"Appeals Court Declares Parenthood Unconstitutional, Group Says," reads an item on CNSNews.com:
A new ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is prompting cries of judicial activism.
On Wednesday the court dismissed a lawsuit brought by California parents who were outraged over a sex survey given to public school students in the first, third and fifth grades.
Among other things, the survey administered by the Palmdale School District asked children if they ever thought about having sex or touching other people's "private parts" and whether they could "stop thinking about having sex."
The parents argued that they — not the public schools — have the sole right "to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex."
But on Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit dismissed the case, saying, "There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children . . . Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students." . . .
"Anyone who wonders why pro-family organizations like ours have been so concerned about activist courts only has to look at this case," said a spokesman for Focus on the Family. . . .
Carrie Gordon Earll, an issues analyst with Focus on the Family Action, called the ruling "one of the most abhorrent examples of judicial tyranny in American history. . . .
Earll said the court essentially declared parenthood unconstitutional. . . .
The panel's decision is not activism, under any sensible definition of activism. If "activism" has any substantive meaning, then activism is what the plaintiffs were asking the court to do.
The plaintiffs argue that they have a constitutional right to stop the public schools (or to be precise, researchers working with the schools' authorization) from asking their children about sex. That's not in the copy of the Constitution that I have; nor is it in the Court's jurisprudence of parental rights, a rather "activist" creation of the Court's (which incidentally used the same "substantive due process" framework that many conservatives fault the Court for using in the abortion cases). Constitutional parental rights, as the Court has interpreted them, do include the right to send your kids to private school, if you wish. (Such a right should in my view also be recognized under the First Amendment.) But they don't include a constitutional right to send your kids to public school yet block the school from asking the kids about sex.
"Activist," as I've argued before, is a pretty ambiguous term (see also Orin's posts on the subject, and Larry Solum's) — but no definitions of it, other than the purely rhetorical and unsubstantive "judges not adopting the legal rules that I think they should adopt," encompasses what the Ninth Circuit did here. Sometimes "activism" is used to mean "willingness to overturn precedent," but the Ninth Circuit didn't do that. Sometimes it's used to mean "willingness to overturn the judgment of legislators and executive officials," but the Ninth Circuit refused to do that; it's the plaintiffs who sought such a result. Sometimes it's used to mean "willingness to use remedial schemes that aren't traditionally judicial," such as coming up with legislative-looking rules (such as the Miranda principles) or executive-looking supervisory schemes (such as taking over a prison or school system), but the court surely didn't do that. There's nothing "active" about the court's refusal to recognize a new constitutional right that would trump the politically accountable branches' actions.
Perhaps the plaintiffs could fault the court for being unduly passivist — for refusing to take an active role in defending what the plaintiffs see as their legal rights. As it happens, I think that even this would be substantively mistaken, since I don't think that the Constitution ought to be interpreted as securing a right to be free from public schools' talking to your kids about sex. But at least such an argument would acknowledge that the court's alleged failure is undue passivity, not undue assertion of its own power; failure to stand up to what plaintiffs see as executive tyranny, not an example of judicial tyranny; refusal to prevent supposedly unconstitutional encroachments on parenthood, not a declaration of parenthood or parents' actions as being unconstitutional.
I am not defending here what the school did; perhaps its actions were proper and perhaps they were wrong (I express no opinion on that here). But if the plaintiffs don't like what their school district is doing, they should go to the polls and elect a school board that's more to their liking; elect state legislatures that would enact laws banning such actions by the school board; propose such a law by initiative; or otherwise act through the political process. They aren't entitled to have judges impose their will (the parents' and the judges') on the school district. And they certainly shouldn't be unfairly criticizing the judges' actions, and mischaracterizing allegedly excessive passivity as "activism."
UPDATE: Whoa! Now this is shocking. "Reconsider[ing a] position"? Because you've read an argument, of all things? That's just not allowed.
I find this argument to be very unpersuasive because the law requires that you send your child to some sort of school. You're wording suggests that parents are taking advantage of some sort of handout. When in reality, the courts are now forcing an undue financial burden on the parents to send their child to private school if they actually want to be the ones who parent their child.
I think that argument would hold more weight if the governemnt either did not force parents to send their child to school, or there was more competition in schooling (ie vouchers, or some other mechanism that allowed for choice).
But in any event it's no argument at all in favor of calling judicial failure to read the Constitution creatively "judicial activism." You might, as I said, call it "judicial passivism," on the theory that it involves judges' not acting when they should be acting. But activism it ain't.
It's pretty clear that this rhetorical and unsubstantive definition is the one they're going for..."activist" = "liberal"
Given what comes out of the Ninth Circuit, though, you couldn't really fault these folks from trying to bring this frivolous suit.
However, I find it interesting that if my employer were to call me in her office and ask me any of these questions I might have a pretty good harrasment case while my child can be asked them without any say in the mater.
Isn't there a fundamental right of parents to decide what their children are subjected to in school? It seems illogical that parents' choices would be limited to pulling children out of school or allowing their children to be exposed to whatever the school district wants.
The consent form was arguably less specific than it should have been, but it did say that the survey was intended to "establish a community baseline mea-
sure of children’s exposure to early trauma (for example, violence)," and that it would "identify internal behaviors such as anxiety and depression and external behaviors such as aggression and verbal abuse." The form asked parents to make the following declaration: "I understand answering questions may make my child feel uncomfortable."
It seems illogical that parents' choices would be limited to pulling children out of school or allowing their children to be exposed to whatever the school district wants.
That's exactly how many feel about school prayer. Funny, that.
Currently we are working on changing it an "opt-in" law.
Yet this same usually activist Ninth Circuit is quite happy to reject the more modest stretch of the Supreme Court's parental-rights jurisprudence to accommodate these parents.
While the Ninth Circuit's decision isn't necessarily incorrect, it is hypocritical.
(By the way, contrary to what many people seem to think, sexual harassment is not (outside of California and the Ninth Circuit) defined by federal law to include any speech on sexual topics that happens to offend a particular woman more than her male co-workers -- rather, some showing of differential TREATMENT is often required by moderate or conservative appeals courts. Thus, the 2nd, 7th, 8th, 10th, and 11th Circuits have all rejected harassment claims based on hostile work environments resulting from sexual rumors which were equally aimed at both male and female workers. That's more faithful to the plain language of Title VII, which prohibits discrimination, not incivility or offending listeners).
For those who are arguing fundamental rights - that sounds a lot like the langug supporting "activist" decisions. I thought conservatives believe that it ain't fundamental if it ain't in the text.
Additionally, there is no fundamental right to decide what children learn/subjected to in school. Such a right is not supported by any statutes or cases that I have ever heard of. Under no circumstance do parents have total authority of how their children are raised.
I've stated before--and have seen others express similar sentiment--that "judicial activism" is a simply a court imposing a decision you don't agree with. There is plenty of judicial activism on both sides of ideological divide, especially if you are approaching the hot-button issues from your own ideological position.
When I first saw the case, I thought that the argument was ridiculous (but what do I know--I don't have a law degree, yet). But I did expect cries of judicial activism no matter which way the decision came out. The loons did not disappoint (I actually know some of the characters who participated in the run up to the suit, but not the actual plaintiffs).
Doug - I think Eugene and gfbook clearly made the point that the parents do have other recourse - the ballot box and private education.
This issue, and many others, exemplify why I support voucher programs. If schooling is to be compulsory (as it should be), then the parents should have some say as to which school their child attends. However, once chosen, they should lobby the school board for desired changes, not the courts.
Hans, can you send me some citations to those 9th Crcuit cases. I am not doubting you, but I am curious how they were able to completely sidestep Supreme Court precedent.
Sexual harassment (employment) requires conduct based on a protected class (sex includes male or female); unwelcome; and the conduct must be servere and pervasive; and employer is liable. How is sexual harassment (employment) analogous?
For all those complaining (reliably) about the Ninth Circuit, the parents had the right to opt out. As for the complaint that the permission form did not explicitly mention that any questions would deal with sex, sex is part of mental health. Furthermore, what if the questions were included to help determine the possible influence of SEXUAL ABUSE among the kids. Afterall, the survey was at least partially directed at issues of violence and abuse.
Where HHS funding is involved, informed consent isn't just an ethical norm, it's a legal requirement. See generally http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp.
To the extent informed consent was legally required and not obtained — and the consent document in question sounds very far from sufficient — the parents should have a cause of action. It's not clear from the article that any such claim was pressed, however.
This ignorance tends to stem from "liberal" groups pursuing litigation as an alternative to legislation. That conservative groups and what appear to be justifiably angry parents use the same tactic, while understandable, is disappointing in terms of intellectual coherence as well as the degree that even conservative or libertarian groups have been "liberalized".
Sexual harrassment has been argued based on 1 incident if it generates a hostile environment. The repeated questions, it could be argued, represented repeated acts and any response on the part of the school to the responses to the survey could constitute the furthering of a hostile environment. Think of how school kids act based on normal behaviour, the teasing and exclusion, and then apply to everyone being asked these sexual questions. Relative easy argument for hostile environment or reckless disregard. Winning? No idea, but the case isn't all that hard to make and it appears to be dramatically stronger than a constitutional case.
However, as one of group who is working on founding a religious school I have to give the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals a hearty thank you very much! There was some debate about whether such a school is necessary. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has removed all doubt.
1) The issue in pennsylvania had to do with children via their parents challenging the school system of violating the first amendment. This case involves a challenge based on a nonexistent constitutional right.
2) Hey: can you point to a case where someone was found liable for sexual harassment (hostile work environment) when only one act was committed? If so, was it overturned on appeal?
There are so many sexual harassment myths out there.
I get what you're saying about the active/passive court, but seems to me you're relying on the democratic machinations of the state of California a bit much. After all, there are things that, once seen by 9 year-old eyes, cannot be "unseen."
There are narrower meanings of that term which might have some value for analyzing judicial philosphy and you might see attempts at such definitions at, say, a Federalist Society symposium, but to expect a Focus on the Family type group, standing in front of a TV camera, to use the term to mean anything other than they don't like the outcome is hopelessly naive.
By the reasoning of the plaintiffs, if I have a fundamental right to control the education of my child, I can claim an infringement of that right for school systems that have P.E. requirements, arts requirements, and foreign language requirements if I want my child to be a fat, lazy, and uncultured slob. Hey, it's my kid's education, damnit, and I shouldn't be forced into quitting my job to home-school him or cough up large sums of money to send him to private school. I think I will take on non-Euclidean geometry next...
There were better methods than litigation, and better arguments than substantive due process... but this decision is still over-the-top. It almost seems like it is trying to eliminate parents from their children's education entirely. This isn't "activism" in the usual sense, but it definitely reaches for a broader holding than was necessary.
If I were a suspicious person, I'd say the judge wanted to reach the intelligent design issue with this case. The arguments seem better suited for a monkey trial than for the facts at hand.
And I apologize... now that I went back to the decision in a format that can be text-searched, I find that Troxel was cited. I read it too quickly yesterday.
"There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding scientific matters to their children . . . Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."
Like I said... "If I were a suspicious person..." I don't HONESTLY think this is what was going through the judge's mind. I'm just showing what a sweeping decision this is.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Perhaps some parents are more equal than others?
(Not that I'm anxious to see Federal judges stepping into the school boardroom in either case.)
You have to sign reams of paper every semester your child is in the public school system: permission for this, waiver of that. I really find it hard to believe that the schools make you do all that paperwork if they are constitutionally immune from liability in those cases or any others, such as this one.
Would a reasonable parent look at the consent form and expect that sex would be included? I think the answer is pretty obviously "no". Claiming there was consent based on vague wording that could be stretched to include sex but which most parents wouldn't interpret that way is disingenuous.
It is not science, because it is not testable or subject to analytical analysis of any sort. It is religion masquarading as science, because the "irreducible complexity" is said to be created by a designer that has intelligence. A creator, a prime mover, what have you. That sounds a lot like a diety to me.
The ID debate is a 1st Amendment issue, so it is vastly different than this issue.
Lastly, all of these tangential issues aside, EV showed how the term "judicial activism" means nothing, as the plaintiffs are upset that the court was not activist.
Permission slips also are built in defenses to make cases go away quicker than they would otherwise.
When the public schools in this country were established, there existed a broad consensus about what should be taught and how students were expected to act. That consensus is clearly gone.
We now have two basic warring camps, those who would prefer "Old School" and those who view "Old School" as oppressive of students. I propose that we kill off public schools as a creature of the state entirely. A voucher system could easily provide for funding for each student.
A voucher system would also spare us a large amount of this type of litigation.
Sure, I can go to private school or homeschool, but only if I pay my way or meet State-set criteria.
Would we allow an adult-education "draft" of even one-day-per-year to teach us CPR, or good manners, or how to do our taxes? What makes their power over kids any greater?
I understand the policy arguments about externalities and public goods and whatever, but I still fail to see where the State power ever legitimately began, even though it's been accepted by most for over a century.
I hope that decisions like this lead more people to question the whole darn system.
"Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."
This seems counterintuitive to me. Doesn't a parent have the right to remove their child from a class they deem inappropriate? I'll give a (ridiculous) example: David Duke is scheduled to give a speech at the local high school your child attends. Wouldn't a parent have the right to excuse his or her child from attending (and thus "override the determination of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students?"). My point in asking is not to disagree, but to understand.
Yes, I know the situation is not exactly analogous. Newdow's case was based (wrongly) on the establishment clause and this seems to be based on one of those "penumbras and emanations" that liberals love so much when they are being judicially active. Still, the examples given above of what would happen if a school district were teaching that homosexuality was destructive are worthwhile hypotheticals. Liberals wouldn't be making a decision like this one.
Do you see no difference between children and adults?
Many state constitutions have public education enshrined in the text.
Speaking of disingenous, why are you ignoring my second point that a survey in part focused on "violence and abuse" might delve into issues of sex abuse?
Personally, I would assume ANY serious academic survey of children would involve issues typical of developmental studies and sex could certainly be one of those.
In summary, we hold that there is no free-standing fundamental right of parents to "control the upbringing of theor children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs" and that the asserted right is not encompassed by any other fundamental right. In doing so, we do not quarrel with the parents' right to inform and advise their children about the subject of sex as they see fit. We conclude only that the parents are possessed of no constitutional right to prevent the public schools from providing information on that subject to their students in any forum or manner they select. We further hold that a psychological survey is a reasonable state action pursuant to legitimate educational as well as health and welfare interests of the state. Accordingly, the parent-appellants have failed to state a federal claim upon which relief may be granted. The decision of the district court is affirmed.
IANAL either, but I don't see anything in there suggesting that the court wouldn't have ruled exactly the same way were there no permission slips; it reads rather as though the court held that a school can put whatever it likes before students of any age with or without parental approval. Am I right?
By this definition, macroevolution (the evolution of divisions such as kingdom, phylum, class, order, and family) isn't science, either. It isn't testable because of a rather serious deficiency of time to test.
I'm not quite sure what "analytical analysis" is. Is that something that you do to a "theoretical theory" or a "enormous bigness"?
I suppose the designer could be an alien scientist, although I don't think any of the ID advocates would suggest that. (Scientology meets ID--that could be entertaining!) The questions that ID asks about evolutionary theory are legitimate questions. ID isn't Creation Science (which I always found to combine the worst aspects of ignorance and delusion).
Michelle: you are incorrect. Look at the language -
"We conclude only that the parents are possessed of no constitutional right to prevent the public schools from providing information on that subject to their students in any forum or manner they select. We further hold that a psychological survey is a reasonable state action pursuant to legitimate educational as well as health and welfare interests of the state. Accordingly, the parent-appellants have failed to state a federal claim upon which relief may be granted. The decision of the district court is affirmed."
First, it onyl refers to a constitutional right.
Second, the survey passed rational basis review. That limits what can be taught.
ID avoids serious scientific inquiry by stating that "because thangs are kompilercated, they must have been designed."
What I meant was that whether the parents gave consent or not seems to be immaterial to the holding; that there were "permission slips" doesn't even come into it. It would appear from that graf that a school could ask first-graders about what they do with their "private parts," without parental consent, so long as it could be argued that the information would be useful; and parents' only recourse would be to replace the damn school board (easier said than done, even over something like this, and anyway you have to wait till the next election), or take your kids out of the school and pay whatever considerable cost in time and/or money it would take to school them another way.
I don't think it makes sense to catagorize ID as theology, since it doesn't attempt to explain anything about the divine or the religious experience. Instead, it seems more like philosophy, especially old style natural philosophy, paired with a little bit of modern science. You might think it's terrible science, but that's for the school boards of the country to figure out, not the courts.
I could be wrong, but it appears to me that the school would be in trouble if they ignore permission slips. The permission slips may arguably create a right that does not normally exist in their absense - whether that is a constitutional right - I would not know.
Demonstrating that your knowledge of ID is limited to reading anti-ID arguments. The argument isn't that cells are complicated, but that complex components such as the flagellum require at least 25 different mutations to happen before the cell gets any benefit from any of the mutations.
There's no intrinsic reason to think that these mutations couldn't have happened--but if a particular mutation gives no advantage, there's no reason to assume that a mutation (which is necessarily rare) is going to become widespread in the gene pool. The chances that 25 completely different mutations (each of which is likely to be a one time act) will all just happen to end up in a particular member of the species--and thus provide the competitive advantage of a flagellum--well, that's getting pretty implausible.
Now, there is a counterargument that at least some of the components that make up a flagellum may serve other cellular functions as well, and thus provide some competitive advantage even before the other 24 mutations happen. That's a legitimate scientific response to a legitimate scientific criticism, but unless you can provide some pretty compelling evidence that most or at least many of those other components provide a competitive advantage that will cause that mutation to become disproportionately represented in the gene pool, it is still a remarkable run of luck for a cell to end up with a working flagellum.
Of course that's Reinhardt's goal, I'm sure--to make sure that parents can't object to the schools propagandizing about homosexuality. "Teaching tolerance" (or at least, that's how it will be phrased) will certainly pass rational basis review for Judge Reinhardt.
It could also be a Flying Spaghetti Monster, creating the species with a touch of his noodly appendage.
I'm sick of seeing "judicial activist" used at all anymore. The sad part is some people I know would still think this decision is activist. I think the reason it has degenerated to meaning "not the result I wanted" is because so few people understand what the law and the Constitution actually say. They get their information from Focus on the Family, or PFAW, or some other group and just parrot whatever those groups told them, instead of then going and reading the decision and trying to understand what our laws actually say and why the decision is what it is.
To be sure, judicial activism still exists, but now when it actually happens people are desensitized to the term, just as people tend to roll their eyes instinctively when someone plays the "race card", even though there certainly are cases where it is validly invoked.
Liberals started to use the word to describe conservative judges who intentionally push the court in a conservative direction.
Ideally, "activist" should be a neutral description for a judge who intentionally pushes the law in a certain direction. That can be good or bad, depending on whether you think that is a good direction. Justice Thomas is perhaps the most "activist" justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Is that bad? That depends on whether you think Thomas is right.
But back to my point. By agressively using the word "activist" to describe conservatives, liberals have taken some punch out of the word.
I'd rather test and retest a theory, prove it wrong, and then come up with a new theory, as opposed to throwing my hands up at someone and saying "just because my experiment cannot be empirically tested to be proven wrong or right doesn't mean it isn't spiffy". Try and get something published with that tagline and see how far it gets you in Nature or Science.
Cleburne. Dept of Agriculture v Moreno. Eisenstadt v. Baird.
That is for another day. All of the Justices believe in the concepts of strict scrutiny and rational basis review.
Belated hat-tip to Taimyoboi, who post the news here yesterday.
It's been a long time since Con Law, but I thought one had to first demonstrate an infringement of a cognizable right under the 14th amendment before the law in question would be reviewed. Then, depending on whether or not plaintiff is a memeber of a "suspect class" or the target of invidious discrimination, the standard of review would be (1) rational basis (e.g. white male optometrist), (2) intermediate scrutiny (e.g. woman alleging sex discrimination), or (3) strict scruting (e.g. african-american alleging racial discrimination).
Here, however, the judge seems to be saying there is no infringement in the first place. As he wrote, "Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students." I would have thought that would answer the question.
He could have conceded that such a right exists and then done the standard analysis, but he does not seem to have done so.
Similarly, classical physics didn't all disappear because a fully formed and testable theory knocked it out of the running. Serious discussions about the problems with "ether," about the nature of light (Einstein's use of Planck's quantum theory to explain photoelectric effect), all nibbled away at the edges of the existing theory. Some of these were simply critiques and interesting ideas--with actual testability having to wait for decades--and yet the theories were still considered legitimate for discussion--even in schools.
To paraphrase the last paragraph. If you want abortion to be legal or if you want gay marriage to be recognized by the state, elect politicians who will do that, or do it by initiative, but don't demand that the courts impose these POLICY PREFERENCES by fiat. How is that any different?
I'm offended by Reinhardt's decision, although I think it is probably legally correct. It would be really cool if the courts would actually follow the same logic if the schools did something that offended liberal sensibilities, but I think we can count on the lawyers finding some way to distinguish the cases so that they can promote homosexuality in liberal controlled public schools, but in the 5% or so of public schools the left doesn't operate, they can't teach Intelligent Design, because it might offend.
Remember that the reason that segregation persisted as long as it did is because the segregationists had the money, and if there is something that money will buy, it is the best lawyers.
I apologize for contributing to an off-topic thread, but being confronted with the obliviousness of creationism drastically lowers my opinion of the regular Conspiracy commenters.
That doesn't mean that every criticism or crackpot idea out there is correct, or needs to be treated seriously. But one of the best signs of how scared the establishment is can be found in the recent actions of the University of Idaho prohibiting professors in the science classes from discussing ID. I rather doubt that anyone feels a need to suppress discussion of the healing powers of crystals in medical schools, or to tell physics professors to stop talking about the wonderful capability of pyramids to keep razors sharp.
Care to tell me the exact statement he made? I rather doubt it was phrased quite that way. (I am becoming a bit irritated with the dishonest method that some commenters here are characterizing Behe's claims.)
Your opinion. Isn't it odd that Behe isn't alone among real scientists, working in their fields of specialization, who have some misgivings about evolution as it is now taught?
My opinion of the commenters has never been very high.
I'm quite OK with this statement. My question is:
Does it apply to the Michael Newdow? If not, why not?
The curriculum is in the hands of the school administration; the School Committee can hire and fire the School Superintendent and the Business Manager and approve the budget - that's about it.
The typical School Committee is not about to fire the Superintendent every time the school district pulls a stunt like this, and trying to get the Great and General Court (the legislature) to change the law is nearly impossible. It gets a bit frustrating, to put it mildly....
This is particularly true in view of the previous comments about private schools and vouchers (or, more to the point, the lack thereof.) With no vouchers, and with the cost of private school tuition being what it is in most instances, parents have no practical choice, whatever their "rights", other than to send their kids to the public schools. Under the circumstances, I have to say that I can certainly understand why parents would hope for a little "conservative" activism from the courts, and why they would attempt to use such means to influence their local schools.
Brooks Lyman
I think it's fair to characterize his position as being that it's not worth his time to test his own theory. I also have a healthy disregard for an academic who insists that his own theories, on the far fringes of his field, completely overturn an enormous body of productive science--but refuses to test the ideas. His claims are extraordinary, and his burden is enormous. He hasn't even attempted to shoulder it in a professional manner.
I recommend following the trial closely; the local ACLU chapter has done an excellent job of collecting the transcripts and summarizing (subjectively) the daily proceedings. Among the many developments have been statements establishing that IDC was developed explicitly to evade the Aguilar position on "creation science" as an Establishment Clause violation.
You argue that not all valid ideas are welcome in orthodox science. That's certainly true; an excellent example is the latest Nobel winner in medicine, whose theories on the causes of stomach ulcers were at one time widely derided. (I think so, at least, from the articles I've read.) But not all ideas outside of orthodoxy are worthy of being called science. How do we distinguish between junk science and unpopular real science? Scientific philosophers have many tests, such as falsifiability (something that IDC, relying on a God of the Gaps, notoriously fails).
But we don't have to go that far. No one is seriously proposing that IDC research be censored, merely that it is at best foolish and at worst unconstitutional to present it in public schools. High school students, as a general rule, study the foundations of science, the well-proven and basic principles and laws. Evolutionary biology fits there, while creationism does not. IDC has failed so utterly at the academic and scientific level that there is no justification for presenting it in public schools other than a desire to confront evolution itself--and so far, every test case has shown the underlying motive to be a religious doctrine masquerading as "sound science."
You argue, in essence, that IDC could still come out of left field with significant discoveries or a legitimate contribution to science. I won't argue, because I agree. But it hasn't. What, then, is the justification for propping it up for students who haven't learned enough science to distinguish legitimate theories from junk science? If IDC wants to be taken seriously, then organizations like the Discovery Institute and marginal scientists like Behe need to spend more time and money on laboratories and experiments, and less on lawyers and PR firms.
Again, I apologize for feeding an off-topic fire, but no one seems to mind.
The survey wasn't curriculum in the conventional sense.
For those who haven’t read the decision, here's my summary of the context:
In conjunction with a few academic/research organizations, the school district sought to establish some community baseline measures of the levels of trauma, anxiety, depression, etc. within the local elementary-school population. This effort was part of a broader undertaking to create programs that would help children overcome those issues that might impede learning while in school.
The parents were sent a single-page explanation of what was going on and a second page, which asked for them to consent to their children taking these psych. evaluations. There were three batteries of tests, all of which are standardized and used in other contexts; ten of the questions touched on sex to one degree or another, but this was not spelled out in the consent form.
The consent form required, among other things, the parents to acknowledge that the survey may make their children “feel uncomfortable.”
As has been described here, the federal courts rejected the complaint (for want of a federal claim upon which relief could be granted). The court did so without prejudice to raising certain claims in state court.
Honestly, I found the whole decision rather unremarkable. (Well, the court could have been a little more careful in summarizing the holding, given that it was bound to make the news.)
Consider the humble euglena, a flagellate. Doubtless more than a million years in existence. Doubles its numbers about once every 15 hours. Starting with a single member that give about 10^(10^8) (1 followed by a hundred-million zeros) possible divisions from a single "parent" in a million years. Now clearly not all cell lines live for a million years, nor do all branches of a given cell line live for that entire period. But if, on average, half of all cells don't make it to the end of the 15 hour period (a 50% mortality rate), that only halves this number.
This number is obscenely large--much greater than the number of atoms in the universe, but smaller than the number of possible chess games (estimated at 10^(10^50)). It's so large as to be beyond ordinary comprehension (i.e. comparing it to the number of chess games doesn't really help us with it's scale).
Your argument, Clayton, is that in something like 10^(10^8) cell divisions, there's not enough randomness for 25 mutations to come together in the proto-euglena for a flagellum to form? How can you take this seriously? If the odds of these mutations individually are one in a million, that's enough for the flagellum to have developed independently 10^(2/3*10^6) times (note, that means that these mutations are probably somewhat less likely that one in a million). Which is stupendously often! And that's assuming all 25 mutations happen at once! If we assmue as you do that some of them don't harm the health of the proto-euglena, then some of these mutations will happen and be passed on from generation to generation increasing the possibility that one round of cell division will lead to going from 24 to 25 required mutations.
I'm a bit incredulous that you promote the position that it is more likely that an intelligent designer some how poked or prodded the system when it is clearly not in need of poking or prodding much less that the flagellum had to be designed out of whole biological cloth.
When it comes to uni-cellular (and less advanced forms of) life, a million years is an incredibly long time. Life has been at it (on this planet at least) for, as best as we can tell, 4200 times more than this! The thing about life is that it's incredibly good a reinforcing positive change over long periods of time, and we human beings are woefully bad at really comprehending the time scales involved.
You are upset that Behe isn't prepared to invest essentially half or more of his life to an experiment to disprove ID, and that someone else has tried--and it failed.
I notice in the transcripts provided by another High Priest of the Cult that during Behe's testimony, he mentioned that a couple of years is sufficient for a hundred thousand generations of bacteria--and a scientist named Barry Hall spent twenty years trying to demonstrate evolutionary development of a particular organelle--and failed.
I will again mention something that everyone knows--the vast majority of mutations are fatal. (Think of what happens when a cosmic ray turns a protein replicator from something that produces a useful enzyme into something that just sits there.) The odds are distinctly against useful mutations. In some cases, a bad mutation survives because it carries some other useful results. (Obvious example: sickle cell anemia.)
A useful mutation that provides a clear advantage is going to be a great win; a mutation that is simply neutral (as with many of the flagellum components) is just going to stick around in the gene pool. But remember that if you have one cell line that gets this mutation, each time that you add another mutation that has to happen in that cell line, you are combining two unlikely mutations.
Let's assume that each of these mutations of the 25 required is one in a million. What are the chances that the second mutation happens in one of the cell lines that had the first mutation? Remember that these are independent events. If I remember combinatorics right (and it has been a few years), you multiply the odds: one in a trillion (10^6 * 10^6). Now the third one in a million mutation? That's 10^6 * 10^6 * 10^6 or one in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. We've got 22 more of these to go, or (10^6)^25. That's a really big number. Do you still have gobs of confidence?
Finally, there's one more interesting aspect to all this. We used to assume that life was at least a billion years old. No problem, the planet is more than four billion years old--lots of time for all sorts of random events to lead to something as complex as life. I've seen the claim of fossil cells that are 3.6 billion years old. Life evolved from completely random processes and was common enough that it left a fossil trace in less than a billion years?
Brooks Lyman: "In the matter at hand, the elected School Committee [in MA] has no power over the curriculum (which I assume, based on some local experiences, would also mean surveys such as the one referred to)."
I think this complaint understates the power of MA school committees. A MA school committee sets district policies and goals (MGL ch 71 sec. 37), so they could presumably regulate or ban surveys like this. MA school committees must also approve textbooks and other parts of the curriculum. Whether a school committee chooses to regulate, and whether the administration is willing to follow a policy are different matters that have more to do with politics and personalities than state law.
Now back to the main thread, something about Judge Reinhardt intelligently designing Flying Spaghetti Monsters.
The people who point out that it's worth investigating potential problems with the Theory of Evolution are correct. It's worth investigating potential problems with any scientific Theory.
But what's totally obvious to everyone is that pushing ID into public schools is 100% evangelical Christian. Every single Theory taught in grade-school science classes has potential problems. There's no pressure whatsoever to preface every science lesson with a disclaimer. Only this one, because of the religions implications.
The scientific factoids are irrelevant. ID is simply not ready for prime-time grade-school science, as is true with every other nascent, fringe hypothesis. The only reason to teach it is religious indoctrination, so go home.
Just because we don't have the answers to everything everywhere, we don't have to stick our heads in the sand or throw up our hands and say, "It's soooooo complex. The Designers must have done it."
Finally, odds of 1 in 10^150 (=(10^6)^25) don't bother me in the least in the face of 10^(10^8) chances to get it right (the location of the parenthesis makes all the difference in this one).
You can't bias reading assignments towards books like The Chronicles of Narnia. You can't do bible translations in foreign-language classes. You can't limit your Comparative Religions studies to fundamentalist Christian sects. And you can't bias science classes towards theories that comport with your religious views.
All of those areas of study are legitimate. But intentionally tilting the curriculum towards your preferred religion, well, tilts the curriculum towards your preferred religion. That's illegal.
Of course, that is one reason that my daughter has been in private school since kindergarden.
But since it is pushed by religious types (many of whom might prefer creationism, but can't push that for obvious reasons), it is likely that at least some school districts in this country will ultimately try to teach it as an adjunct to evolution, etc. (there are also ID arguments as to the relationship of physical constants). And when they do, I suspect that a rational basis can be found there just as easily as it was found in this case. And, in the end, misleadingly calling it religion, isn't going to work.
Personally, I can intellectually applaud the decision, but emotionally, I am still quite bothered at the idea that the schools should be making this sort of decisions. And I also feel that the misleading nature of the permission slips should have negated their effect. The parents' discomfort would seem to stem from the fact that they signed on to something a lot more benign than they got.
I would argue that school curicula are based on religious motivations all the times. The difference is that the religious motivations are not Christain religious motivations. But a lot of the environmental sensitivity training I see in schools is as close to mother earth worship as ID is to Christianity. It is just a religion that you may agree with more.
Huh? What is mother earth worship?
Just because something is a virtue or value in and out of a religious context does not make it religious or religion. Similarity to a religious message (killing is bad or respect your parents) does not make it a religious statement or message. The bottom line with ID is the requirement that one believe in an intelligent creator, and that is where the religion comes in to play.
Yes, I see how children and adults are different, in many respects, but I'm not sure whether we are different regarding the State's power to draft us. Where is the affirmative right to COMPULSORY "education" of children?
I know that many State constitutions refer to free public education -- but does that textually create a right to force the kids, or just empower the State to OFFER free schools?
Further, even if children are made draft-able by State constitutions, I don't see how children are any different from adults relative to our FEDERAL constitutional right against involuntary servitude. Let's say that the State decides to take all kids at birth, to be held until 18 as wards of the State. Are the limits on that (a) purely in the political branches, but nothing judicial/constitutional, or (b) judicial/constitutional?
If the latter, than what is the source of that limit? And what is the content of that judicially enofrceable limit? Could schools be year round, 7-7, just allowing me to have the kids overnight?
Prof. V - any interest in elaborating on whether/how compulsory education itself is constitutional? This thread seems headed in other directions.
But I probably meant Mother Nature, with synonyms: Dame Nature, Great Mother, Natura, Nature. Worship of such goes back for millenia. For example, in "The Goddess--I, Introduction and History":
On a somewhat similar vein, in "A Tribute to Hinduism":
Is it actually being taught? Please provide cites Mr. Cramer of how Mother Earth worship is bein pushed in public schools.
How about showing that teaching ID is pushing Christianity? Same diff to me. Actually, I think ecological sensitivity, as taught in a lot of schools today pushes the bases of Wiccan, etc. a lot harder than ID does Christianity.
My evidence is the concept of ID itslef - intelligent design requires an intelligwent designer - a creator - a god of some sort. There's your proof.
As far as ecological sensitivity, how does care about the environment, or environmentalism, automatically mean Wiccan? I never knew Teddy Roosevelt was a Wiccan (especially given that Wiccan was created in the 1950s). They cross over religious and secuklar boundries.
Teaching kids that it is bad to pollute, kill off species, and be a steward of the natural world are hardly only Wiccan religious concepts.
There are some concepts that are shared by religious doctrine that are not neceisarily religious. As such, teaching those concepts is not teaching religion. (e.g. killing is bad, respect your parents, do unto others, love your neighbor, etc.). On the otherhand, values and concepts such as "honor the Sabbath" are undoubtably religious and should not be taught in a public school setting.
My point is that ID pushes a nonhuman, supernatural creator.
Enviromenatlism is a religion. I can give you a dozens of examples of how 'science' promotes a cause with no basis in fact. How bout the spotted owl? Or old growth forests in general? Global cooling? That theory took less than 10 years to be extinct and come up with in contrast, global warming Remember BST? Given to cows to increase milk production. The cows dying was the best case scenerio. Mutant kids the worst case. Guess what, no cows dead from BST, and no mutant kids. This is a small sampling of the schools teaching something based on faith only, (religion?)
But back to the post. Three judges just wrote, that constitutionaly parents dont have rights as to what our children are subjected to in school. 1st; The permission slip for this was vague at best. I had a similar permission form sent home. I called the principal to e- mail the 'syllabus' to me. He declined, stating that I was welcome to come in and read it. I asked if I could take a copy home for my wife to read. No. Why? Well this could be considered to be controversial, and we really dont want this information to get out into the comunnity. Why? The parents of the 1 or two parents that come in to read the items cant stop us, but the entire community would.
If I take my kid out of school because I disagree, why cant those small handful of parents jerk their kids and find a school that practices whaterever religon they believe in? After all there is a small mostly unread, portion of the contitution that states 'congress shall make no law prohibiting the free expression of religion'.
How can SCOTUS forbid prayer at a football game? Isn't SCOTUS congress?