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Teaching the Anthropic Principle and Intelligent Design in the Public Schools

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Teaching the Anthropic Principle and Intelligent Design in the Public Schools OHIO STATE LAW JOURNAL Volume 63, Number 6, 2002 Storm Clouds on the Horizon of Darwinism: Teaching the Anthropic Principle and Intelligent Design in the Public Schools JEFFREY F. ADDICOTT* Professor Addicott's article addresses the future legal ramifications that the fledgling intelligent design movement and the scientific concept known as the Anthropic Principlewill have on the teaching of Darwinianevolution in public schools. Both ideas are associated with the concept that an "unnamed" intelligent designer is responsible for the creation and sustainment of life. Predicting that the Supreme Court will ultimately allow for instance, school boards to incorporate intelligent design in the science curriculum, he believes neither of the two ideas violate the Establishment Clause and cannot be "dismissed as yet another back door attempt by creationists to get a secretarian religious idea into the public schools." In tracing the evolution/creation debate, ProfessorAddicott clearly establishes all the interested segments in the controversy to include the Fundamentalist creationists and "Darwinian activists. " Interestingly, in evaluating how the Court will view intelligent design, ProfessorAddicott explores what he terms the "Darwinianparadigm "-arguing that Darwinian activists may have already violated the Establishment Clause by making Darwinian evolution its own religion. * Assistant Professor of Law, St. Mary's University School of Law. B.A. (with honors), University of Maryland, 1976; J.D., University of Alabama School of Law, 1979; L.L.M., The Judge Advocate General's School of Law, 1987; L.L.M., University of Virginia School of Law, 1992; S.J.D., University of Virginia School of Law, 1994. Among the colleagues and friends who have supported this article with their insight, time and thoughtfulness are Professor Michael Ariens, Professor Richard Flint, Associate Dean Bonnie Roberts and my sister, Deborah Addicott (RN). My research was supported by a grant provided by Dean Bill Piatt under the auspices of St. Mary's University School of Law Summer Research Grant Program. 1508 OHIO STATE LA WJOURNAL [Vol. 63:1507 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1509 II. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE RELIGION CLAUSES .................. 1512 III. DEFINING SIDES AND TERMS IN THE EVOLUTION/CREATION DEBATE ....................................................... 1520 A. The Theory of Evolution ............................................................. 1520 1. Evolution-Theory or Fact?................................................ 1522 2. Proofs of Evolution .............................................................. 1525 3. Evolution as Weltanschauung ............................................. 1531 a. Factfrom Theory ........................................................... 1533 b. Evolution as the Dominant Paradigm.......................... 1536 c. The DarwinianCreed .................................................... 1540 B . Creationism ................................................................................. 1545 1. FundamentalistCreationism ............................................... 1547 2. GeneralistCreationism ........................................................ 1549 3. Theistic Evolutionism ........................................................... 1552 C. Conflict of Vision ........................................................................ 1553 IV. JURISPRUDENCE AND THE EVOLUTION/CREATION CONTROVERSY.. 1554 A. Applying the Establishment Clause ........................................... 1554 B. A Matter of Free Speech? ........................................................... 1560 C. The Primary Critiques................................................................ 1562 1. Evolution as Religion ........................................................... 1562 2. Defining Science ................................................................... 1567 V. THE COMING STORM-INTELLIGENT DESIGN .................................. 1570 A. History of Intelligent Design ...................................................... 1571 B. Intelligent Design in the Scientific Community ......................... 1575 C. IntelligentDesign as Religion .................................................... 1577 VI. THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE ............................................................... 1586 A. Scientific Axiom .......................................................................... 1587 B. Competing Interpretationsof the Anthropic Principle............. 1589 1. Weak Anthropic Principle.................................................... 1589 2. StrongAnthropic Principle.................................................. 1592 3. ParticipatoryAnthropic Principle....................................... 1593 4. SDFAnthropicPrinciple ..................................................... 1593 C. Compromising the Debate ......................................................... 1595 V II. C ONCLUSION .................................................................................... 1597 2002] STORM CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON 1509 I. INTRODUCTION Families entrust public schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that the classroom will not purposely be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and his or her family.' -Justice William Brennan, Jr. (1906-1997) Although the matter admits of some lingering dissent,2 it is nevertheless fairly well settled that the First Amendment's Establishment Clause 3 prohibits the presentation of any religious-based ideas or theories about life sciences in the science curriculum of public schools. 4 In both Epperson v. Arkansas5 and Edwards v. Aguillard,6 the United States Supreme Court has disapproved of attempts to present various versions of creationism 7 in the arena of teaching life sciences, leaving the field open to a doctrine universally known as the theory of evolution. The development of case law in this area has quite properly ensured that public science education is protected from being "[entangled] with religion,"8 but it has also apparently proven to be a tremendous boon for those who wish to hold inviolable the teaching of the theory of evolution (and cosmic evolution 9) to the total exclusion of all other ideas-scientific or otherwise-about the appearance and function of living things. Indeed, coupling the powerful influence exerted by the Darwinian paradigm' 0 with the inescapable religious history of the creationist I Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 584 (1987). 2 See id. at 610. In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Scalia took issue with the fact that the subject state law requiring equal time for the theory of evolution and creation science was invalidated on the basis of examining the religious motivations of the legislators who passed the law. 3 U.S. CONST. amend. I. 4 See, e.g., Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 103 (1968) (striking down an Arkansas statute that forbade schoolteachers from teaching evolution or using any textbook that teaches evolution). 5 See id at 107. 6 See Edwards,482 U.S. at 584. 7 See infra Part IV. Unless otherwise noted, the term "creationism" is used in this monograph in its traditional sense as a religious-based idea rooted in a Biblical interpretation. 8 Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 664, 674 (1970) ("We must also be sure that the end result-the effect-is not an excessive government entanglement with religion."). 9 Cosmic evolution is the theory that the universe developed slowly over time through materialistic agents of development. See generally DONALD GOLDSMITH, THE AsTRONOMERS 105-35 (1991) (discussing the detection of cosmic background radiation and how its existence is strong proof that the Big Bang did occur). This book is a companion piece to the PBS television series, The Astronomers. See Videotape: The Astronomers (PBS Video 1991). 1o See infra notes 164-66 and accompanying text. 1510 OHIO STATE LA WJOURNAL [Vol. 63:1507 movement, many are strongly persuaded that all future jurisprudence in this area will demonstrate an intransigent preference in favor of keeping the science classroom free from any pedagogy that might suggest the existence of a supernatural being."I It is not surprising that only a handful of legal scholars 12 seem cognizant that a new and rapidly growing movement known as intelligent design theory 13 might 14 soon find its way before the Supreme Court, through either a Free Speech 11 See, e.g., Jeanne Anderson, The Revolution AgainstEvolution, or "Well, Darwin, We're Not in Kansas Anymore", 29 J.L. & EDUC. 398, 402-03 (2000) (removing evolution theory from state-wide testing schemes supports the theory of creationism); Marjorie George, Comment, And Then God CreatedKansas? The Evolution/CreationismDebate in America's Public Schools, 149 U. PA. L. REv. 843, 861-65 (2001) (urging that the teaching of intelligent design as science, evolution as religion, or prohibiting the teaching of evolution are all variations on the theme of creationism); Lisa Kirkpatrick, Note, Forgetting the Lessons of History: The Evolution of Creationism and Current Trends to Restrict the Teaching of Evolution in Public Schools, 49 DRAKE L. REV. 125, 128 (2000) (suggesting that the Kansas approach of removing evolution from standardized exams is a sneaky move not likely to withstand constitutional scrutiny); Diana M. Rosenberg, Note, Monkey Business
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