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At the end of last year, a federal district court in Pennsylvania held that a policy requiring public schools in Dover, Del., to teach intelligent design had violated the First Amendment because intelligent design is not science and “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.”
According to Baptist leader R. Albert Mohler, Jr., the decision was a travesty of justice. "A judge shouldn’t decide what is or isn’t science," he said.
Mohler, a leading evangelical who serves as president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was one of five panelists in a March 28 debate on "The Courts and the Church-State Line," moderated by President Lee C. Bollinger and part of the Kraft Family Fund’s program series on “Religion in the Public Sphere.” Click to view the video of the event.
Jewish law expert Suzanne Last Stone agreed with Mohler, adding that the debate over whether some version of creationism should be taught alongside evolution raises an even more fundamental point about whether religion occupies a "proper domain" in American society, one that allows people the choice of adopting a "teleological view of humans."
But for law school professors Noah Feldman and R. Kent Greenawalt, the only reason to introduce intelligent design to the public school curriculum would be as a way of acknowledging that a significant number of Americans adhere to this worldview as well as to signal respect for their right to believe what they want.
"Teachers should acknowledge the fact that some people believe in intelligent design," Feldman, a faculty member of NYU Law School, said, "but then teachers should also say, 'That is not science. It is a matter of religious faith.'"
Greenawalt, who is a University Professor at Columbia School of Law, concurred with Feldman that teachers "should not be teaching intelligent design as science because it has no scientific basis."
Imam Al-Hajj Talib 'Abdur-Rashid, head of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem, managed to steer a middle course, pointing out that today’s debate is nothing new: "It’s Copernicus and the church all over again." Religion is not necessarily an alternative to science, he said; on the contrary, it sometimes "provides a motivation for delving into science."
Panelists also disagreed on the broader question of whether Americans should declare their religious beliefs openly. Mohler said that he found it impossible to "bifurcate into secular and Christian selves." He would therefore advocate "showing up as we really are." Feldman countered that it is difficult to manage a democratic polity if "people
go out and express their beliefs all the time." While people have a right to their own beliefs in private, in public they should be focusing on common purposes and goals, he argued.
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