Susan_Haack

I found Dr. Susan Haack lecture very interesting and at the same time very informative. I learned many things about history that I had not realized took place. I was very impressed with all the knowledge she had to share with us. I would love to sit through another lecture of hers and also hear what she has to say about other Science related topics. I learned a lot during her lecture but the topic that stuck out the most was the conflict between science and religion. I found that the conflict between science and religion began well before Charles Darwin even talked about the “Origin of the Species.” In 1633 a trial of Galileo caused the first ever controversy for publishing a book that said, “The earth revolved around the sun.” Which is opposite of what the bible says, “The sun revolves around the earth.” I think this issue defiantly started a huge issue basically saying that the bible was wrong. However, the “Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 that Dr. Haack talked about enforced that a Tennessee statute that prohibited teaching and the theory of evolution in public school classrooms, was a huge drama. Yes, this drama caused an up roar however; I feel it never answered the question of whether the First Amendment permitted states to ban teaching of a theory that contradicted religious beliefs. Dr. Haack then explained that in 1967 the Supreme Court rule in “Epperson vs. Arkansas” concluded that these kind of bans violated the establishment clause because there main purpose of discussion was religion. In addition, she pointed out that this same issue came around in 1987 during the Edwards vs. Aguillard case. This case summarized a Louisiana strike down a Louisiana law that required biology teachers who taught the theory of evolution to also discuss evidence supporting the theory called "creation science." The controversy continues in new forms today. In 1999, for example, the Kansas Board of Education voted to remove evolution from the list of subjects tested on state standardized tests, in effect encouraging local school boards to consider dropping or de-emphasizing evolution. In 2000, Kansas voters responded to the proposed change by throwing out enough anti-evolution Board members to restore the old science standards, but by 2004 a new conservative school board majority was proposing that intelligent design be discussed in science classes. (In 2006, the Kansas tug-of-war continued, with pro-evolution moderates again retaking control of the Board.) In 2005, attention shifted to Dover, Pennsylvania, where the local school board voted to require teachers to read a statement about intelligent design prior to discussions of evolution in high school biology classes. Eleven parents of Dover students challenged the school board decision, arguing that it violated the Establishment Clause. After a six-week trial, U. S. District Judge John E. Jones issued a 139-page findings of fact and decision in which he ruled that the Dover mandate was unconstitutional. Judge Jones's decision was surprisingly broad. He concluded that "ID is not science," but rather is a religious theory that had no place in the science classroom. Jones found three reasons for his conclusion that intelligent design was a religious, and not a scientific, theory. First, he found ID violated "the self-imposed convention" of the scientific method by relying upon a supernatural explanation for a natural phenomenon, rather that the approach favored in science: testability. Second, ID is based on the same "contrived dualism" as creation science, namely its suggestion that every piece of evidence tending to discredit evolution confirms intelligent design. Jones found ID's "irreducible complexity" argument to be "a negative argument against evolution, not proof of design." Finally, Jones concluded that the expert testimony offered by the defendants in support of ID (generally relating to "irreducible complexity") had been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers. The decision of Judge Jones in Kitzmiller v Dover (2005) is available online: