American jury trials are probably the fairest way in the world to determine the guilt or innocence of an accused. Time-tested rules permit the person or group on trial to be both prosecuted and defended in a way that doesn’t favor either side. The prosecutor and the defender examine the same set of evidence, but present the jury with different possibilities regarding what actually happened. Our system of justice works because the jury is given the opportunity to consider the full set of evidences, as well as the arguments from both sides before making a decision. The right to a fair trial is such a cherished part of America that citizens would be outraged if they heard of a judge who allowed the prosecutor to freely present evidence and arguments to the jury, but declared the defender’s entire case inadmissible based on an unproved and controversial assumption.
A very important legal case, COPE vs. Kansas Board of Education, is now making its way through the courts. Although the lawsuit is a civil case, it has many parallels to the example of the unjust judge. There have been several court cases where Christian parents were accused of trying to insert their religious beliefs into science classes. However, in this case, it is Christian parents who have valid reasons to claim that they are being wronged by a situation in which their religious beliefs are being ruled inadmissible while the ideas of another opposing religious belief are being freely allowed. They find themselves in a situation where a state policy seeks to replace their theistic religious beliefs with a non-theistic religious worldview. The dilemma arose when the Kansas State School Board adopted a new set of science standards known as Next Generation Science Standards or NGSS.
Schools are already required by the First Amendment to be neutral on issues that attempt to answer religious questions. After studying NGSS, concerned parents and other citizens recognized that in areas related to the origins of the universe and of life, religious issues were not being presented in a religiously neutral manner. The parents’ concerns had been ignored by Achieve, the organization responsible for writing the science standards, as well as by the Kansas State Board of Education. They felt that their only recourse was to take legal action to promote objectivity in the teaching of origins in public schools.
The group’s name, Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE), reflects its mission. They filed a lawsuit in September 2013, against the Kansas State Board of Education for promoting materialistic/atheistic beliefs in science classes and not teaching origins in a neutral manner as required by law. In December 2014, the suit was dismissed on the basis that the plaintiffs had not been injured seriously enough by NGSS. The group immediately appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit based on Tenth Circuit and Supreme Court precedents.
In order to understand this unusual case, it is necessary to clearly define three terms.
(1) Courts define “religion” as a belief system that attempts to give answers to ultimate questions of life, such as “Where did I come from?” “What happens when we die?” “How should we live ethically and morally?” “Why am I here?” Religion includes both theistic and atheistic beliefs. Theists believe in God, and atheists do not. The religious idea that unguided, random natural processes resulted in the origins of the universe, of life and all of the diversity of life opposes the religious idea of a purposeful, designed supernatural origin. Both theistic and atheistic beliefs are equally religious according to prior court rulings.
(2)”Materialistic” assumptions omits any possibility of a supernatural event as part of the explanation for the existence of matter, energy, forces, and all living things. Operational sciences attempt to explain how and why things operate in today’s world as they do. Such fields of science are based on observation and experimentation and thus are empirically testable. However, historical sciences such as Darwinian evolution cannot test remote unobserved and unobservable past events. Consequently, a large part of their scientific explanations are clouded by assumptions. The nature of operational sciences promotes the use of natural explanations about how and why things operate in today’s world as they do. For philosophical reasons, historical sciences have adopted the policy of using only natural explanations when trying to reconstruct the origin of the universe, the earth, and all living things. However, eliminating all references to a supernatural event is not a scientific necessity. In fact, doing so automatically leads one to conclude that a supernatural Creator and a supernatural creation is either false or irrelevant as an explanation for the origin of everything.
(3) “Atheistic” instruction results from only allowing materialistic causes. A supernatural, designed creation is a logical possibility accepted by the majority of Americans. When only materialistic (or naturalistic) processes are used to explain what happened in the past, the only choices for explaining where we came from are atheistic.
Werhner von Braun was the head of the NASA division that built the rockets that put men on the moon. He addressed this irrationality in a letter to the California State Board of Education in 1972. A portion of his letter said this: “. . . the scientific method does not allow us to exclude data which lead to the conclusion that the universe, life and man are based on design. To be forced to believe only one conclusion—that everything in the universe happened by chance—would violate the very objectivity of science itself.” 1
All rational humans at one time or another will ask the question, “Where did I come from?” NGSS provides the explanation that all life evolved by chance and natural laws. According to NGSS, the universe came into being by natural causes. The standards further claim that biological evolution then occurred over billions of years by means of unguided natural selection and other naturalistic processes. The whole evolutionary process is taught as if it were well-proven, although careful examination of the evidence often reveals more assumptions than strong evidence. The alternative logical answer to “Where did I come from?” is an intelligent Creator who designed and supernaturally created all living things, including humans. But this idea is treated by the NGSS as a misconception to be replaced by the materialistic/atheistic narrative. This possibility is not even given a brief mention in NGSS. By omitting this possibility, the materialistic/atheistic explanation will exert a powerful influence in forming the worldviews of children.
The most amazing commitment to a materialistic/atheistic approach to origins is that even scientific evidence that challenges the evolutionary scenario is often ruled inadmissible. Only the science standards in a few states encourage students to critically examine, question, critique, analyze, or debate the idea that all life evolved from one-celled common ancestors over billions of years from natural selection and other natural processes. Since the time of the Scientific Revolution, critical peer reviews and analytical debates have been foundational for establishing valid scientific knowledge. Yet NGSS is discouraging students from examining information about origins in an open critical manner.
A startling example of opposition to even a hint that the earth was designed occurred a few years ago as a group of scientists rented a room at the Smithsonian to show the premier of the film, The Privileged Planet. The film showed how the earth was uniquely suitable for life, as compared with other planets. A large number of scientists from across the nation called and demanded that the Smithsonian not allow this film to be shown in their facilities. The reason was that the film inferred that the earth was planned and designed, even though there were no overt comments that the earth was supernaturally designed.
Article continued next week.
A condensed version of this article will be published in the April 2015 edition of the AFA Journal.