May 14 2009
Teacher Sued for Creationism Comment
I’m a little behind on the news cycle on this one, but thought it was worth a discussion. James Corbett, a teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, referred to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a 2007 classroom lecture. The student at which this comment was aimed, Chad Farman, sued Corbett for violating the establishment clause of the first amendment and promoting “irreligion over religion.”
After a 16 month legal fight Corbett has recently lost this case. U.S. District Court Judge James Selna said in a 37-page ruling, “The court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context.”
I have to say, based upon what I know of this case from the media, I agree with the ruling. If it is the scientific position that creationism is a religious belief and not science, and that it therefore has no place in the public school because of the establishment clause, then this cuts both ways. To be consistent we must agree that teaching in the public classroom that any religious belief is superstitious nonsense is a religious statement.
Also, the quote from the judge is telling – he could not find any secular purpose to the statement, even when trying to find a favorable context.
The case does raise concerns, however, in exactly what kind of precedent it will set – both legally and in the public consciousness (I am more concerned about the latter). The ruling should absolutely not be interpreted to mean that any statement by a public school teacher that offends the religious beliefs of a student violates the establishment clause. This is the fear I have heard expressed by some of my fellow skeptics. But it may trigger a rash of law suits for exactly that. If a science teacher teaches that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, will a student interpret that as violating his religious belief in a young earth?
Given the history of such cases in the US, however, I have faith that if such cases come up they will ultimately be ruled correctly. A local court in a highly Christian state may rule incorrectly, but the higher courts have generally done a good job of parsing the first amendment when it comes to creationism.
The reason this case should not lead to our worst fears – that teaching legitimate science will be silenced and that public school curricula must steer clear of every possible religious belief – is because of the “secular purpose” criterion. Teaching the findings of science in a science classroom has a secular purpose. Teachers should not be preaching to students about their religious beliefs – they should just be teaching the science.
This goes along with the notion that teachers should not be testing their students as to their faith or religious beliefs, only their knowledge of the course material and their ability to think critically about it.
But again – this cuts both ways. This also means that creationists cannot teach their religious beliefs as science. It further means that they have to accept the teaching of science in science class, even if the findings of science (or history or sociology or whatever) are discordant with their religious beliefs.
In fact the judge referenced the Lemon vs Kurtzman case as precedence for his ruling, where the supreme court set out three criteria for a law or government practice that does not violate the first amendment:
First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.
We can’t accept the “advances” part of that criterion and not the “inhibits” part.
In the end, this ruling is a good thing. It confirms the fundamental legal basis for keeping creationism out of public schools. It reaffirms that the establishment clause applies to what is taught in the public school. Whereas teaching evolution or the big bang has a clear secular purpose – to teach how science works and the current findings of science. It’s “primary effect” is not to advance or inhibit religion – it is to teach an understanding of science. And it involves no government entanglement with religion.
So even if someone in the future misinterprets this ruling and tries to abuse it to silence the teaching of evolution or other scientific findings, I don’t see how it will go anywhere.
59 Responses to “Teacher Sued for Creationism Comment”
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“So even if someone in the future misinterprets this ruling and tries to abuse it to silence the teaching of evolution or other scientific findings, I don’t see how it will go anywhere.”
I’ve got my fingers crossed! It must be very difficult to toe that fine line as a high school teacher. If you take each of the teacher’s qualifying terms individually, I can’t see how he is at fault. In the context of science (in a classroom that is dedicated to teaching the results of science, although I believe this guy was a history teacher …), the scientific claim of creationism is nonsense. So how is the claim justified? Through religion or superstition. His comment certainly suggests that a particular religious belief is blatently wrong, but so does teaching evolution since the ideas are mutually exclusive by definition!
So the ruling must be based on the intent of the teacher’s comments. Without knowing the actual context, it would be extremely difficult to discern his intentions. The judge seemed to think that the context did not warrant any secular interpretation of the comments … I just find that hard to believe.
Here’s my biggest problem with this ruling: Deeply religious people tend to be irrational, both in their beliefs and in the extents to which they will go in the name of those beliefs. That irrationality and the legal system lead to a situation in which a religious student can successfully sue a secular teacher over, essentially, one spoken word — “religious”!
Steve, you said that the principal of separation of church and state cuts both ways. But the problem is that in practice, I don’t think it truly is cutting both ways. Imagine if an atheist student attempted to sue his teacher, because the teacher made frequent references to God in his biology classroom. This situation is far more ubiquitous, I think, than cases like that of James Corbett, yet the atheist students don’t even think of suing. They would stand no chance, and they know they would be harassed at every turn.
I’m sick of all this crap.
Bravo, Dr. Novella. I’ve been feeling basically the same about this ruling, and it’s been bugging me that I’ve heard a lot of local skeptics complaining about it. A teacher’s job is to teach, not to belittle the beliefs of their students, no matter how idiotic they may personally feel those beliefs are. Which I imagine makes it not fun to be a teacher, sometimes, because your students can get away with saying some very insulting things that you can’t. But then again, you’re also supposed to be more mature than your students, so there you go.
If I’m remembering the case correctly, this teacher wasn’t a science teacher. I think he was a European history teacher, but don’t quote me. I imagine you could talk about creationism to a certain extent in historical context, but… I don’t know.
I wonder if the teacher could have avoided trouble by saying instead, that Creationism isn’t supported by science.
Steve said: “If a science teacher teaches that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, will a student interpret that as violating his religious belief in a young earth?”
If nothing else, we have the fact that scientists of ALL faiths arrived at that concensus, independent of their religious beliefs. That makes it hard to sue that a “4.5 billion-year-old-Earth” is a religious belief any more than Western medicine or the belief that the Earth orbits the Sun are religious beliefs.
Sometimes the “separate magesteria” argument can come in handy. That said, they’re never actually separate. History is littered with thousands of examples of religious/supernatural explanations that have been replaced by scienfic/natural explanations, and not one example of the reverse. And there is no reason to think that trend will march steadily on.
I want to add that even though offending students should not be illegal, and is sometimes a necessity, it should be avoided when possible. That is just common courtesy and I think a student has the right to expect that a teacher will not make purposefully disparaging remarks. Without knowing the details of this case, its hard to comment further.
I have a problem with the fact that a teacher could be sued over a true statement. Courts have already found that Creationism is nonsense and as far as I know does not exist outside of religion. As others have noted, it would be better to have a recording of the incident to better understand the the situation. A few words out of context can be very misleading.
I read through the ruling. This teacher did discuss religion a lot and many statements he made came very close to violating the establishment clause but were thrown out because the judge felt that there was educational value to those statements when held in the context of teaching European history. The judge also specifically mentions that offending students alone does not qualify a statement to be a violation of the establishment clause.
I think the problem was that Corbett said creationism was “religious, superstitious nonsense.” He did not say, rather, that it was scientifically nonsensical, or that it is non-science, etc. He was denigrating it as a religious belief.
The line can be fuzzy, and that is what opens the door for abuse, but the principle is sound, and courts have generally been reasonable about applying it.
I also agree, however, that non-believers get the short end of the stick and generally courts and legislators are less willing to back up first amendment offenses against atheists. The boys kicked out of the boyscouts come to mind.
One of the main precedents for this case was one us all would consider a goodie, Lemon v. Kurtzman. The result of that case was that taxpayer monies didn’t go to roman catholic schools in Philadelphia because that failed #3 of the Lemon test.
The Lemon test:
1. The government’s action must have a secular legislative purpose;
2. The government’s action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
3. The government’s action must not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religion.
That’s seems pretty straightforward to me.
“religious, superstitious nonsense”
is a true sentence, from a science point of view. Science being the context in which it was said.
Also, it was addressed to one person.n I could find why he addressed that person. Was it in response to a question?
If the student said “Why don’t you teach creationism?” would his response have been appropriate?
Is it religious? yes
Is it supported by facts? no – Superstition
Is there any known mechanism for it to happen? no – Nonsense.
Steve,
I must be missing some subtlety here, because it appears that you are contradicting yourself.
You wrote:
If it is the scientific position that creationism is a religious belief and not science…
And:
To be consistent we must agree that teaching in the public classroom that any religious belief is superstitious nonsense is a religious statement.
It seems that those two ideas are mutually exclusive. If the scientific position is that creationism is nonsense, then it is by definition not a religious belief, and tact aside, there should be no ethical reason that a science teacher should not make that point in a science classroom.
Obviously people with a self-limited worldview will take offense whenever that worldview is questioned, and maybe the teacher shouldn’t have used those words (or said anything at all). But the fact remains that based on hundreds of years of mutually-confirming research in many different scientific disciplines, creationism (and especially young-earth creationism) is nonsense.
ShawnMilo
(Apologize if this is double-or-triple posted; please delete any extras. It froze up the first two times I tried to submit.)
You finally got me to register for this site, just so I could say:
Great post.
I’m a science teacher. If we want to teach our students to think critically, to use rational argument instead of superstition, we can’t attack their religious beliefs. No one who is devout will be swayed when attacked. And you are right about the legal issue, too: as a science teacher, it is not my job to comment on my students’ religions.
What we need to do is keep the message positive: instead of “Why on earth would you believe THAT?”, it needs to be, “Here’s how scientists think, and why. This is how I expect you to think in this class. I hope you find this way of thinking to be useful in your life outside of class, too.”
Geekoid, the statement context really was what did him in. Apparently a science teacher expressed a positive view of creationism in a class. The student newspaper wanted to interview him and get his side of the story. This teacher, corbett, is the advisor to the newspaper and when the students asked him aboutthe interview he made his comment about creationism. What the student in the lawsuit heard was when the teacher told the class this story.
So really, the comment had absolutely nothign to do with the material in the class, and that was the big problem.
Let us now mark this occasion as the beginning of the movement here from politically correct speech to constitutionally correct speech – the very constitution that had specifically moved that speech from legally restricted to substantially free as one of its principal purposes.
Thanks for linking up with the ruling done by U.S. State District Judge James V. Selna. It was fascinating to read documentation about Dr. Corett’s Advanced Placement European History class. I sat through one such class years ago, and knocked the top off the placement exam. I didn’t have a Ph.D. teacher for it. The manner in which Dr. Corbett presents the class material is so dumbed down to his students, its amazing the judge could call the teacher’s statements lecturing at all. The focus of the class I took was to read several college texts and college level materials and compare historians’ arguments.
Farnam’s motion for summary judgment was granted only on one statement, the Peloza statement involving another teacher’s views. All other motions filed by the District and Union involving protection from liability were granted. The Judge stated he protected the student and the teacher through his court decisions.
It does seem ironic that an amendment to ensure freedom of speech can be used to censor free speech in this way..good point artful ID
So, would free speech protect the right of a public school teacher to teach creationism to their class?
Do you think that public school teachers should have 100% unrestricted free speech to their classes? Does the state have a right to at least set limits on what material can be presented to public school classes? When Corbett is in his role as a public school teacher does he have responsibilities that abridge his personal freedom of speech?
I am avidly in favor of free speech – but it’s irritating when someone tries to grab the free speech high ground by taking a simplistic approach and ignoring the complexities of an issue. No rights are absolute, they exist in the context of all other rights and responsibilities.
ShawnMilo – this was not a science teacher and it was not a science class. He was not discussing evolution or the scientific status of creationist arguments.
That is what the judge meant by the lack of a secular purpose to the statement.
I know it gets tricky when a religious faith contradicts a scientific fact. In such cases I think in the public schools teachers should stick to the scientific claims. This does not mean addressing questions that are basically creationist. If a student asks how we know the earth is not 6,000 years old you can give a scientific answer. If the question of intelligent design comes up a teacher should be able to explain why ID is not science.
But they should also stop short of saying, without any scientific context – your faith is bullshit. Even though it may be.
Interesting take on an interesting and difficult subject.
Fantastic.
“So, would free speech protect the right of a public school teacher to teach creationism to their class?”
Dr. N, you’re missing the point. What he teaches should be an administrative decision and any violations of those instructions should be handled administratively. As long as the speech is not the precursor of acts which laws already regulate, then it should not be subject to those same regulations – whether in a school setting or otherwise.
Is academic freedom a concept useful only in a college level environment? Of course it isn’t.
Most seem to agree that the States can regulate the nature of public school curricula, but the particulars of the teacher’s daily discourse being subject to judicial review has to seen as intolerable.
So what if some dummy starts to favor some creationist crap in a science class? Do we call the cops, or even call in some new breed of speech police? Or civil liberties police?
Freedom of speech IS a civil liberty. Where has anybody even implied here that it’s an absolute right? Although you seem to be sayng it’s no more than a legislatively determined privilege.
Of course creationists will take as much advantage as they can of free speech. Subjecting them to civil and criminal penalties for presuming they have that advantage is the real slippery slope to be concerned with. Because you seem to feel it’s OK for the teacher to be punished for denigratng creationism as long as such restrictions keep creationists from advocating it. Which of course they haven’t and won’t be kept from – because you must know you won’t be able to alternatively and similarly apply such restrictions and punishment to the creationists.
Supporting an aspect of academic freedom a simplistic approach? Not supporting it out of concern that creationists will take their full advantage – there’s your simplistic approach!
And if you don’t like the simplicity of my approach, check out what they’re saying over here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/high_school_teacher_guilty_of.php
artfulD – I agree with the principles you apply. The real question is – does the first amendment also apply in the public schools. Is a public school teacher an agent of the government and therefore responsible for Constitutional restraints? If we say that public school teachers cannot teach creationism because it violates the first amendment, then the answer must be yes.
So are you arguing that the Constitutional barrier to teaching creationism, or any religious faith, in public schools be lifted? That this be left up to academic freedom and the school administration?
If not, then the only question is whether or not this particular statement qualifies as promoting a religious belief (albeit a negative one) without any secular purpose (the implication being that a reasonable secular purpose would be enough to justify a statement, even though it may have religious implications).
In other words – there are two questions here:
- should we draw lines?
- where to draw the line?
You seem to be saying we should not draw lines, which is what I meant by a simplistic approach, and I strongly disagree.
I can be persuaded that the line was not drawn perfectly in this case – this is a tough call. But the judges decision seemed reasonable, and he did rule in favor of Corbett on all the rest of his statements, even ones that were overtly anti-religious.
If it’s not real, then it’s worthless scholastically. Make fun all you want.
@ artfulD:
I think that the more respectable you are, the more responsibility others expect you to take. Like, bums on the street can be obscene as they like, and people will just ignore them. But school teachers are expected to be role models.
And more importantly, public school teachers act as representatives of the government. As such, they are obligated not to make unconstitutional statements because it’s considered an abuse of authority and public trust. Freedom of speech and academic freedom do not apply.
This only applies to government representatives. Individuals representing a privately funded institution can do or say whatever they want. And it’s up to you, the consumer, whether or not to patronize that establishment. It is not up to you, the citizen, whether or not to pay your taxes. They expect you to do that whether you like the government or not. That’s why we (you know, “The People”) have to decide how we expect the government (represented by the public school teacher in this case) to conduct itself.
If you disagree, you can feel free to start your own institution of primary education to provide an alternative to the publicly funded option. Or, home-school. That’s what the fundies do.
I agree with the essence of what you are saying but this is, I think, an incredibly mild case. James Corbett also made it quite clear that this class was going to be “provacative” at the start of the course.
http://randazza.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/james-corbett-speaks/
All in all I think that his post is fairly self righteous (really, Socrates?) but if you look around the middle for the quote I am reffering to (the note he sends out to his students parents) you will see that he urged the parents to contact him with any concerns about the discussion in his class, which brings me to my point.
Now this is not a legal opinion, and once the case hits the court you need to follow the law. In this regard I think the judge made the correct legal ruling. What I don’t like is the fact that the student and his parents did not even try to bring it up to the teacher before suing him, they just took it right to court. I think (and this pure opinion here so take it how you will) that it is ridiculous, whiny, and unfair to head right to court before even trying to reason with the guy. I think this is just bad form on the level of basic human decency.
Dr. Novella:Here’s what I actually said about the lines: “What he teaches should be an administrative decision and any violations of those instructions should be handled administratively.”
Of course there have to be lines drawn, bad as that metaphor is when the lines have to reflect an intelligent application of the brush strokes. The difficulty with any such drawing is in the clarity of its location and the rules that apply to its crossing. And in the impossibility of making a line that can also detect the purposes behind its crossings or call for sanctions to be applied accordingly.
But beyond your questions of whether lines are needed and where, is who gets to draw them to begin with. And then who gets to observe and guard their crossing, and who else may get to apply what sanctions.
And I pointed out early on, most have agreed that the lines drawn by the State in this situation were appropriate as far as that State having the right and authority to do so. The problem here has clearly been in the administration of the rules involved, which has to include some directives as to what would involve their breaking, and who should rightly be sitting in judgement when it comes to the application of sanctions.
So I was never saying we should not draw lines and what you “strongly disagree” with is your clear misunderstanding in that regard.
You also asked: “So are you arguing that the Constitutional barrier to teaching creationism, or any religious faith, in public schools be lifted? That this be left up to academic freedom and the school administration?”
No, I’m not and never was arguing that at all.
What I’ve been saying is the courts should not have the right to, in effect, be monitoring after the fact every statement that a teacher makes in class as prima facie evidence that it was the will of the school that employs him that he present the curricula in that exact fashion. And that therefor, any statement that appears to involve opinions on religion can be seen as a violation of the constitution until either the school or the teacher can prove otherwise in a court of law.
Because that’s what this particular exercise came down to.
slayer: “…that it is ridiculous, whiny, and unfair to head right to court before even trying to reason with the guy. I think this is just bad form on the level of basic human decency.”
*gasp* fundies who lack basic human decency!? no, it can’t be! they’re the moral truncheons upon which our society is built!
Yeah, that is why this bothers me even though I know the judge is right. I have too much damn decency to even consider filing a lawsuit as frivolous as this one was. Most *thinking* people do.
What’s the point in using kids as your sounding board when you have a beef with another teacher? This is exactly what Dr. Corbett did with Mr. Peloza. He couldn’t wait to tell his students that he wouldn’t let the guy publish anything in his edited paper or that the other guy’s opinion stank! This sounds more like internal teacher politics than Advanced Placement European History. I wonder if the Union would support Dr. Corbett in a class switch and have him try and teach Advanced Placement American History. Then Corbett can make the same statements. Would a judge find a secular reason for Dr. Corbett’s statements in an American history class with respect to American born Creationism?
OK – thanks for clarifying. I did misunderstand. You are saying that the statements of a teacher do not represent necessarily the curriculum of the school and is therefore not in the jurisdiction of the courts.
That is a reasonable position, but I think also comes with problems. Because then school districts can passively allow their teachers to teach creationism or whatever, but say it is not their policy or curriculum, and there would be no recourse.
If we look at this from the perspective of the student – do students have a constitution right not to have their religious freedoms infringed upon by the government? To them, it doesn’t matter if a teacher’s statements are part of the curriculum or not.
I also agree that such problems should be dealt with first at the administrative level, rather than going to the courts right off. But if it does come before the courts I think it’s reasonable for the Lemon rule to apply. And my primary point was that it cannot apply selectively – it applies whether or not we agree with the details of what is being taught.
What’s the point of requiring a Federal Judge to be directly determinant of the reasonability of a teachers statements to begin with?
Because I do believe the first amendment applies, and deciding how to apply the Constitution is the purview of the judicial, not some local school board.
Dr. Novella, I’m saying that the courts shouldn’t even accept such a complaint without some offer of proof that the statements represent a pattern of such conduct sufficient to show that it was either the intention of the school to encourage such discourse or that the school was somehow negligent in failing to nip it in the bud.
Otherwise, how is a particular student having his religious freedoms impinged on by an agency of the government when it hasn’t first been determined that there is sufficient agency involved to have any but the most fleeting disturbance of that freedom?
Religious freedoms are no more absolute than are the freedoms of speech that were essentially meant to protect them. They don’t give some little nitwit like the one in this case the right to decide for himself when his rights to believe or practice that belief have been sufficiently impaired that a Federal judge must be one of the first responders to that belief saving emergency.
And in the words of PZ Myers:
“Thirdly, and this must be said, Chad Farnan is a self-righteously moronic creationist wanker who deserves to have his stupidity pointed out publicly, in the classroom and out of it, far and wide. Spread the word.”
And spread shall that word be.
“If it is the scientific position that creationism is a religious belief and not science, and that it therefore has no place in the public school because of the establishment clause, then this cuts both ways. To be consistent we must agree that teaching in the public classroom that any religious belief is superstitious nonsense is a religious statement”
“… that teaching legitimate science will be silenced …”
I beg to differ. There is science that fully backs up creationism. Due to our corrupt nature, society in general has accepted a theory as an absolute truth.
http://www.icr.org/
“Teachers should not be preaching to students about their religious beliefs – they should just be teaching the science.”
I am not so much thinking Science class should be an hour of preaching (though when pondering the wonders of creation the works of God have clear marks of a creator) but I do think, at least , Creation should be taught also. When it comes down to it, evolution and the big bang are theories. There is no solid proof. People can call Creation a theory, though the facts that we have for creation are pretty strong unlike some things used to endorse evolution/the big bang such as carbon dating.
ArtfulD – that is a good point, whether or not the comments made by Corbett (there were more than one, though, and it was a pattern of behavior) rise to the level of deserving the courts attention. I had not considered that angle. I agree that one stray comment should not be sufficient, and that there needs to be a sufficient pattern to say that it represented a significant influence or character of the class.
I certainly don’t want the courts examining every comment made by a public school teacher. That is exactly the chilling effect we are trying to avoid, and that would shift the balance way too far away from free speech.
But I maintain that in principle a teacher can be held constitutionally accountable for what they teach in the public school, whether or not it is sanctioned by their school board.
SavedByFaith – these are points you raise that have been dealt with for decades by scientists. Evolution is not “just” a theory – it is an overwhelmingly established scientific fact.
Carbon dating has almost nothing to do with the evidence for evolution (it is useful at too short a time period).
There is no evidence for creation – at this point if you are going to make this claim you need to reference some actual evidence.
And, creationism is NOT a scientific theory, because it cannot be falsified. If you think it can be, then please tell me how.
I am sure my commenters here will be happy to engage you, but I highly recommend that you read up on evolution from sources that are not secondary and hostile. Find out what scientists are actually saying, and what the evidence actually is and don’t rely upon anti-evolution propaganda.
Don’t they have the ability to take it out to about 40,000 years now? I mean, in the scheme of geological time it’s a drop in the bucket, but that’s better than the 5k or so we were working with a decade ago.
Poking around the icr website and I clicked on the salmonella news article on the the front page. The first sentence by the author is:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but avians have a communal exit for everything (the cloaca). No migration is necessary because that salmonella that occurs in their GI tract would be present in the cloaca, and thus on the eggs as they pass through. A minor oversight, but one that could easily be remedied.
He goes on to say in that paragraph:
This is a common creationism/ID misconception that’s restated many times through the article, and seems to be his only premise that creationism is correct. The Theory of Evolution isn’t one way, and doesn’t predict that organisms can only get more complex. We have many different organisms to study this loss of organ systems. Parasites are great examples, the tape worm has been shown to have lost basically all organ systems outside of reproduction. Cave organisms, on multiple accounts, have lost all eyesight and instead gained extrasensory perceptions based on water pressure, touch and chemical messengers. Cetaceans have lost most or all evidence of any hind limb structure, but their forelimb structures are highly conserved and very similar to that of other organisms. I can go on with snakes, lizards, amphibians, etc. but it’s all the same. Evolution does not point in just one way!
If your survival isn’t dependent on a characteristic, it relaxes constraints allowing for now, non-fatal mutations to take place changing the organism. It can also give a chance for other organs/systems to take over this now unimportant space. It’s an oversimplification to say this but, if you don’t use it, you lose it.
There is another hidden premise also – that the current state of any animal’s genetics is somehow correct, and any change is a “breakdown”. But all genetic states are “mutations” and none are inherently better or more correct than any other.
Just for fun-
I wonder if it would be OK for a teacher to make the falsifiable claim that “human beings only come from other human beings”.
This is certainly backed by billions and billions of observations done over 1000’s and 1000’s of years and could be falsified by one single actual observation to the contrary.
I think such a statement would get a teacher into trouble.
Making the statement that humans came from something other than humans is called science today, even though it cannot be falsified and it violates the billions and billions of direct observations made over thousands of years.
Some people actually argue that this science is sacrosanct and should not be questioned under any circumstance.
Interesting times.
sonic, no scientist has ever argued that “this science is sacrosanct [what ever that science is] and should not be questioned under any circumstance.”
If something can’t be questioned, then it isn’t science. Scientists don’t make such statements, only non-scientists trying to make a straw man to knock down.
There may be many different reasons why something can’t be questioned; because it is a badly formed idea (not even wrong), because it can’t be put in a falsifiable form, because asking questions is criminalized, because those thinking the idea can’t conceive of other possibilities, for many reasons.
We know that humans share 10,000+ genes with non-humans. We know that the only naturalistic way humans and non-humans can share that many genes is if humans and non-humans shared a common ancestor. If they share a common ancestor, then humans have either come from non-humans (if that common ancestor was non-human), or non-humans have come from humans (if that common ancestor was human).
How many humans have you observed being born? I have only observed the birth of two humans. I presume that all humans have been born, but my evidence for that is not direct observation.
I am SO GLAD to hear a voice of reason on this, Steve. There have been FAR too many knee-jerk blogs and comments whining over this ruling – a ruling that is obviously sound and even helpful to our side.
Hypocrisy is thick among skeptics at times, so much so that I wonder how many are truly skeptics (not just cynics). It’s nice to recharge with some reasonable discussion.
Since no-one has ever been able to find, beyond any doubt, two alleged humans that were exactly the same, how do we even decide if we can classify any of us as human, or still human, assuming we ever could, or that we ever were? Falsify that if you’re in the falsification mood.
Dr. Novella, in response to whether the comments made by Corbett were worthy of attention, the court ruling is an interesting read. There are even some audio clips on the internet.
He certainly stepped over the line on several occasions, although the judge only ruled one as a violation of 1st amendment rights.
For example, he said, “When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth.”
Very funny, but highly inappropriate for a public high school classroom and most likely untrue. We have no evidence that religion leads to poor reasoning. In fact, if there is a causal relationship, it is more likely in the other direction.
Skeptics complained all over the internet that he was admonished for telling the truth, but they do not seem to mind if he makes stuff up.
tmac57: He did say it; he said a good many things, some of which were appropriate and some of which were not. Some were ruled to have a “secular purpose”. The judge could not find evidence of intent to disparage in some cases. Only the one comment was ruled to be a violation of the students’ rights.
The ruling is available at:
http://www.ocregister.com/newsimages/2009/05/01/Student%20lawsuit%20-%20final%20ruling.pdf
and is pretty comprehensive.
If the ruling had been sound, the court would have found that taking a number of incidents that allegedly made up a pattern of abuse, so as to enable the filing of a suit in federal Court, with the court then finding all but one of the incidents NOT abusive, therefor discovering NO pattern as alleged, that the initial filing was frivolous at best, and no more than a creationist tactic in search of a loophole – and not have given the filers even a sop of satisfaction by allowing one incident to stand against a teacher who should actually have been vindicated, exonerated and if the law would have allowed it, applauded.
” a ruling that is obviously sound and even helpful to our side.”
“Only the one comment was ruled to be a violation of the students’ rights.”
Let’s try to understand that the procedure, if due process is to be observed at all, is to go through the agent to get at the government entity that by law would be the potential violator. And where you then have the court ruling, as it did, that the school district was NOT IN VIOLATION as a result of anything its agent did, then how do you then, with any justice, or helpfulness to “our side” affirm any charges at all against the agent?
My initial reaction to this was indignation but that was purely emotional. Allowing myself to think about it, I can see that this ruling is correct. As a high school teacher I have a certain responsibility, both to my students and myself, to maintain a professional demeanor. I am an English teacher but that does not mean that the issue of religion does not come up – I teach in rural North Carolina in the heart of an evangelical and highly religious community. Religion comes up. For those of you not from the south – religion is everything here. When you meet someone new it doesn’t take long for them to ask you where you go to church. Church and home life are inseparable – during a family crisis the local minister assumes he/she needs to be in your home, making calls and giving guidance. So when my students ask me where I go to church or if I believe in Jesus, I simply say, “Ask me if you see me in the grocery store or outside of school but I’m not going to discuss where I stand on religion in class”. (I’m an atheist) Even though my colleagues are unabashedly Christian in their classrooms (the notion of church/state separation is met with puzzled faces here) I refuse to allow it to become an issue in my classroom. Oh yes, I almost forgot, there is prayer before school board meetings and many other school functions. It’s tempting sometimes to call out all this “religious, superstitious nonsense”, because that’s what it is. But try being a skeptical freethinker in the South – you’ll rarely feel more isolated.
The teacher was disrespectful and inconsiderate of his students’ feelings. I don’t think it warranted a law suit, but it did deserve some kind of protest from parents. If a teacher is an atheist, a Moslem, a Christian, a Democrat or a Republican, or whatever, he/she should not preach those beliefs in the classroom.
Hi Dr Novella,
As a Brit I am almost certainly missing some subtlety of your constitution but how does Corbett stating;
“I will not leave John Peloza alone to propagandize kids with this religious, superstitious nonsense.”
fall foul of;
“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 the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”?
Unless he is a congressman passing a law I don’t see the connection? Isn’t he just a teacher expressing a point of view?
(I have to say the idea of a teacher giving a damn about his students feelings makes me laugh – over here I think the response would have simply been, “Farnan, you’re an idiot” and the class would have moved on to other matters.)
Sion, you can’t condense U.S. law to one paragraph, though I enjoyed reading your last one.:-D
Sion, as HHC implied, you have to understand the last 200 years of legal precedence to understand how the first amendment is applied. Not that I do (I am not a Constitutional legal expert), but I understand that the legal precedence is key.
For this case, the judge indicated that the most relevant legal precedence is the Lemon case, which provides a test for what constitutes a violation of the establishment clause.
I haven’t read all the copious comments posted, but there are some interesting ones indeed.
My basic point is when a teacher states something that is by all evidence true, to 1. suffer a lawsuit by a student and 2. to actually lose the suit, is a travesty of justice, legal nuances of aside.
Religion is fundamentally bereft of (scientific) any evidence… and as the thousands of religions with their various, vacuous and sundry myths attest, are indeed superstions of the supernatural… and thus NONsense.
Public school is by definition secular and has no duty to euphemistically portray religious belief as anything else. IMO, the faith-based can opt out of the rational realm, and often do… for the dim comforts of home-bible-school indoctrination to parallel the pap from the pulpit.
The teacher’s comment may be viewed as insensitive… but substantively true. Religion infecting the dogmatized student’s brains is the proverbial “900 lb gorilla” in the science classroom. Basically, the “gag rule” is in effect preventing the utterance of truth. This is wholly about being “PC” versus openly making it clear that religous musings have absolutely no seat at the Table of Science and Reason.
On every occasion that Science and Religion have conflicted, the latter has been found completely impotent… postulating the fantastical, explaining nothing.
What I find amusing is how many Americans who have completed “High School” (there’s an oxymoron, eh?)… are so tragically ignornant. This ridiculous case only will help them justify their bible-based superstitions… their nonsensical, adolescent approach to life… filling the classrooms… ignoring the science… and now threatening legal action against any teacher who dares to state the obvious.
BTW, the teacher’s comment not even remotely “inhibits” the free exercise of religion… which like a metastasizing cancer… or kudzu, has spread over hyper-religious Nascar-America… with more churches than strip malls. Sheesh.
Cheers!
With the culture where you spring from giving its citizenry a clearly superior grasp of the niceties of justice, perhaps it could be a bit more introspective regarding its own application of the free exercise of opinion versus the concept of libel as reflected by your bewigged
magistracy.
Cheerio
First, anyone who wishes to read my defense has simple to google “James Corbett My Defense”
Second, most of these comments demonstrate a lack of understanding of the circumstances of the my statement. With the exception of the “superstitious religious nonsense” phrase, the judge found that everything I said had a legitimate secular purpose and was clearly connected to the curriculum. That curriculum, which is written by the people at Princeton Review/Advanced Placement, has “Changes in religious thought” as the first issue students in Advanced Placement European History must confront. All of the statements the judge threw out were related to that aspect of the curriculum.
Third, the one statement the judge (a Bush appointee) found actionable, was actually part of a response to a question posed by a student in Chad Farnan’s class. That student asked me to explain the “Peloza Case.” John Peloza was a “science” teacher at my school. I explained to the student, that Peloza was teaching “young earth creationism” and giving students credit for explaining how, “scientifically,” the earth might have been created in the past six thousand years or so, complete with fossils. The student newspaper editor, I was the adviser, wrote an editorial pointing out, correctly, that Peloza was teaching religion, not science. Peloza sued the School Board, the Administration, the Science Department Chair and me. When the the school hired an attorney, he called us all into the Principal’s office and warned us not to comment until the case was over. At that point, I told the student in Chad’s class, I stood up and told the attorney that I would be happy to sign a statement releasing the District from any obligation to provide me with a defense, but that I would not let John Peloza continue to propagandize kids with that “superstitious religious nonsense,” unchallenged. I’m confident that my attorney, will, in the end, win this case. Anyone with half a brain who understands that Christianity has no special place in U.S. law, must realize that this ruling creates a situation in which teachers, some of whom have dozens of religions represented in their classrooms, would have to interview them all to find out what might be offensive. I wonder, for example, if the judge would have found has he did, if I had opined that the notion of a talking donkey is nonsense? Of course, there is one in the Bible. Then again, what about the Cargo cultists in New Guinea, and all the other, somewhat unusual notions embraced by the multitude of religions present in the United States?
Thanks for the first hand information. That’s always enlightening in trying to figure out what actually happened in such cases.
Please note that I am responding only to Mr. Corbet’s comment, first half of the sentence, “Anyone with half a brain who understands that Christianity has no special place in U.S. law”. The American system of laws have been shaped by Judeo-Christian ethics. Our laws are a reflection of the culture of the times.
In the state of NY evolutionism can not be taught in schools. I was science lead teacher and had to review these laws that get passed. All one can do is teach the taxonomy and let the student derive a similarity or difference between the primates and human hands based on the difference in digits. Also chromosome numbers are different.
The creation of the world and evolution of the world are different topics because the creation of the Earth does not get talked about until humans can think the world had to be created. The world exists whether or not humans do or think about it. It’s a thing, a science topic. The evolution of the world is only predicted or looked back upon by extrapolation of both ends of the timeline for human existence, therefore depends on human thought.
Teachers can express their opinion or just incite a thought by opposing or confirming a thought. The student wasn’t shut up so his concern could be expressed. A dismissal of the student’s thought, can provoke the student to think harder, however to sue a teacher for this is a bit too drastic of a thought for a student.