INTRODUCTION
In 2004, a Pennsylvania school district required biology teachers to inform their ninth graders that Darwin's theory of evolution was a theory not a fact and there were gaps in the evidence supporting Darwin's understandings of evolution. When the teachers refused, administrators cautioned students about Darwin directly and recommended a text available in the school library that presented an alternative explanation of human origins: Intelligent Design (ID).Footnote 1 In Tammy Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District et al. 11 families insisted that the statement violated the First Amendment's ban on the establishment of religion. The United States District Court agreed.
Controversy over evolution education in American public schools is not new but ID's exploitation of science has transformed the debate. Despite its creationist origins, ID does not overtly ground itself in any particular biblical tradition or reject all evolutionary change. Instead, ID claims to demonstrate scientifically that the theory of evolution — particularly natural selection and random mutation — cannot account for the complexity and beauty of life, and, that, therefore, there must be an “Intelligent Designer” responsible for the creation of living organisms.Footnote 2
The Dover court treated the conflict over teaching evolution by defining religion. ID could be excluded from the science classroom because it was religion and it was not science. As part of the wider debate about religion in American life, the Dover case illustrates what has become a standard formula for adjudicating the separation of church and state. Courts make categorical determination of what counts as religion. Occasionally, courts also determine whether what is taught qualifies as science — although the Supreme Court has never accepted this approach.
ID exploits judicial analysis of content by removing religious content and using a scientific discourse that emphasizes skepticism and empirical data. ID claims to be challenging, in the tradition of Galileo, a wrong-headed “establishment” understanding of human origins. Its national success has been due to its close following of the conventions of scientific and juridical discourse. In Dover, the court concluded that ID was creationism with a false scientific rhetoric, which could be excluded as religion using the Establishment clause of the First Amendment. Yet while ID has changed tactics, the adjudicative formula has not changed. To win in Dover, the claimants had to successfully prove that ID was “religion.” Although the Constitution encourages the courts to frame the issue as one of keeping religion out of public schools, an equally essential issue is why does a liberal polity need to keep science in?
Dover raises fundamental questions about the role science education plays in the creation and maintenance of liberal political identities. Americans miss the mark if they ask only the question “Is it tolerable in a multi-faith society to mention ID in a science classroom?” Instead, we need to investigate and stress the ways that scientific education free of religion creates citizens with a liberal democratic temperament. Whereas “defining religion” fails to supply an adequate constitutional defense of teaching science, Supreme Court decisions regarding education and citizenship identify what it at stake. Although there is no clear Constitutional mandate for educating citizens, the Supreme Court has held in Plyler v. Doe that education cultivates three constituent parts of the liberal individual: political citizenship, economic fitness, and moral personhood.
Because Dover defends against teaching religion, it fails to articulate how science education creates liberal democratic subjects. This article argues that the debate over teaching evolution should be reframed in terms of Court precedent regarding education and citizenship. Science education — particularly training in the scientific method — helps to create a liberal civic identity that stresses thinking systematically, observing causality, and interrogating and revising our traditional institutions, values, and beliefs. Courts — and those who are not limited by constitutional text — should elaborate the ways in which teaching science affirms liberal democratic temperament and institutions.
In three sections, this article reviews the creationism jurisprudence, dissects the Dover decision, and then suggests an alternative juridical approach in which education creates citizens who are politically competent, economically fit, and capable of moral self-development. The conclusion reframes the debate over ID as one of civic identity and culture arguing that liberals must make a positive case for the role of science in shaping the liberal citizen, worker, and person.
THE EVOLVING SUPREME COURT JURISPRUDENCE ON CREATIONISM
Darwin published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859. By the end of the century, evolution was selectively taught in American public schools. Opponents of evolution often stipulate that teaching evolution falsifies religion (William Jennings Bryan argued this position during the Scopes trial) or that evolution itself is a religious belief. Yet the first fights over Darwinian evolutionary theory did not pit science against religion in such a simple way. When Darwin introduced his theory of evolution, conservative — particularly Calvinist — theologians embraced it and found ways to place evolution within their theological frameworks. Liberal theologians struggled to square Darwin's theory with their progressive conception of God, including an inevitable “material, social, and spiritual progress” in the world.Footnote 3 Ultimately, Roman Catholicism, most forms of Judaism, and most denominations of Protestantism reconciled evolution and belief in a monotheistic god. Indeed, members of these groups have challenged laws mandating the teaching of creationism or filed amicus curiae briefs on behalf of parents. Although Christian literalist fundamentalists represent only a small portion of the religiously faithful and few world religions are providentialist, a committed minority of literalists in the United States have long believed that teaching evolution denies biblical truth and weakens arguments for Divine creation. Since the turn of the century, they have organized to turn their views into legislation.
In 1925, the state of Tennessee banned the teaching of “any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible” in a public school. John Scopes was charged with teaching evolution. This first major legal challenge came not to the teaching of creationism as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment but the teaching of evolution as inconsistent with the text of Genesis.Footnote 4 Upheld by the Supreme Court of Tennessee, the law remained in effect until 1967. From Scopes until the late 1960s, some states prohibited the teaching of evolution or restricted its presentation.Footnote 5
For roughly 35 years, states taught either evolution or creationism without a ruling from the United States Supreme Court. Although education is one of the responsibilities that are traditionally left to the states, such deference ended in 1968. In Epperson v. Arkansas, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down an Arkansas statute prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools on the grounds that the law attempted to “blot out a particular theory because of its supposed conflict with the Biblical account, literally read” and thus violated the Establishment Clause.Footnote 6 Opponents of evolution responded to Epperson by proposing “balanced treatment” that required teaching the biblical view of creation along with evolution instruction. The United States Court of Appeals rejected balanced treatment in Daniels v. Waters (1975) arguing that by assigning a “preferential position for the Biblical version of creation” over “any account of the development of man based on scientific research and reasoning,” the challenged statute officially promoted religion.Footnote 7
Until 1975, opponents of evolution were able to argue successfully either that evolution should be banned because evolution contradicted the creation story of Genesis or that Genesis must be taught to counterbalance the effects of teaching evolution on particular religious beliefs. If evolution hurt religion, it should be banned or a religious view should be taught to ameliorate its effects. When Daniels ruled out both strategies, “creation-science” was offered as an alternative scientific theory. In McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education (1982), a United States District Court overturned Arkansas's “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act” on the grounds that it also violated the Establishment Clause. Five years later, in Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court agreed. Despite Louisiana's claim to broaden science instruction and protect academic freedom, Justice William Brennan found that the statute lacked secular purpose and advanced a particular religious belief in violation of the establishment clause.Footnote 8 Creation-science depended upon a “supernatural being” and was, therefore, a “religious viewpoint.” Emphasizing the historical relationship between “certain religious denominations” and anti-evolutionism (detailed by the District court in McLean and the Supreme Court in Epperson), Brennan held that only certain religious “sects” or “groups” opposed evolution. The mandate for creation-science advanced “a religious doctrine by requiring either the banishment of the theory of evolution from public school classrooms or the presentation of a religious viewpoint that rejects evolution in its entirety.” Brennan agreed with the Court of Appeals that the Act's purpose was to discredit “evolution by counterbalancing its teaching at every turn with the teaching of creationism.”Footnote 9
In considering Edwards as a precedent for Dover, two crucial claims stand out. First, dependence upon a supernatural explanation defined creation-science as religion and excluded it from the science curriculum. Second, because certain sects — past and present — view evolution as a threat to religion, courts must question the Legislature's motivations. Louisiana's stated secular purpose in opposing evolution — enhancing student education — was a “sham.” Brennan's opinion emphasizes excluding creation-science as religion but he recognizes that there are religious motives for discrediting evolution.Footnote 10
In Dover, Edwards is treated as a consensus decision but Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent takes issue with Brennan's claims regarding secular purpose. Scalia's arguments resemble those made 18 years later by the ID movement in Dover. In an ongoing reciprocity between civil society and courts, the creationists, the ID movement, and science organizations have all reacted to court precedents by tailoring their arguments and literature to respond to court tests and precedents. Scalia provided a roadmap for ID — and the ID movement has followed it.Footnote 11
In this dissent, Scalia argues that the legislative history and “historical and social context” demonstrate that the Louisiana legislature intended a secular purpose: “academic freedom” and the “search for truth.” Scalia also frames creation-science as a remedy for censorship. Creation-science is “a collection of educationally valuable scientific data that has been censored from classrooms by an embarrassed scientific establishment.” Teachers have been “brainwashed” by an entrenched scientific establishment that itself treats evolution like a “religion.” It is illiberal — “Scopes-in-reverse” — to ignore creation-scientists' claims. Louisiana included creation-science based on the testimony of credentialed experts: “The witnesses repeatedly assured committee members that ‘hundreds and hundred’ of highly respected, internationally renowned scientists believed in creation-science and would support their testimony.” Scalia concludes that the “body of scientific evidence supporting creation-science is as strong as that supporting evolution. In fact, it may be stronger.” Against the majority of the court in Edwards, who reject creation-science as established religion, Scalia insists that it is a body of scientific evidence that the legislature credibly believed would increase student knowledge and encourage critical discussion.Footnote 12
UNPACKING DOVER: EXCLUDING RELIGION AND DEFINING SCIENCE
Dover, Pennsylvania is a predominantly Christian, white and economically modest school district of 3,700 students just south of Harrisburg. The Dover School District required science teachers to inform students that evolution was a “theory” and that a book outlining an alternative approach, ID, was available in the school library.Footnote 13 Finally, in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a United States District Court ruled that ID was a form of creationism and, therefore, an establishment of religion prohibited by the First Amendment. In his opinion, Judge E. Jones III adopts two tests for the establishment of religion: endorsement and the religious purpose and effects prongs of the Lemon test.Footnote 14
Endorsement, adopted by the Court after Edwards, asks whether a government's purpose is to endorse religion and whether the statute actually conveys a message of endorsement.Footnote 15 Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (the test's creator) is particularly sensitive to situations in which personal religious beliefs affect a person's standing in the political community: “Endorsement sends a message to non-adherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.” If a “reasonable observer” acquainted with the language, origins, legislative history, and implementation of the statute would perceive government to be endorsing or disapproving religion, the government action or statute is invalid. In Dover, Jones makes the case for endorsement by noting that opposition to evolution “grew out of a religious tradition, Christian Fundamentalism that began as part of evangelical Protestantism's response to, among other things, Charles Darwin's exposition of the theory of evolution as a scientific explanation for the diversity of species.” He documents the “long history of Fundamentalism's attack on the scientific theory of evolution, as well as the statute's legislative history and historical context.”Footnote 16 Although he legitimately cites McLean and Epperson on this point, his claim that Brennan's conclusion in Edwards rests on a “thorough analysis of the history of fundamentalist attacks against evolution” is false. Making vague references to particular religious sects, Brennan avoided the language of Epperson or McLean in favor of a general history that did not highlight Christian Fundamentalism.Footnote 17 Given the historical context, Jones and the Dover court contend that an objective adult, student, or Dover citizen would see ID as masked creationism. Thus, the oral statement constitutes a religious position endorsed by the school.Footnote 18
Although Jones emphasizes endorsement, he also briefly invokes the Lemon test (relied upon by Brennan), which requires that government action must have a “secular legislative purpose” and must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion.Footnote 19 Unlike “creation-science,” ID does not present scientific evidence in favor of the “Noachian Deluge” or refer to canonical Judeo-Christian narratives. Jones documents how ID texts were purposely stripped of references to any particular biblical text or tradition and concludes that the ID movement, directly responding to Edwards, strategically designed a creationism that could pass as secular.Footnote 20 On the basis of this evidence, Jones insists that the school district's motive was not secular and the primary effect of the statement was advancing religion by challenging the legitimacy of evolution and providing an alternative approach.
Although Jones' logic relies on Supreme Court precedent (endorsement and Lemon test), Dover also excludes ID as failing to be science. In order to understand why Jones moves outside of Supreme Court precedent, we need to explore the nuances of ID. Creation-science and ID each contain two types of arguments: (1) criticisms of evolution as insufficient in explaining the origins of human life (the negative thesis) and (2) evidence of an alternative causal agent or Intelligent Designer of humans (the positive thesis).Footnote 21 In both Edwards and Dover, supporters of creation-science and ID argued that teaching the weaknesses of evolutionary theory (negative thesis) and advancing alternative theories (positive thesis) enhanced student learning by broadening knowledge.
If creation-science and ID are religion “masquerading” as diversity, courts can exclude them in two ways. The first approach, which I call “Defining Religion,” focuses on the positive thesis. The schools should exclude as religion any teaching that relies upon a supernatural causal agent to explain natural phenomena. Brennan emphasized the positive thesis in Edwards. The second approach, “Defining Science,” highlights the negative thesis. The schools should include material that meets set criteria as science. In McLean, the District Court named five essential characteristics of science and excluded creation-science from that category.Footnote 22 Although Scalia in his dissent in Edwards had insisted that creation-science provides scientific criticism of the theory of evolution, in Dover Jones returned to the argument from McLean that the criticisms of evolution presented by ID are “not science.” Although Jones frequently relies upon McLean's five criteria, he also outlines criteria specific to ID. In his conception, a scientific theory can neither invoke supernatural causation nor claim that the inability to explain natural phenomena is grounds for supernatural causation. Additionally, a scientific theory must have academic credibility. If ID's attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community and there are no peer review publications, testing, or research to demonstrate its validity, ID's critique of evolution is not scientific.Footnote 23 Thus, Jones excludes ID as “not science” using a combination of his own and the McLean criteria.Footnote 24
The Edwards decision — which is the Supreme Court precedent — never “Defines Science.” Brennan could have used either McLean's five-point science criteria or arguments made by an amicus brief submitted by 72 Nobel laureates in science, but he did not.Footnote 25 Instead, Brennan simply “Defined Religion” by rejecting creation-science as grounded in the supernatural. Jones defends “not science” two ways. He asserts that given the length and detail of the trial “the Court is confident that no other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than are we to traipse into this controversial area.” More importantly, he claims that “…we will offer our conclusion on whether ID is science not just because it is essential to our holding that an Establishment Clause violation has occurred in this case, but also in the hope that it may prevent the obvious waste of judicial and other resources which would be occasioned by a subsequent trial involving the precise question which is before us.”Footnote 26
Yet finding creation-science to be “not science” is not “essential” to the holdings in Epperson or Edwards. Brennan did distinguish promoting a theory that is religious from discrediting evolution. He acknowledged that certain religious sects sought to suppress the teaching of evolution and he implied that religious literalists oppose the teaching of evolution because they believe that it threatens their form of religious belief. Although Edwards did not depend upon this distinction, Jones sees great potential — legally and politically — in pursuing it.Footnote 27
Many anti-evolutionists believe that teaching evolution is a religious position: rejection of biblical literalism is tantamount to state-sponsored atheism. In addition, teaching evolution threatens the belief in literalist religion because the more people believe in evolution, the fewer will believe in biblical literalism. Jones inverts this fundamentalist literalist claim. If literalists believe that weakening evolution lessens the threat to religious belief, criticizing evolution (negative thesis) endorses religion.
Simultaneously, Jones makes historical and theoretical arguments. If fundamentalist Christian groups in the United States and Canada have historically identified evolution as a threat and organized to fight it, how should Courts regard efforts to mandate the teaching of weaknesses of evolutionary theory? Anti-evolutionism and Christian fundamentalism are directly linked in the United States. Even though anti-evolution ideas date back to Darwin, anti-evolution as a religious and political protest movement traces its roots to the Christian Fundamentalist movement at the start of the 20th century. Evolution helped transform fundamentalism into a successful mass political movement, in part, because the teaching of evolution — first in colleges and later in secondary schools — could be easily identified and targeted.Footnote 28 Although early Fundamentalist writers affirmed the compatibility of science and religion, later writers insisted that faith and reason were separate “spheres” and evolutionists were “increasingly defined as enemies of religion and society.” Given the popularity of science in the early part of the century, anti-evolutionists tried to redefine science such that it came to be “linked in the public mind with biblical creation rather than evolution.” These patterns repeat in contemporary debates over ID, including the manipulation of scientific definitions of “theory” and “fact” as a means of discrediting evolution.Footnote 29 Jones wants courts to understand criticism of evolution in this particular historical context and question legislative motives. The motive for requiring the statement in Dover was religious — particularly Christian literalist — whether God was mentioned or not.Footnote 30
Jones also wants courts to understand the intellectual history of anti-evolution. Fundamentalists claim that: (1) belief in evolution is incompatible with belief in God, thus, evolution leads to atheism; and (2) if evolution is false, creationism is true.Footnote 31 Jones assumes that these claims prove non-secular purpose: ID criticizes evolution to protect religion rather than contribute to scientific inquiry. In the case of ID, the positive and negative theses are both religious positions and the positive thesis is implicit in the negative. Paralleling the two Fundamentalist claims, the negative thesis: (1) weakens evolution and lessens the threat to religion; and (2) creates an argument for divine or supernatural creation. Because anti-evolutionists use both negative and positive arguments to “defend” religion, courts should examine the beliefs of literalists in order to judge whether the intent of the laws is secular (improve scientific inquiry) or religious (protect religion by criticizing evolution). Jones emphasizes the intent to inject religion rather than the school's responsibility to exclude bad science.Footnote 32
Astutely, Jones anticipates future cases in which only the negative thesis is presented in the legislative history and the text of the statute. In Dover, school board members publicly called for the injection of religion into the school curriculum. They sought out ID only when they realized they needed an alternative that did not appear religious. If criticism of evolution becomes the only goal, “Defining Religion” fails to exclude ID.
“Defining Science” promises a solution. Even if no positive claims are made regarding a supernatural creator and there is no legislative history regarding intent, courts can exclude material based on a secular standard for valid scientific criticism. Categorizing ID's criticisms of evolution as “not science” weakens the claim that ID enhances student science education and, more importantly, it establishes ID as a religious position disguised as science.
“Defining Science” can establish criteria for scientific data but it takes two very different forms in Dover: (1) anything that is “not science” cannot be taught as science; and (2) anything that is “not science” is religion and can be excluded using the Establishment clause. The former avoids the defensive strategy and fraught judgments of motive but Jones presents no support for this version of “Defining Science” in Supreme Court jurisprudence or the Constitution. Although he emphasizes the McLean criteria, Jones appears to doubt the ability of “Defining Science” to stand alone. He occasionally accepts a false claim of ID — science and religion are incompatible — and accepts the latter version: if ID is “not science,” it is religion.Footnote 33 Here, he slips into a fallacious argument made by the ID movement and “Defining Science” becomes another way to defend against religion. This brief analysis of Dover yields two important insights.
First, Dover addresses both the positive and negative theses of ID using categorical determinations to exclude ID. “Defining Religion” claims that dependence on a supernatural creator defines religion. Thus, teaching evolution can be defended by excluding any positive religious claims. “Defining Science” has a legitimate form — the criteria for what are scientific — but there is no Supreme Court support for the position. In its more suspect form, “Defining Science” demonstrates that a claim lacks scientific credibility and then infers that the intent to include it was religious — thus criticism may be excluded under the First Amendment.
Second, Dover never makes a positive case for including science. Neither Dover nor Edwards asserts the right of the state or locality to require the teaching of good science or the best available science in public schools as a social, political, or economic good. In Edwards, 72 Nobel laureates, 17 state academies of science, and seven scientific organizations submitted an amicus brief that briefly outlines the relationship between science and public policy. Given its relevance to the following section's discussion of a positive Constitutional case for teaching science, I will quote it at length:
This case is crucial to the future of scientific education in this nation. As researchers in many different branches of advanced science, amici share a concern for the basic scientific education of this nation's public-school students. Scientific education should accurately portray the current state of substantive scientific knowledge. Even more importantly, scientific education should accurately portray the premises and processes of science. Teaching religious ideas mislabeled as science is detrimental to scientific education: It sets up a false conflict between science and religion, misleads our youth about the nature of scientific inquiry, and thereby compromises our ability to respond to the problems of an increasingly technological world. Our capacity to cope with problems of food production, health care, and even national defense will be jeopardized if we deliberately strip our citizens of the power to distinguish between the phenomena of nature and supernatural articles of faith. “Creation-science” simply has no place in the public-school science classroom. Amici urge this Court to affirm the Court of Appeals' judgment that the Louisiana statute is unconstitutional.Footnote 34
Although the scientists and science organizations articulated positive reasons for teaching the best available science — the theory of evolution — in public schools, the Supreme Court defended evolution by excluding creationism as religion. In order to explore how a positive case for teaching evolution might be made — one that would avoid defending against religion or making categorical determinations of “religion” or “science” — I suggest a case that connects education and citizenship: Plyler v. Doe.
CONSTITUTIONAL EDUCATION: CITIZENSHIP, ECONOMIC FITNESS, AND INDIVIDUAL SELF-DEVELOPMENT
The Court's rulings on education are limited by the text of the Constitution, which articulates neither educational goals nor institutions. The complicated reasons for these omissions include the federal system, the provision of educational goals and institutions in the colonial Constitutions, and the late development of the public education system.Footnote 35 In the absence of an articulated national policy or institutions, the Supreme Court examines the extent to which an individual state's education policy is consistent with constitutional provisions such as equal protection or free speech.
In the case of science education, the Constitution provides little help. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 empowers the Congress to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries [.]” Neither the notes from the Constitutional Convention nor Supreme Court jurisprudence provide an expansive interpretation of Clause 8. During the Constitutional Convention, delegates suggested constitutional language that would have encouraged university teaching of science or other explicit supports of science but they were unsuccessful.Footnote 36 The Supreme Court limits Congress' promotion of science to the protection of patents and ideas. There is no further mention of science in the Constitution.
Although the Constitution does not explicitly connect science, education, and citizenship, the Supreme Court has held that education provides the proper socialization for citizens — and non-citizens — and encourages the exercise of political rights, economic fitness, and individual self-development. Education shapes the individual to serve in the military, obey the law, and criticize the government when it acts tyrannically. While the Court has not required the teaching of any particular content (e.g., science or scientific method), the Court has insisted that education is a private and public good that under-girds the political, economic, and moral life of the individual and reproduces the liberal democratic values and institutions of the nation. Teaching evolution should be mapped onto this citizenship-orientated jurisprudence.
In Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court held that the state of Texas could not deny free public education to school-age non-citizens.Footnote 37 Writing for the majority, Brennan establishes that public education is more than a governmental benefit but not quite a right. Brennan justifies the importance of education on two grounds: the impact on basic American institutions (political and economic citizenship) and the impact on the child (economic independence and liberal personhood).
Brennan insists that public schools are the “most vital civic institution for the preservation of a democratic system of government” and the “acquisition of knowledge” is of “supreme importance” to the American people. Public education supports democracy as the source of the performance of the “most basic public responsibilities” including military service. Education prepares children to preserve “freedom and independence” by participating “effectively and intelligently” in an “open” political system. By socializing potential citizens to the “shared values” of democratic government, education helps maintain the “social order and stability” as well as transmit and reproduce the values on which society and democratic institutions rest.Footnote 38 The nation relies upon education to (1) train citizens to perform civic duties; (2) preserve democratic institutions and the social order; and (3) reproduce democratic values.
Even as Brennan stresses collective and public goods, he sees private benefits in public education. Education allows individuals to compete more effectively in the economic marketplace, prepares a child for “professional training,” and allows the child to “succeed in life.” Illiteracy is “an enduring disability” and “education prepares individuals to be self-reliant and self-sufficient participants in society.”Footnote 39 The uneducated individual suffers in all aspects of her life:
The inability to read and write will handicap the individual deprived of a basic education each and every day of his life. The inestimable toll of that deprivation on the social, economic, intellectual, and psychological well-being of the individual, and the obstacle it poses to individual achievement, make it most difficult to reconcile the cost or the principle of a status-based denial of basic education with the framework of equality embodied in the Equal Protection Clause.Footnote 40
Brennan balances the collective public benefit of an educated citizenry (liberal citizenship and economic independence) with the individual private benefit of individual achievement and well- being (economic fitness and individual development and autonomy).
Despite Brennan's support for education as the foundation of democratic government and individual well-being, the substance of what makes for a politically, economically, and intellectually fit citizen — the content and methods of public education — is left to the individual state. In Brown v. Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren rejected a method (segregation of children by race) as invalid because it inevitably fosters inequality among citizens. Brennan forbids the exclusion of non-citizens and establishes broad goals but he never specifies institutional or curricular mechanisms to encourage democratic socialization or individual self-development.
Justice Thurgood Marshall's more radical defense of education in his Plyler concurrence — based on his earlier dissent in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriquez — insists that there is a “close relationship between education and some of our most basic Constitutional values.” Because education directly affects the individual's ability to exercise particular Constitutional functions of liberal citizenship, education is a fundamental right. Education supports specific constitutional rights: free speech, association, and the right to vote. These individual rights support collective goals such as democratic discourse and debate on public policy. Functioning as a marketplace of ideas, the classroom instills interest in “political discourse and debate” and encourages political consciousness and participation: a system of “[c]ompetition in ideas and governmental policies is at the core of our electoral process and of the First Amendment freedoms.” Individual rights to free speech and association help support democratic discourse and debate on public policy. Education not only supports rights essential for constitutional government, it instills the desire to participate in political debate and appreciation for principles and operation of political processes.Footnote 41
Whereas Brennan does not specify the mechanisms by which education supports democracy, Marshall emphasizes education's ability to increase the individual's likelihood of voting. The political franchise “has been afforded special protection” because it is “preservative of other basic civil and political rights.” Marshall cites a direct relationship between education and voting in the 1968 presidential election.Footnote 42
In his discussion of the First Amendment, Marshall appeals to both “specific Constitutional guarantees” (liberal citizenship) and “particular personal interest” (individual development). Education enhances the ability of individuals to speak openly, voice new ideas, and criticize the government. Free speech and association empower individuals to check government power but these rights also allow individuals to build capacities for personal growth in the private sphere. A student inquires, studies, and evaluates, “to gain new maturity and understanding” that he will “enjoy throughout his life.” The individual's enjoyment of rights may be enhanced by education.Footnote 43 In his Yoder dissent, Justice William O. Douglas held that a child without education is “forever barred from entry into the new and amazing world of diversity that we have today.” If the child is only exposed to the beliefs of the Amish “his education is truncated” and “his entire life may be stunted and deformed.”Footnote 44 Marshall does not fully endorse Douglas' position on individual autonomy but he endorses rights as both contributing to the public good and individual “maturity.” The ability to determine what is valuable through critical reflection and experimentation empowers the individual in addition to enhancing collective political or economic utility.Footnote 45 Education encourages citizens to challenge values and inherited traditions for the sake of a healthy critical democratic culture and it benefits the individual's self-development.Footnote 46
Dover and Edwards fail to articulate why science education free of religion is so important to constitutional government or liberal personhood. Applying the logic of Plyler to Dover shifts the focus from defending against ID as religion to defining the relationship between science education and citizenship. Plyler explicitly links education to three aspects of liberal government: political citizenship, economic fitness, and personal autonomy, and implicitly defines liberty as a public and private good. “Governing ourselves” has two meanings. Collectively, the people rule through their representatives. Privately, humans manage personal decisions without overbearing intrusion from government, groups, or other individuals. Both forms of self-governing require information and the capacity to exercise judgment.Footnote 47
What would an ID jurisprudence based on Plyler look like and how might it connect teaching the best available science and the flourishing of democratic values and institutions, economic fitness, and individual self-development? Justice Stephen Breyer's arguments for “active liberty” help unpack the relationship between a constitutional system and the people who support it.Footnote 48
Breyer argues that the Constitution embodies two principles of liberty. Modern liberty protects individuals from government by ensuring that government is democratic, avoiding the concentration of political power, protecting personal liberty, insisting that the law respect each individual equally, and supporting the rule of law.Footnote 49 Active liberty guarantees that citizens are free to participate in government. Citizens are sovereign when they govern themselves and they are the source of political power. Sovereignty requires informed participants who can contribute to a national, democratic conversation and help create sound public policy.Footnote 50 Given that citizens actualize Constitutional institutions and values, Breyer asks courts to interpret the Constitution such that citizens have both modern and active liberty. Although Breyer's claims about the liberty of the ancients are debatable, he correctly insists that the logic of the Constitution requires a particular type of citizen to realize its institutions and values.Footnote 51
Connecting Breyer's conception of the Constitution and Plyler's understanding of education reframes the debate over teaching evolution in public schools and provides an opportunity to explore the public and private aspects of science education. Breyer supplies a rationale for requiring citizens capable enough to operationalize the Constitution but he does not elaborate how modern or active citizens can be created outside of Supreme Court rulings. Plyler provides a broad argument for education as the foundation for citizenship and a motivation for participation. Instead of asking whether ID is religion that can be excluded, Breyer and Plyler require determining whether teaching the best available science furthers political citizenship, economic fitness, or individual self-development. If science education furthers the public and private good, how does it affect political discourse, economic achievement, or an individual's ability to make private decisions regarding politics, economics, family, religion, ethics, or morality?
I am not suggesting that the Supreme Court single-handedly change curricular goals. Realistically, the current Court might not uphold the rulings in Plyler or Edwards and curriculum remains the domain of the states. Yet the Court — and others — should think more broadly about the logic of citizenship in the Constitution and the role education plays in creating civic-minded, participatory citizens who perform their duties, participate in public policy debates, achieve economic independence, and make private decisions toward moral personhood. The Plyler logic provides an opportunity to go beyond the defensive establishment clause jurisprudence and explicitly engage the public and private aspects of science education.
CONCLUSION: MAKING THE CASE FOR SCIENCE IN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
Dover has been presented as a case about the establishment of religion rather than the relationship between science education and liberal democratic citizenship. Our failure to fully understand isn't surprising since both sides disguise their ultimate purpose. The ID movement appears to encourage liberal ideas — diversity of opinions, teaching controversies, evaluating strengths and weaknesses, and academic freedom — but ultimately seeks to promote religion in public schools. Many defenders of science emphasize education free of religion when they really want to secure science education in order to establish values of secular reason in public life.
The uproar over ID is not the result of religious zealots demanding a literalist interpretation of the bible in public schools. If that were the case, the defensive establishment clause strategy would be appropriate and adequate. Rather, because ID presents itself as science, today's debate is about the meaning of science itself, the role of science in democratic political culture, and the appropriateness of secular standards of reason as guidelines for education and public policy. The Dover controversy reflects a wider debate about the values American students should be taught in public schools and it exposes fault lines in American liberalism between religious pluralism and Enlightenment reason (what Tocqueville called the “two foundings”).Footnote 52 Supporters of ID work to create an American political culture that emphasizes religious belief because they believe that science represents a worldview (or social imaginary) that will damage religious faith.Footnote 53 Supporters of evolution education often defend the science of evolutionary theory without elaborating on how science education in public schools affects shared values and standards. The language provided by Dover and Edwards is inadequate to these questions of civic identity. Supporters of science and scientific method as a component of American civic identity must reframe the debate and articulate why the teaching of evolution is essential to liberal democratic practice and values. The Dover debate is about religion's role in public and private life but it is also a debate about citizenship and the values of liberal democratic civic identity.
The Constitution's silence regarding education, values, and citizenship, leaves the courts laboring to define ID as religion that can be excluded. But Brennan, Marshall, and Breyer present a viable alternative. Together, they supply a vocabulary capable of addressing questions of education and civic membership. Liberal democratic governments need politically capable citizens with civic knowledge, deliberative competence, and the ability to vote, serve on juries, and complete military service. They also require economically fit citizens who are independent, self-reliant, and able to participate and compete in the economy. Education encourages competencies that enable Constitutional rights, duties, and institutions. Courts do not consistently support individual autonomy as a requirement of education but they do affirm the creation of educated individuals who flourish in the market and serve competently as citizens. False science should be excluded from public schools because it harms the individual's capacity to flourish in public and private life.
The liberal state is justified in securing a curriculum in terms of content and structure that teaches students — as potential citizens, workers, and moral persons — to make thoughtful decisions. Teaching the best available science can encourage deliberative discussion and democratic decision-making. Scientific method helps citizens to think and, ultimately, distinguish good scientific arguments from bad ones.Footnote 54 Science has no monopoly on encouraging analysis and deliberation. Many religions, for example, have powerful traditions of textual analysis, scholarship, and debate. Indeed, the history of scientific inquiry reveals periods of scientific entrenchment and significant prejudice. Nevertheless discussion cannot be freed from the authority of tradition, superstition, and unexamined rationalizations without citizens who weigh facts, observe relations, and reason carefully. Science can contribute to the creation of such persons.
Many liberals are uncomfortable with indoctrinating children as potential citizens to particular values. Such “strong” education can violate the belief systems of parents or place too much power in local majorities. Given those concerns, many liberals prefer to present liberalism as the provider of a neutral public space for all beliefs. Others — notably Macedo, Callan, Levinson, and Reich — argue for a liberalism that openly commits to particular values and vigorously educates its citizenry in order to reproduce those values.Footnote 55 Although this discussion of ID cannot settle the purpose of public education or determine the legitimacy of promoting civic values, it demonstrates that supporters of ID comfortably regulate information in schools because they believe political systems create and maintain values through education. They see Darwin's ideas as a threat to their worldview and they seek to limit the effects of these ideas. Many liberals, by contrast, celebrate only the clash of ideas. I maintain, with Macedo and others, that liberals need to insist on some clear ideas and educate citizens to believe them. There is a civic outcome that rests on making a choice and defending it.
Liberals must balance respect for diversity and pluralism with a confidence that disagreement does not rule out making judgments. A liberal political education cannot fetishize science as the only “objective” arbiter but disagreement does not mean that all arguments are equal. We distinguish which arguments are more “plausible, persuasive, or convincing.”Footnote 56 Science is not the only mechanism for making such judgments but science contributes to deliberation in a majoritarian system. Truth and fact are important to politics. In order to make solid judgments on climate change or bio-engineering, for example, we need particular knowledge of the science of climate and biology.Footnote 57 Scalia and the ID movement propose instead a conservative relativism in which no claim — creationist science or evolution — is more “truthful.” But it is possible — and essential — to judge some arguments as better than others. No modern liberal system should do without teaching the scientific method as a tool to encourage reason and judgment. Liberals must articulate positive arguments for teaching science and explore how science undergirds secular standards of reasoning. The debate over ID helps expose liberal dependence on particular values and the necessity of political reproduction through education.
When liberals defensively exclude ID without providing positive arguments for secular standards and science, they eliminate the need for a fight and divert energy towards excluding religion. The defensive approach leaves liberalism at an impasse: a hollow victory in Dover that satisfies the supporters of science yet provides no defense against a religion-free ID that emphasizes academic freedom and “alternative views.” While my analysis of ID does not provide a final description of the proper relationship between science and liberal politics, it embraces the Dover case as an opportunity to explore the relationship between education, science, and liberal citizenship and suggests a framework for an offensive discourse. If we want “Enlightenment” liberalism and science, we might have to admit that this is a political issue and engage it.
