Do you feel that Separation of Church and State is integral to the health of the nation
and to the integrity of religious freedom for every American? Are you worried your community may become the next national embarrassment, solely because of a few knuckle dragging anti-science demagogues dominating your local school board? Or maybe you're an atheist, an agnostic, or progressive Christian, who is
sick and tired of religion being hijacked to fill the coffers of political opportunists and right-wing ideologues? Perhaps you're a science teacher? If so, I have a friend I'd like you to meet: His job is to help you, and with a little help from his friends, it's a job he's
exceedingly good at it.
Dr. Wesley Elsberry works for the National Center for Science Education, which means he works for anyone who values science and science ed. Wesley and the NCSE were a driving force behind the recent win in the Dover, Pa. Intelligent Design Creationism case. And he is something else: Living proof that not only can you be a Christian and embrace science, you can actively work to expose and defeat those who would happily cast you or your religious friends as ignorant dopes in order advance the most un-American policies in living memory. I had a chance to chat with Wesley and ask him about the recent victory, future battles, his religious beliefs, and related issues. His answers below are illuminating; his critique of purveyors of anti-science who misuse his own Christian faith, is sharp.
DarkSyde (DS):
I think a lot of people confuse the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) with other, publicly funded, organizations like the National Science Foundation. But unlike many such groups, the NCSE is not publicly funded, correct?
Wesley Elsberry (WE): That's correct, the NCSE is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. We are "National" in the same sense of the "National Football League" and not in the sense that we have any affiliation with the federal government.
DS: Then where does your funding come from?
WE: About half our annual budget comes from memberships and member donations. Members pay $30 per year for membership, and receive six issues of the "Reports of the National Center for Science Education", where one can find articles on recent and current flare-ups, matters of concern, book reviews, and news from our members. The rest of the budget comes from grants from private foundations and organizations. I should note that NCSE's budget is a small fraction of that of the various well-known antievolution advocacy organizations.
DS: What is the primary mission of the NCSE?
WE: The NCSE's mission is to 1) defend the teaching of evolution in the public K-12 schools, and 2) seek to improve public understanding of the importance of science education. NCSE grew out of "committees of correspondence" that opposed the introduction of "creationism", "scientific creationism", and "creation science" into public school science classes. In 1981, the year of the McLean v. Arkansas trial, several of these groups helped organize the NCSE. NCSE was incorporated in 1983. For many years, NCSE's sole full-time employee was its executive director, Dr. Eugenie C. Scott.
Dr. Eugenie Carol Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education. For two decades this charismatic Professor of Anthropology, her tiny staff, and a few dozen volunteers scattered all over the world, all operating on a shoestring budget, have held off numerous, multimillion dollar PR & political campaigns against science education. For much of that time she was the sole employee of the NCSE
DS: There seems to be a mistaken impression out there that one has to choose between evolution OR religion; are you religious and if so, how do you feel about that?
WE: I'm a Christian believer, a member of the United Methodist church. I think that the assertion that one must give up belief if one accepts the findings of evolutionary biology is a misguided attack on the faith that I and many others hold. Certainly the "intelligent design" advocates have advanced this notion, saying that "intelligent design" is no friend of theistic evolution. If one looks at the transcripts of the 2005 Kansas board of education hearings with their antievolution advocates, one will see this reflected in particularly virulent form.
There you can see various "experts" opining that people like me simply have not given this matter due consideration. This is what "separation of church and state" is all about, though. The First Amendment means that they don't have the legal authority to put their particular theology, which is hostile to mine and millions of other Christians, into the public school classrooms. If they want to preach a sermon on how awful they find the faith of myself and others like me, they have to do it on their own dime and without appropriating the authority of school teachers to do it.
I want to mention a couple of points here. The list of plaintiffs in the McLean v. Arkansas case opposing creationism was mostly either clergy or religious organizations. The fact of the matter is that antievolution is an injurious digression in the understanding of many people of faith, and it is because antievolution is a narrow sectarian viewpoint at odds with other faiths that it has consistently been found to be unconstitutional to advocate in public classrooms. Another response of the faith community to antievolution is found in Michael Zimmerman's Clergy Letter Project, a strong statement of support for the idea that science and faith are compatible, and for teaching evolutionary biology. Over 10,000 US clergy have signed this letter. The animus of the antievolution advocates to that project is palpable. I blogged the Clergy Letter Project on Panda's Thumb, and got some really off-the-wall stuff in comments from antievolutionists denouncing it.
DS: Intelligent Design Creationism vs. Evolution is an issue that's been getting a lot of attention lately, what did you think of the decision in Kitzmiller Vs. Dover?
WE: I think Judge Jones wrote a careful, scholarly decision. Jones also recognized the validity of pretty much everything we were trying to establish. I also think that the influence of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (KvD) decision will be much like that of the McLean v. Arkansas decision. Both are federal district court decisions that have not been appealed. While the findings in each are not binding other than to the named parties, I think that KvD will serve as a standard starting point for legal thought on these issues, much as McLean has served since 1982. Of course, the McLean decision was cited in KvD on a variety of issues, especially with respect to the "two model" thinking or "contrived dualism" that underlies "creation science", "intelligent design", and "teach the controversy" versions of antievolution.
The "two model" approach was, essentially, the "wedge" back in the day of "creation science". Those advocating "two models" held that there were only two possibilities, either creation or evolution, and that thus evidence against evolution counted as evidence for creation. That "two model" thinking is still prevalent in "intelligent design" advocates came out in testimony in KvD, as Judge Jones noted that "intelligent design" advocate Dr. Michael Behe stated under oath that acceptance of "intelligent design" arguments was greater among those with increasingly strong belief in God. Because even the "intelligent design" advocates see trouble for the label of "intelligent design", you can count on seeing much more evolution-bashing without explicit mention of their desired alternative "model". And it is in this light that the strength of Judge Jones's decision becomes clear, for he laid out the issue as one of putting different labels on the same impermissible content, and that it is the content that is at issue, not merely what label is currently attached to it.
DS: Congratulations on that BTW, who all from the NCSE was involved?
WE: Everyone! And while many of the staff at NCSE worked long hours on consulting for the plaintiffs' legal team, I want to first recognize the activists in the NCSE community who also pitched in including Ed Brayton, Troy Britain, Reed Cartwright, Mike Dunford, John Lynch, Pim van Meurs, and lots, lots more whose names escape me now. They put in many hours of work so that the legal team would not have to dig for the good stuff, and their dedication to preparation paid off handsomely in the courtroom, as the lawyers were able to beard the defense experts even on technical matters.
The NCSE superstar for KvD was, of course, Nick Matzke. Nick spearheaded the preparations which put defense experts Drs. Michael Behe and Scott Minnich on the spot, and since those experts did actually testify at the trial, it was Nick's expertise that was most in demand there. And, in fact, Nick spent a month and a half in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to assist the lawyers during the trial phase.
They don't get it. One would think that this kind of decision coming from a Lutheran Republican judge--appointed by George W. Bush-- would at least give the IDists a bit of pause. IDists have made much of comparing ID to the Big Bang model. But did Big Bang proponents kick off their model in a high school textbook? Did they go around the country mucking with kiddies science standards to promote their view? Did they ever lobby legislators? I don't think so. [Nick Matzke's victory post They Really Don't Get It]
The word to describe Nick would be "indefatigable". Myself, I'm quite subject to fatigue. Two days in Dover let me know just how much work went into the trial. Nick made it through the whole thing, the forty days and nights mentioned by defense lawyer Pat Gillen. I think Genie Scott said something during the trial about Nick attending something else, and got the response from the lawyers that they didn't want to let him go. He's just that good.
Other NCSE involvement included Susan Spath and me working on preparation for defense expert witnesses John Angus Campbell, William A. Dembski, Stephen C. Meyer, and Warren Nord, who were eventually withdrawn from the case. Susan and I also developed the communications infrastructure used internally and via the Internet to handle both making resources available to the plaintiffs' legal team and to communicate with the public. I was able to set up Genie Scott and Nick Matzke to do some podcasting early on in the trial. Jessica Moran, the NCSE archivist, located books and materials in the NCSE library and found specific references on request. Genie Scott, Glenn Branch, and Eric Meikle worked on strategy statements and analyses of materials. They also kept up much of the ordinary work that others of us immersed in KvD had set aside. NCSE past post-doctoral scholar Alan Gishlick pitched in from time to time.
A particularly vital role in the case was played by expert witnesses for the plaintiffs who are affiliated with NCSE, including board members Brian Alters and Barbara Forrest, and NCSE President Kevin Padian. Dr. Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University in particular was rightly feared by the defense legal team, and they tried mightily, but unsuccessfully, to have her testimony excluded from the case.
One of the things that I was able to do was apply a script I had written for matching up text between two documents to the various drafts of the "intelligent design" supplemental textbook, "Of Pandas and People". The numbers and specific matches of text went to plaintiffs' expert witness Dr. Forrest. Nick did the analysis plotting the number of uses of "creationism" and "intelligent design" across the drafts. We're thinking of writing a paper on "creationformatics" out of our experiences. [Note from DS: Wesley's too modest to say it, but the testimony produced from this application was critical in the case]
DS: It's my understanding that the primary think tank behind IDC is motivated by more than watering down evolution, they want to have some kind of theocratic veto over all public science policy, is that correct and can you elaborate?
WE: That's correct. If you examine the "wedge" document from the Discovery Institute, it seems clear that the "cultural renewal" aspect of the program was taken very seriously, and I think that despite their "so what?" response they are still committed to that broad program. You can see from that document and various things written by Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture Senior Advisor Phillip E. Johnson that while evolutionary biology is in the crosshairs now, that's certainly not the end of where they want to take this. Science, in their view, has to be made 'safe for theism', and in fact you can find various references to making a "theistic science" in their writings. In Johnson's analysis, science is the secular trusted source of knowledge, and as such it must diminish the strength of belief in religious teachings. Johnson had a choice about what to try to do about the situation as he saw it. He could have advocated improved rigor in theological circles, and done grass-roots activism to increase the relevance of theology to day-to-day life, and thus affected a cultural change. But that's not what happened. Instead, Johnson has been at the helm of a movement whose aim is to first saddle science with a guiding philosophy that is pretty indistinguishable from how things were in the late 18th century. Once that is accomplished, then the remainder of the program seeks to make "intelligent design" the dominant view in all parts of the culture, including literature and the arts. What it means to make "intelligent design" the dominant view in, say, photography, I don't know.
I'm not sure that the methods proposed by the Discovery Institute are those that would be approved of by the Christian reconstructionists, who are not reticent in their proposals for direct political action. At least from the materials on hand, it seems that the Discovery Institute wanted to see "intelligent design" become something that could be established as a convincing intellectual argument, something that would require the assent of others when it was presented. They would like to be able to cast the skeptics as the people holding unreasonable doubts about "intelligent design", rather than themselves being shown to be holding unreasonable doubts about evolutionary biology, the process of science, and modernity in general.
Of course, the Discovery Institute is not the only group advocating "intelligent design", and some of the other groups doing so take an even harder, more strident stance on things. Consider the Intelligent Design Network in Kansas and the hearings held last year about the state science standards. One feature seen there was that the advocates for the "minority report" version of the standards repeatedly said that "theistic evolutionists" were misguided and did not understand either Christian theology or evolutionary biology. The letters to the editor of various newspapers in Pennsylvania that espoused "intelligent design" as a way to put religious teachings into public schools helped convince Judge Jones that the Dover school district policy had the effect of promoting religion. This is a failing of the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" plan of "intelligent design" advocates: the sectarian Christian base mentioned in the "wedge" document has not gotten the memo that in order to sidestep the constitution, they have to keep up the pretense that the antievolution content referred to as "intelligent design" or "teaching the controversy" has nothing to do with promoting particular religious beliefs. In the recent case in Lebec, California, a high school teacher simply cobbled together a class relying heavily on promotional materials from both young-earth creationist and "intelligent design" advocates and tried to pass it off as "philosophy". Even the Discovery Institute ended up agreeing that the course as it was implemented needed to be withdrawn, though they still seem to have difficulty recognizing that promoting the particular religious views inherent in the antievolution content they offer under the labels "intelligent design", "teach the controversy", "critical thinking", "free speech", and "academic freedom" are still the same stuff that earlier court rulings have found impermissible.
DS: Why do they spend so much time attacking evolution if they're after all of science then?
WE: Phillip Johnson's "wedge" strategy was to press the attack where science was, in his view, weakest, and he picked evolutionary biology as that point. If evolution fell to the "wedge", the rest of science would shortly be recast as "theistic science", restoring what the DI fellows thought was lost from modern culture: "the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God". The selection of evolutionary biology by Johnson is no surprise; it is the part of science that is most reviled by the religious right-wing. Johnson and others in the ID advocacy movement have not limited themselves to critiques of evolution, though. There is the curious advocacy of several of the DI fellows for the idea that the HIV virus is not the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Johnson is the highest-profile of those doing so, but one should note the HIV-causes-AIDS-denial article that ran in the first issue of "Crux" magazine and have a look at the list of reviewers and advisors for "Crux". What may cause AIDS, according to the deniers? Well, those pesky "lifestyle" choices that annoy social conservatives, apparently. Climate change is another bugbear for ID advocates, though the motives there apparently correspond to certain forms of fiscal, rather than social, conservatism.
DS: How can the concerned citizen help preserve the quality of science education or stay current on those issues?
WE: Joining the NCSE is an important step, because members get alerts concerning problems in their local region. While one can read about new issues on the NCSE website or use our RSS feed, members also receive email, correspondence, and the "Reports of the NCSE". NCSE has also started a weblog that gives information on court cases touching on teaching evolution in the public schools. During the Kitzmiller v. DASD trial last year, the weblog helped us keep the public informed about the trial's progress, including having a series of podcasts with Dr. Eugenie Scott and Nick Matzke discussing events.
NCSE also helps local groups get organized. A recent example is the newly-formed Florida Citizens for Science group. Florida is one of several states that is scheduled to revise its science standards, although the latest news is that the Florida science standards revision has been postponed until after Governor Jeb Bush leaves office. Florida got an "F" on its existing science standards from the Fordham Foundation. Florida Citizens for Science urges improvement of the science standards as a whole, and specifically adding evolutionary biology to the standards.
While Florida may be heading for a public dust-up over antievolution and its standards, there are many states where urgent action is needed, with Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina, and Oklahoma among them. In several states, there are Citizens for Science organizations. Check and see if your state is included and get involved with them (If your state doesn't have such a group, contact us and we'll help you get one started).
Concerned citizens should pay attention to school board elections and attend meetings. Also, state board of education candidates should be scrutinized. Kansas provides an excellent example of how partisan politics plays out in determining educational policy. It could happen where you are.
Science teachers should join the National Science Teachers Association. Scientists should consider getting involved in their community to help explain the scientific method and be advocates for the importance and integrity of science education. At the local level, keeping tabs on the actual content of science courses is an important action to take. About a quarter of biology teachers in secondary school are reported to either already teach antievolution as an alternative scientific view, or said they would if they received any encouragement from administrators to do so. NCSE is there to help. Contact us to let us know about problem situations as they get started. In many cases, things can be cleared up by providing administrators with the things they need to know about what religiously motivated antievolution is and why it is inappropriate to promote it in the public schools.
DR Wesley Elsberry currently serves as the Information Project Director at the National Center for Science Education. He is a co-founder of the popular science blog The Panda's Thumb, and writes at his personal blog, The Austringer, on topics as diverse as cetacean sonar and raptorial birds. To learn more about Wesley or the NCSE, or to contact them, visit the NCSE Home page.