic freedom principles this would be no endorsement by the State, but I think Marc is correct that there are interesting issues here. Eric From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Marty Lederman Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 10:02 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: science professor lecture Well, I assumed Marc's question started from the premise that such a lecture would be very constitutionally dubious, at a minimum, if it occurred in primary or secondary school, and then was asking if and why the constitutional analysis would change in a public college setting . . . On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 9:39 PM, Steven Jamar stevenja...@gmail.com wrote: How would it not be constitutional? What possible theory? On Sep 28, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Marc Stern ste...@ajc.org wrote: Today's NY Times Review section has an article by a professor of evolutionary biology at a public university describing a lecture he gives annually explaining how that body of science has undermined central claims of religious traditions. Is it constitutional for him to give this lecture? Would it be constitutional for a professor of theology at the same university to offer a rebuttal in religious terms? Marc Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. From: Rick Garnett Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 10:43 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Reply To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: GW National Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition Dear Chip, Thanks for this. I'm hoping that Notre Dame will send a team again. All the best, Rick Richard W. Garnett Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science Director, Program on Church, State Society Notre Dame Law School P.O. Box 780 Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-0780 574-631-6981 (w) 574-276-2252 (cell) rgarn...@nd.edu To download my scholarly papers, please visit my SSRN page http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=342235 Blogs: Prawfsblawg http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/ Mirror of Justice http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/ Twitter: @RickGarnett https://twitter.com/RickGarnett On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 4:34 PM, Ira Lupu icl...@law.gwu.edu wrote: George Washington University will once again host the National Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition, presented by the J. Reuben Clark Law Society. The registration period is open from now until Nov. 15, 2014. The problem will be released on Nov. 17, 2014. The competition will be held at GW on Friday-Saturday, Feb. 6-7, 2015. The 2015 problem involves claims of conscience raised by teachers against a hypothetical law in Washington, D.C. that requires teachers and administrators to carry firearms on public school property during school hours. More information here: http://www.religionmootcourt.org/ (Ignore the Feb, 2014 dates at the top of the website). -- Ira C. Lupu F. Elwood Eleanor Davis Professor of Law, Emeritus George Washington University Law School 2000 H St., NW Washington, DC 20052 (202)994-7053 tel:%28202%29994-7053 Co-author (with Professor Robert Tuttle) of Secular Government, Religious People ( Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2014)) My SSRN papers are here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 Director of International Programs, Institute for
Re: science professor lecture
I believe a case can be made that Prof. Barash, as he describes his lecture to his undergraduate classes, raises church-state constitutional issues. Whether the courts will (and should) agree is another matter, but there is a case to be made. It is, of course, clearly established by a number of court decisions that a public high school teachers may not introduce theological, religious concepts and beliefs into their science classrooms. On this basis, creation science, intelligent design and other attempts to introduce religious ideas or conclusions into science classes have been found to violate church-state First Amendment holdings. Similarly, Prof. Barash, based on what he wrote in his NYT essay, is going beyond science and is introducing, in the guise of science, his personal value-laden conclusions and views on religion and God’s existence. He states that he conveys to his students that evolution has “undermined belief in an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God.” Later he writes that he insists to his students that one can only accept the both evolution and religion by “mental gymnastic routines.” These conclusions are not based on science, but are his personal views. He has left science behind and entered the world of philosophy, religion, and the humanities more broadly. On this basis, if Prof. Barash were a high school teacher, I believe there would be a clear church-state issue over what he does in his science classroom. The constitutional question comes down to whether or not the same interpretations the courts have applied to public secondary schools also apply to state universities. Prof. Barash has every right, of course, to his personal views and he has every right to express them in after-class sessions or in humanities classes. But, as Eric Treene asks, if he has a right to put forward his anti-religious views under the guise of science in an undergraduate classroom, would not deeply religious professors have a right to explain in their science classes how they see evolution and religion as being compatible? Would their doing raise constitutional issues? Others on this list will know better than I if in fact such cases have arisen. Stephen Monsma Senior Research Fellow The Henry Institute Calvin College From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Eric Treene etre...@comcast.net Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 7:36 AM To: 'Law Religion issues for Law Academics' Subject: RE: science professor lecture Marc also was asking about the flip side: what if a science professor dedicated a class every year to demonstrating why in his view the science points to intelligent design? And what if he further took the Genesis account of creation and explained how particulars of it lined up with the science of intelligent design? What if he included this on the final exam for the class? Maybe we would all in the end agree that in light of academic freedom principles this would be no endorsement by the State, but I think Marc is correct that there are interesting issues here. Eric From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Marty Lederman Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 10:02 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: science professor lecture Well, I assumed Marc's question started from the premise that such a lecture would be very constitutionally dubious, at a minimum, if it occurred in primary or secondary school, and then was asking if and why the constitutional analysis would change in a public college setting . . . On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 9:39 PM, Steven Jamar stevenja...@gmail.commailto:stevenja...@gmail.com wrote: How would it not be constitutional? What possible theory? On Sep 28, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Marc Stern ste...@ajc.orgmailto:ste...@ajc.org wrote: Today's NY Times Review section has an article by a professor of evolutionary biology at a public university describing a lecture he gives annually explaining how that body of science ? has undermined central claims of religious traditions. Is it constitutional for him to give this lecture? Would it be constitutional for a professor of theology at the same university to offer a rebuttal in religious terms? Marc Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. From: Rick Garnett Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 10:43 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Reply To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: GW National Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition Dear Chip, Thanks for this. I'm hoping that Notre Dame will send a team again. All the best, Rick Richard W. Garnett Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science Director, Program on Church, State Society Notre Dame Law School P.O. Box 780 Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-0780
RE: science professor lecture
There is a sense in which the possibility exists that God created the world yesterday, gave us all certain memories, organized fossils so scientists might reasonably conclude the universe was older, and that all of us this, for reasons we humans cannot fathom, was for the good. I take it that such claims cannot be refuted by science. Religious believers frequently make scientific/political/etc. claims that are subject to public contestation. But to the extent religions make non-falsifiable claims, as in the above, all a lecture can do is demonstrate that the claim is not scientific and subject to refutation by scientific means. From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Monsma Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 10:16 AM To: 'Law Religion issues for Law Academics' Subject: Re: science professor lecture I believe a case can be made that Prof. Barash, as he describes his lecture to his undergraduate classes, raises church-state constitutional issues. Whether the courts will (and should) agree is another matter, but there is a case to be made. It is, of course, clearly established by a number of court decisions that a public high school teachers may not introduce theological, religious concepts and beliefs into their science classrooms. On this basis, creation science, intelligent design and other attempts to introduce religious ideas or conclusions into science classes have been found to violate church-state First Amendment holdings. Similarly, Prof. Barash, based on what he wrote in his NYT essay, is going beyond science and is introducing, in the guise of science, his personal value-laden conclusions and views on religion and God’s existence. He states that he conveys to his students that evolution has “undermined belief in an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God.” Later he writes that he insists to his students that one can only accept the both evolution and religion by “mental gymnastic routines.” These conclusions are not based on science, but are his personal views. He has left science behind and entered the world of philosophy, religion, and the humanities more broadly. On this basis, if Prof. Barash were a high school teacher, I believe there would be a clear church-state issue over what he does in his science classroom. The constitutional question comes down to whether or not the same interpretations the courts have applied to public secondary schools also apply to state universities. Prof. Barash has every right, of course, to his personal views and he has every right to express them in after-class sessions or in humanities classes. But, as Eric Treene asks, if he has a right to put forward his anti-religious views under the guise of science in an undergraduate classroom, would not deeply religious professors have a right to explain in their science classes how they see evolution and religion as being compatible? Would their doing raise constitutional issues? Others on this list will know better than I if in fact such cases have arisen. Stephen Monsma Senior Research Fellow The Henry Institute Calvin College From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Eric Treene etre...@comcast.netmailto:etre...@comcast.net Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 7:36 AM To: 'Law Religion issues for Law Academics' Subject: RE: science professor lecture Marc also was asking about the flip side: what if a science professor dedicated a class every year to demonstrating why in his view the science points to intelligent design? And what if he further took the Genesis account of creation and explained how particulars of it lined up with the science of intelligent design? What if he included this on the final exam for the class? Maybe we would all in the end agree that in light of academic freedom principles this would be no endorsement by the State, but I think Marc is correct that there are interesting issues here. Eric From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Marty Lederman Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 10:02 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: science professor lecture Well, I assumed Marc's question started from the premise that such a lecture would be very constitutionally dubious, at a minimum, if it occurred in primary or secondary school, and then was asking if and why the constitutional analysis would change in a public college setting . . . On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 9:39 PM, Steven Jamar stevenja...@gmail.commailto:stevenja...@gmail.com wrote: How would it not be constitutional? What possible theory? On Sep 28, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Marc Stern ste...@ajc.orgmailto:ste...@ajc.org
Re: science professor lecture
Hi all, I agree with others that this issue gets complicated by the professor's own academic freedom and the related question of whether the views expressed in his lecture should be ascribed to the state. Putting all that aside, though, the lecture is clearly dubious as a matter of quasi-constitutional ethics. A few years ago, I reacted, in a letter to editor published in _Academe_, to a similar bit of overreaching by a science professor. See http://www.jstor.org/stable/40253040 By the way, that letter of mine raises an ancillary question: It does seem to me that, however much we might respect the science professor's academic freedom, there would be a real constitutional problem if he penalized students who, while willing and able to demonstrate their mastery over the scientific content of the class, explicitly disagreed with him about the underlying Truth value of that science. Take care. Perry On Sep 28, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Marc Stern ste...@ajc.org [1] wrote: Today's NY Times Review section has an article by a professor of evolutionary biology at a public university describing a lecture he gives annually explaining how that body of science has undermined central claims of religious traditions. Is it constitutional for him to give this lecture? Would it be constitutional for a professor of theology at the same university to offer a rebuttal in religious terms? Marc Links: -- [1] mailto:ste...@ajc.org ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: science professor lecture
If a science professor started professing against science -- and make no mistake, intelligent design is contrary to science -- I suppose it would be up to the academic discipline process to get him out of the classroom before the accrediting authorities learn of it. I am reminded of a story told to me by a professor of biology at Brigham Young. He said that one semester, on the day of the big evolution lecture in intro to bio, a professor from the religion department sat through the lecture. Later he got a formal notice that he had been called to account before the university's honors and standards board, which enforced the school's rules on adherence to LDS standards. He was informed that he had not been teaching creationism, and there was a formal complaint. Serious stuff. The board could dismiss even a tenured professor for violating church teachings. So he carefully mustered the case. At the hearing, he pointed out that the high councils of the church had debated evolution and creationism in the 1950s. Future church president David O. McKay was appointed to make the case for evolution, and future Sec. of Agriculture and church president Ezra Taft Benson made the case for creationism. The debate was before the president then (Joseph Fielding Smith, if my memory serves) and the Council of the Twelve, the very highest authorities in the LDS Church (the president holds the title Prophet, Seer and Revelator). At the end of the debate, the Prophet encouraged the apostles to pray for guidance. After some time, weeks probably, he announced that the prayers from guidance had not been answered with a call to creationism, and so evolution would be taught in the church's schools, in the science classes, and the church would have no policy against evolution. Upon checking the records, the honors board excused the biology prof, and he learned later the religion professor had been relieved of his job. He'd confessed to teaching creationism as church policy, which, since it is not LDS doctrine, fell into the category of teaching false doctrine. One of the great dangers of making religious claims, rather than science claims, is that one may not point to the literature, nor to the lab experiments done by cutting edge researchers, nor those repeated in the lab sections of science classes. One steps out on faith when one makes religious claims against evolution. So they shouldn't be made in science classes, by honest people of faith. IMHO. Your mileage shouldn't vary. Ed Darrell Dallas On Tuesday, September 30, 2014 6:36 AM, Eric Treene etre...@comcast.net wrote: Marc also was asking about the flip side: what if a science professor dedicated a class every year to demonstrating why in his view the science points to intelligent design? And what if he further took the Genesis account of creation and explained how particulars of it lined up with the science of intelligent design? What if he included this on the final exam for the class? Maybe we would all in the end agree that in light of academic freedom principles this would be no endorsement by the State, but I think Marc is correct that there are interesting issues here. Eric From:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Marty Lederman Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 10:02 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: science professor lecture Well, I assumed Marc's question started from the premise that such a lecture would be very constitutionally dubious, at a minimum, if it occurred in primary or secondary school, and then was asking if and why the constitutional analysis would change in a public college setting . . . On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 9:39 PM, Steven Jamar stevenja...@gmail.com wrote: How would it not be constitutional? What possible theory? On Sep 28, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Marc Stern ste...@ajc.org wrote: Today's NY Times Review section has an article by a professor of evolutionary biology at a public university describing a lecture he gives annually explaining how that body of science has undermined central claims of religious traditions. Is it constitutional for him to give this lecture? Would it be constitutional for a professor of theology at the same university to offer a rebuttal in religious terms? Marc Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. From: Rick Garnett Sent: Friday, September 26, 2014 10:43 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Reply To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: GW National Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition Dear Chip, Thanks for this. I'm hoping that Notre Dame will send a team again. All the best, Rick Richard W. Garnett Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science Director, Program on Church, State Society Notre Dame Law School P.O. Box 780 Notre Dame, Indiana
Re: science professor lecture
Ed: do you have a citation for any of that? A couple parts of it (the firing of the religion prof, for example) don't quite square with my experience at BYU or my past readings on Mormons and evolution. And at least one part is clearly inaccurate: Joseph Fielding Smith was never president of the church until after Pres. McKay had died. Just in case anyone is left in doubt from Ed's story: BYU has today (and has had for decades) a serious biology department that both teaches evolutionary biology and publishes peer-reviewed research on the subject. My sister got a degree in genetics and biotechnology there--it isn't a creation science kind of place. AMH On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 2:28 PM, Ed Darrell edarr...@sbcglobal.net wrote: If a science professor started professing against science -- and make no mistake, intelligent design is contrary to science -- I suppose it would be up to the academic discipline process to get him out of the classroom before the accrediting authorities learn of it. I am reminded of a story told to me by a professor of biology at Brigham Young. He said that one semester, on the day of the big evolution lecture in intro to bio, a professor from the religion department sat through the lecture. Later he got a formal notice that he had been called to account before the university's honors and standards board, which enforced the school's rules on adherence to LDS standards. He was informed that he had not been teaching creationism, and there was a formal complaint. Serious stuff. The board could dismiss even a tenured professor for violating church teachings. So he carefully mustered the case. At the hearing, he pointed out that the high councils of the church had debated evolution and creationism in the 1950s. Future church president David O. McKay was appointed to make the case for evolution, and future Sec. of Agriculture and church president Ezra Taft Benson made the case for creationism. The debate was before the president then (Joseph Fielding Smith, if my memory serves) and the Council of the Twelve, the very highest authorities in the LDS Church (the president holds the title Prophet, Seer and Revelator). At the end of the debate, the Prophet encouraged the apostles to pray for guidance. After some time, weeks probably, he announced that the prayers from guidance had not been answered with a call to creationism, and so evolution would be taught in the church's schools, in the science classes, and the church would have no policy against evolution. Upon checking the records, the honors board excused the biology prof, and he learned later the religion professor had been relieved of his job. He'd confessed to teaching creationism as church policy, which, since it is not LDS doctrine, fell into the category of teaching false doctrine. One of the great dangers of making religious claims, rather than science claims, is that one may not point to the literature, nor to the lab experiments done by cutting edge researchers, nor those repeated in the lab sections of science classes. One steps out on faith when one makes religious claims against evolution. So they shouldn't be made in science classes, by honest people of faith. IMHO. Your mileage shouldn't vary. Ed Darrell Dallas On Tuesday, September 30, 2014 6:36 AM, Eric Treene etre...@comcast.net wrote: Marc also was asking about the flip side: what if a science professor dedicated a class every year to demonstrating why in his view the science points to intelligent design? And what if he further took the Genesis account of creation and explained how particulars of it lined up with the science of intelligent design? What if he included this on the final exam for the class? Maybe we would all in the end agree that in light of academic freedom principles this would be no endorsement by the State, but I think Marc is correct that there are interesting issues here. Eric *From:* religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] *On Behalf Of *Marty Lederman *Sent:* Sunday, September 28, 2014 10:02 PM *To:* Law Religion issues for Law Academics *Subject:* Re: science professor lecture Well, I assumed Marc's question started from the premise that such a lecture would be very constitutionally dubious, at a minimum, if it occurred in primary or secondary school, and then was asking if and why the constitutional analysis would change in a public college setting . . . On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 9:39 PM, Steven Jamar stevenja...@gmail.com wrote: How would it not be constitutional? What possible theory? On Sep 28, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Marc Stern ste...@ajc.org wrote: Today's NY Times Review section has an article by a professor of evolutionary biology at a public university describing a lecture he gives annually explaining how that body of science has undermined central claims of religious traditions. Is it
