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Every Friday, "Science and the Sacred" features an essay from a guest voice in the science and religion dialogue. This week's guest entry was written by David Opderbeck. Opderbeck is a professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law and serves in the school's Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology. His blog Through a Glass Darkly addresses issues in theology and the science and religion dialogue. This is a follow-up to his post "In Defense of Dover".

This post will discuss how the law interacts with "science." The interaction of law and science is a vast and fascinating topic. I can mention here only some brief highlights of a handful of the important issues. As part of this discussion, I'll offer some thoughts about Judge Jones' treatment of "science" in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District intelligent design case. At the end of the post, I'll suggest some resources for further reading on the relationship between law and science.

The Gatekeeper Function

One of the most significant ways in which law and science relate is in the use of "expert" testimony. Federal Rule of Evidence ("FRE") 702 states that

If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise. . . .

For example, in a product liability case, engineering experts might testify as to the soundness of the design of the product at issue, and medical experts might testify as to the nature and extent of the plaintiff's injuries.

When a party seeks to introduce expert testimony, the court must serve as a "gatekeeper" over what can be presented to the jury. According to FRE 702, when the court exercises this gatekeeper function, it must ensure that "(1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case." These criteria were grafted into the FRE as a result of the Supreme Court's opinions in Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals and Kuhmo Tire v. Carmichael, in which the Court discussed the gatekeeping functions of trial courts with respect to expert testimony.

The Daubert standard represents both a pragmatic and an epistemological limitation on the adversarial trial process. The scope and propriety of this limitation has been hotly debated among legal scholars, lawyers and judges. It seems clear, however, that there must be some limits on what can count as "expert" testimony, and that the trial courts, in their traditional role as evidentiary gatekeepers, must to some extent determine what can be presented to juries as "scientific" evidence. We lack the judicial and social resources to turn every trial into a perfect search for the truth. The best we can do is come as close as possible to the truth as the time, cost and functional limitations of the judicial system can accommodate. This means there must be some limits on what testimony can be presented under the "expert" umbrella.

Gatekeeping and Kitzmiller

Supporters of Judge Jones' approach in the Kitzmiller case suggest that a similar gatekeeping function is important with respect to public education. Without some demarcation of what can be taught as "science" in the public schools, aren't we opening the floodgates to the teaching of all sorts of pseudo-science, such as astrology and young earth creationism? I think this is a valid concern. For this and other reasons, I personally don't agree with the "teach the controversy" approach promoted by many ID advocates. If I were to serve on my local school board, I would not vote in favor of introducing ID materials into the science curriculum, primarily because I don't believe the ID program has generated sufficient results to reach the public schools. Like the courts, the public schools lack the time and resources to address views that fall far outside the scientific mainstream.

In my view, however, when the issue is the local public school curriculum, the political level at which such resource allocation decisions should be made ordinarily is that of the local school board, in conversation with the academic community and under the broad oversight of state and national standards-setting bodies. The judicial scientific gatekeeping role usually should relate only to traditional judicial functions, such as what sorts of evidence can be considered by juries.

What if a local school board gets a curricular decision "wrong" and there is no improper religious purpose or other illegality? In my view, that concern ordinarily should be addressed through the process of open debate and political action. The reality is that local political bodies sometimes make "bad" decisions that are not unlawful or unconstitutional. The possibility of bad local decisions is one of the costs of democratic governance. It's a cost that usually is mitigated by the self-correcting processes of democracy. Concerned parents remain free to elect new local officials.

In the relatively rare circumstances in which the local political body acts for clearly improper religious purposes (such as the Kitzmiller case and the McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education and Edwards v. Aguillard cases), the courts can remedy those actions under the establishment clause of the first amendment to the Constitution. The primary inquiry in such cases, however, is not to ask if it is "science", Even if this demarcation question could be answered definitively in a philosophical sense (which I believe is doubtful at best), this still would not necessarily resolve whether the governmental decision involved an improper religious purpose or entanglement.

"Science" and "religion" use different methodological tools and varying rules of discourse, but both disciplines inquire into the same ultimate reality. It is therefore entirely possible for interdisciplinary approaches to exist that are neither purely "science" nor purely "religion." In fact, much of today's serious faith-and-science scholarship relies on this notion of interdisciplinarity. (For a discussion of this notion, see Alister McGrath, A Scientific Theology: Reality (Eerdmans 2002)). There is nothing facially unconstitutional about exploring such interdisciplinary approaches in a public educational setting.

This leads to my primary criticism of the Kitzmiller decision. I don't believe Judge Jones should have ventured a broad definition of "science" in the Kitzmiller case, as though such an exercise necessarily ends the discussion of constitutionality. Under the applicable standards for establishment clause cases, the proper inquiry is into purposes and effects: was the government's purpose "secular" and was the primary effect of the government's decision to advance or inhibit religion or to produce an excessive entanglement of government and religion? Whether an idea is labeled "religion" or "science," in itself, is irrelevant to the constitutional question. "Religion" is a constitutionally proper subject of study in the public schools, provided that the purpose and effect of that study is not sectarian.

Rather than wading into the deep waters of defining "science" over against "religion," then, Judge Jones should have focused primarily on the purposes of the Dover school board, which clearly were to proselytize for a particular kind of creationism, rather than to explore interdisciplinary approaches to science and religion generally.

This analysis, of course, begs one of the big questions in the ID debate: is ID inherently entangled with religious purposes? Should efforts to introduce ID into the public school science curriculum always be met with skepticism under the establishment clause?

The looming presence of this question is one of the key reasons I don't believe Judge Jones played the role of "activist judge" in Kitzmiller, even though I am critical of the opinion. The question whether ID, like "creation science," is inherently religiously motivated, is a live concern, and was extensively briefed and argued to the court by both sides. In order to address the question of religious motivation, the court could not have avoided some consideration of the essential nature of ID theory.

In my view, however, there is a significant qualitative and quantitative difference between giving an issue some consideration and making it the central issue in the case. The court could easily have said something like this, and nothing more than this, on the demarcation issue:

The question of ID theory's scientific merits, and indeed whether ID theory is properly considered 'science,' is hotly disputed by the parties. The court finds, after hearing extensive testimony, that the mainstream scientific community generally does not consider ID theory to be valid science. Combined with the clear overriding religious purposes of the school board members, this finding establishes that there was no valid secular purpose for the school board's actions and that the proposed curriculum would result in excessive government entanglement with religion.

In this context, the Judge Jones' effort to define "science" in a broad sense was unnecessary, but not "activist." In any event, the term "activist judge" generally sheds far more heat than light on the complex nature of the judicial function.

What, then, should we make of the link between ID theory and religion? I'll address this in my next post. I'll also offer my views about ID theory as a form of "natural theology."

Some general resources on the intersection of science and law:

• Robin Cooper Feldman, The Role of Science in Law (Oxford Univ. Press 2009)
• Carl F. Cranor, Toxic Torts: Science, Law, and the Possibility of Justice (Cambridge Univ. Press 2006)
• David L. Faigman, Laboratory of Justice: The Supreme Court's 200-year Struggle to Integrate Science and the Law (Times Books 2004)
• Sheila Jasanoff, Science at the Bar: Law, Science and Technology in America (Harvard Univ. Press 1995)

Every Monday, "Science and the Sacred" features an essay from one of The BioLogos Foundation's co-presidents: Karl Giberson and Darrel Falk. Today's entry was written by Darrel Falk.

In my last posting I wrote that my greatest joy is being with family and how sentiment extends to the family of God, regardless of how individual members view creation. At that time, I had no idea that two weeks later, I would feel compelled to write again on the same theme. I knew there was a special event coming up, but what I didn't know was the extent to which the feelings I wrote about two weeks ago would be experienced to an even greater degree throughout this event.

I have just returned home from a workshop titled "In Search of a Theology of Celebration." In the history of North American evangelicalism, there has never been a meeting like this. Gathered together at the Harvard Club in New York City were about 55 leading evangelical pastors, theologians, scientists, and other scholars. We were also privileged to have a small number of lay observers, who were especially important in our informal reflections. We spent two days in worship, study, prayer, and fellowship.

The scientists likely all held the position that God has created life in a manner that is consistent with the findings of mainstream science. Many of the others in attendance were not sure what to think, but amazingly--given the schedules of people in leadership positions--they were willing to come from all over the country (and beyond) to spend two days helping us understand the theological and pastoral ramifications of the science which we are so convinced is true. They were so gracious, not just in how they helped to inform us about theology and pastoral care, but especially as they listened to us talk about science. We, the scientists, described the evidence for evolution and attempted to show why it is so important for the Church hear what mainstream biology has to say about creation. They listened, and we were deeply moved by the spirit with which they listened.

The meeting title, "In Search of a Theology of Celebration," reflects the fact that one thing we all have in common is a sense of awe at the beauty of creation. We all want to celebrate. We all worship the same Creator. There is a sense in which looking at nature through the tools of science makes us all a little like the shepherd, David, as he looked out at nature from his Hebrew hillside in the days before he became a king (see Psalm 19, for example). Like him we, three thousand years later, still find that the heavens declare the glory of God. We find that day after day that which we see through our microscopes pours forth speech, and night after night that which we explore with our telescopes displays knowledge. Truly there is no speech or language, no culture or era, where the voice of God, through nature, is not heard. And, just as David went on to say those millennia ago, we still find that, "the precepts of the Lord are right." They do give joy to the heart, and they do evoke a response of praise. Nature, especially as we explore it at the level of sophistication we are able to do today, draws us into worship. Hence, the theme for the workshop: the meeting was a celebration. We began each day in song, in reading Psalms together, and in prayer.

We then proceeded to consider a series of papers that focused on issues like the history of evangelicalism's conflict between faith and science. We discussed the biological data. We considered the barriers which evangelical theologians and parishioners face as they consider the implications of mainstream biology. We talked about how evangelicalism's approach to the science/faith issue has sometimes served as an artificial barrier that blocks some from entering the realm of faith, and we discussed the harm that is done by those who misuse science to try to advance their own atheistic philosophical agenda. Each of the white papers in which the discussion was grounded will go up on the BioLogos website once the papers have been edited and prepared for uploading so you too can think along with us.

As each day came to a close we considered the majesty and beauty of creation as we looked out through the Hubble telescope and we looked in through the marvelous tools that allow us to see the inner machinery of life's smallest structures.

The workshop came to a close with much discussion about next steps. We all acknowledged that it will not be easy and will not come quickly. We all admitted that we weren't sure yet how the evangelical church will eventually be shaped by the findings of 20th and 21st century science. But because of the fact that we are a single family, there was a sense in which it was almost beside the point. We are the church of Jesus Christ. We are bonded in Christ, not in a particular view of how to interpret scientific data, nor even in a particular view of how to interpret Scripture. We are a family. We are brothers and sisters, who live our lives in communication with the same Father. We all want nothing more than for our lives to bring glory to our Father.

The very last thing we did together was to sing a hymn that acknowledges that the Church is not grounded in the fickleness of human frailty. The Church has persevered since those days of its emergence in ancient Israel, not because of human ingenuity, but because it is undergirded by a Foundation with an eternal dimension. I have never heard a richer, more meaningfully sung rendition of "How Firm a Foundation", than the one I heard as the meeting came to a close. As you read three of the verses we sang together, I suggest you read them remembering we are members of a single family. True, this song applies to us as individuals, but as we live the Christian life, we are not meant to live it as individuals who are all alone. We are a family, a family rooted and grounded in a Foundation that will endure. As you read the following words, keep in mind that they poignantly apply to the Family, to the Church, just as they do to us as individuals.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who to Jesus for refuge have fled?

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

After singing this hymn in a firm voice of solidarity, we got ready to leave and we said our good-byes. My final memory in leaving the meeting room is looking across to the other side and seeing a biologist whom I deeply admire and a theologian I hold in the highest esteem warmly bidding one another farewell. The Church will endure not because of articulate words or persuasive arguments. The Church will endure because of what the Church is. It is the Body of Christ united in love. It is the Family of the eternal God.

Every Monday, "Science and the Sacred" features an essay from one of The BioLogos Foundation's co-presidents: Karl Giberson and Darrel Falk. Today's entry was written by Karl Giberson.

In my last blog post I addressed some questions of logic that had been raised on a popular anti-evolutionary blog, and how scientific arguments are often caricatured to make them appear to be committing logical fallacies.

In this post, I examine another example of the misuse of logic and evidence by the opponents of evolution. I want to suggest that anti-evolutionists don't actually use evidence as evidence. Rather they use evidence as rhetoric--a debating tool designed to score points in arguments. Evidence is not, by these defocused lights, a pointer toward truth. Rather evidence is a distraction, undermining truth.

There are several examples we could look at but I think one of the best relates to the dinosaurs. I was reminded of this recently when I had dinner with an enthusiastic young earth creationist and witnessed firsthand how comfortably he wielded the arguments against the well-established scientific consensus that dinosaurs went extinct millions of years before humans first appeared.

There are four arguments that creationists use against the scientific picture of dinosaurs, all of which came up in my dinner conversation:

1. Dinosaur and human footprints have been found together in a riverbed in Texas.
2. There are cave paintings of dinosaurs that could not have been made unless the human artists had seen dinosaurs.
3. Dinosaur soft tissue/blood cells have been discovered that cannot be millions of years old.
4. Worldwide legends of fire-breathing dragons are based on human encounters with dinosaurs.

In a discussion about evolution, the age of the earth, or even the general reliability of science these "arguments" are launched into the conversation as if they prove something significant that scientists don't understand. But most people wielding these arguments have no clue about them. Consider the following:

1. The dinosaur and human footprint argument has been so thoroughly repudiated that even the two leading young earth creationist organizations have repudiated it. The head of the Institute for Creation Research, geologist John Morris, has written an article about the collapse of this "evidence" and Answers in Genesis includes this logical clinker on its list of "arguments that should be avoided."
2. Cave paintings contain a vast roster of interesting and inexplicable patterns, not unlike contemporary museums of modern art. Just as people see clouds that really do resemble Homer Simpson, or smears on windows that look like the Madonna, we should not be surprised that cave art contains things that look like dinosaurs--and unicorns and flying horses and space ships and various monsters. But here we have to ask a question: what is the best explanation for a cave drawing that resembles a dinosaur? Let me offer some possibilities: a) a cave-dad is using visual aids to tell cave-kids a horror story about giant lizards; b) a cave artist is drawing a picture of an actual lizard; c) cave artists are being creative; d) a cave artist is drawing a picture of an actual animal he saw. Is "d" really the most reasonable explanation?
3. The dinosaur "blood" that can't possibly be 70 million years old was a highly speculative inference and far from conclusive. A recent analysis concludes "What previously had been identified as fragments of blood cells due to the presence of iron were actually microscopic spheres containing iron, known as framboids." To jump on this isolated a curious fact as "conclusive" is far from scientific. And to suppose that it refutes the entire geological column, which clearly demonstrates that dinosaurs were long gone before we got here, is absurd.
4. The "dragons were dinosaurs" argument is incredibly fanciful and unbelievable on so many fronts. For starters, dragons are only one of a roster of mythical beasts. Are unicorns and griffins also real, because folklore speaks often of them? How about abominable snowmen? Men on the moon? Flying horses? In the days before cameras, people relied on stories from travelers about fascinating creatures from afar. Very few medieval Europeans ever saw a lion, and yet they all believed in lions based on stories they heard. Some people told stories of dragons and, not knowing what existed beyond their horizons, people accepted these stories as real, and passed them on.

All four of these arguments circulate with vigor in anti-evolutionary circles. I have heard them many times, most recently over dinner. Web sites proclaim them. The "true believers" that wield them as arguments against evolution, however, don't understand them and are blissfully unaware that they are simply irrelevant.

The most peculiar feature of this phenomenon, however, is the selective endorsement of science. If a scientist reports that he has found evidence--like soft dinosaur tissue--that dinosaurs are not as old as we thought, that scientific conclusion is treated respectfully by the anti-evolutionists because it agrees with their interpretation of the Bible. But when those same scientists report later that there may be a better explanation for the data--one that is compatible with evolution--this evidence is rejected as a part of the "conspiracy" to suppress the evidence against evolution. Science, it would appear, lacks integrity, except when it is undermining evolution.

Every Monday, "Science and the Sacred" features an essay from one of The BioLogos Foundation's co-presidents: Karl Giberson and Darrel Falk. Today's entry was written by Darrel Falk.

The greatest joy of my life is being with family. This is especially true, of course, of my natural family, but it extends much more broadly than that. In my book, Coming to Peace With Science , I write about my return to evangelical Christianity after a departure caused in part by my views on evolution. What I missed most during those several years away was the joy of being with family. In those early years after my return, we would often sing a chorus, "I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God." While we were singing, we'd just spontaneously wander around from person to person shaking hands and warmly smiling as we celebrated being a part of the same family. It was that longing for family that brought me back to the Church and caused me to stay even though I believed in evolution and most of them didn't. It made no difference. Thousands of miles from our natural family, we, my wife Joyce and I, together with our two daughters, had found a larger family; we had found a home.

Several weeks ago, I talked with Karl Giberson after he had visited the Creation Museum in Kentucky. As I asked him about the experience, I expected he would make some light-hearted remark about the dinosaurs with saddles or the vegetarian lions. Instead, I was struck with how much he loved the serene setting. It was almost like he felt at home there, and his thoughts turned to his own daughters and to his wife, Myrna, with whom he wished he could share the experience.

I had a similar experience last weekend when I visited a seminar put on by the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), at John MacArthur's church in greater Los Angeles. I loved being there, and what I enjoyed most of all was the sense of being with family. After the daylong conference, friends of mine who attend this church invited me to their home along with about 50 guests to explain the scientific view of the creation story. My task was to explain the view that the earth was old and that God had created all life, including humans, through an evolutionary process. Even though I had never met most of these people before, I felt at home. I was with family.

They asked me to talk about the data that ran contrary to what they had heard throughout the day and they listened intently as I showed them the genetic evidence for evolution. They smiled with me at lighter moments, and they were as deeply moved as I was as we thought together about the richness and beauty of the story of Adam and Eve. In the end, they wrote their questions on cards and we had a meaningful discussion period. I loved their questions. They really wanted to understand and were especially concerned about the theological implications of the data I had just presented. They were skeptical about whether they could believe the science, largely because it seemed to them it would disrupt the theology upon which their lives had been grounded. They lovingly listened as we thought together about the theological implications. Throughout the evening, I never stopped feeling like I was with family--a warm and loving family.

The next morning I sat down over breakfast with my two friends who had only recently let go of their young earth position. It had not been easy for them, and was not easy for others I know who have recently made the shift. However now, with the process further along, they tell me it has greatly enriched their sense of awe for the beauty of creation and for the God who is responsible for it all. As I thought further about the preceding day and the delightful evening I had enjoyed so much, I concluded the following:

• People who hold the young earth perspective are not unintelligent. If it had been possible to do some sort of intelligence test on the group of 50 gathered in that home, it would have been similar to that which would typify the many scientific gatherings I have attended over the years.
• These are beautiful people whose lives reflect the glory of God.
• Since most of these people do not have a science background they have difficulty understanding why science should be considered anything more than an opinion about how things work.
• Their worldview is based upon a theology that is difficult to wrestle free from the young earth perspective. The questions they raise are not knee jerk reactions, they are important questions that we must be prepared to address. They are tied to things like the apostle Paul 's clear belief in a historical Adam in Romans 5 and the fact that God is reported to have said centuries later that He created heaven and earth in six days (Exodus 20:11). "Did God really say this, or not?" they ask. "Was Paul inspired to write something that was not really true?" they want to know.
• Some, perhaps many, have come to Christianity from lives that were previously very unfulfilling. They have found a safe haven among beautiful people who believe a certain way. They don't want to go back to their old lives and they fear that accepting evolution is a step back to where they used to be.
• Many are open to new ways of thinking. If the data is strong, they will thoughtfully consider it, but letting go will not be easy. Like me, they are convinced of the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Like me, they believe in a God who can and does supersede nature. Like me they take their theology very seriously. They will only let go of the old theology when the new one brings them to some place where they remain intellectually and spiritually fulfilled.

As the ICR seminar began last Saturday morning, Henry Morris III, the CEO of the organization, said that the real enemy of the church is not atheists, it is people like myself--people who had reached a compromise between the Bible and science. Despite his sentiment, I continued to feel at home there. As I listened to his message at the end of the day, I applauded with everyone else. He was preaching the gospel message that I believe too. In fact so powerful was his message that I felt like leading the way to a standing ovation...it was a beautiful message that had absolutely nothing to do with the age of the earth or the mechanism by which God had created humans. He might think people like me are the enemy, but I think of him as a brother who just doesn't understand how clear the data is.

My task, and the task of others like me, is to help members of the family who want to listen come to understand that whether God set up and maintains a process by which creation takes place gradually or whether God did it in an instant makes no difference. Sure, there will be some tweaking of theology so it is a little less subject to our very human misinterpretations. Sure, there will need to be some changes in how we understand scripture to bring it into a framework that is more consistent with how God intends to speak to us through scripture. The fact is that the day is coming--and I suspect it is not that far away-- when most in the Church will wonder why we ever struggled with this issue in God's family.

We'll get on with the task of that which matters most of all: providing a home for those who need a family--being the family of God, for those who want a home.

Every Friday, "Science and the Sacred" features an essay from a guest voice in the science and religion dialogue. This week's guest entry was written by David Opderbeck. Opderbeck is a professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law and serves in the school's Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology. His blog Through a Glass Darkly addresses issues in theology and the science and religion dialogue.

On December, 2005, Judge John E. Jones, III (left) issued his opinion in the now-infamous Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District intelligent design case. Like many thoughtful evangelical Christians at the time, I was impressed with intelligent design theory. I had read many of the ID movement's foundational texts, and felt confident that ID offered an intellectually and theological satisfying alternative to the extremes of young earth creationism and atheistic Darwinism. Shortly after the Kitzmiller decision was issued, I blogged and wrote publicly about Judge Jones' opinion, which I thought was largely mistaken.

I still think Judge Jones' opinion in Kitzmiller missed the mark in some important ways, even though I think (and have always thought) the end result was correct. Moreover, I remain impressed with the energy and intelligence of the ID movement's thought leaders. Scholars such as Bill Dembski and Mike Behe have made some interesting arguments about epistemology, divine action, and causation. However, when I dove into the broader ID discussion after the Kitzmiller case, I came to believe that many aspects of the ID movement are not as helpful as I had first thought - and, indeed, that ID rhetoric is often used to hinder positive interaction between the truths of the Christian faith and truths learned through the natural sciences.

What I'd like to start to explore in this post is how my thinking about ID, Kitzmiller, and the interface of faith, science, and the public schools, has, and hasn't, changed since 2005. In order to begin this discussion, we need to consider some legal history.

Most readers of "Science and the Sacred" likely are familiar with the Scopes case from 1926, in which a legal challenge to the teaching of evolution in public schools failed. I won't rehearse the details of the Scopes case here, nor will I attempt to enter into the lively debate about whether the play "Inherit the Wind," based on the trial, really does justice to all the participants. More significant for our purposes is a series of cases in the 1980s in which young earth creationists attempted to introduce "creation science" into the public schools. The key cases include McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255 (1982) and Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987).

The "creationism cases" capture a fascinating, if troubling, moment in evangelical cultural history. A decade earlier, Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court's famous abortion decision, had galvanized previously complacent evangelicals into social action. The model of engagement evangelicals tended to adopt was one of confrontation through legislation and litigation. By the 1980s, the "religious right" was on the ascendancy. The creationism cases represent a wave front of culture war activity that swept over the popular evangelical subculture and continues to reverberate today.

It's not surprising that the courts in the creationist cases uniformly struck down efforts to introduce "creation science" into public school curricula. The results in McLean and Aguillard were not, I believe, the results of "judicial activism," but rather reflected a standard and appropriate application of Supreme Court jurisprudence under the establishment clause of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was clear from the record in the creationist cases that "creation science" represented a particular interpretation of a uniquely religious perspective on the origins of the universe. The source of young earth creationist beliefs was a supposedly "literal" interpretation of the Bible. In effect, the proponents of "creation science" desired introduce their Biblical apologetics into the public schools.

In the same way, I don't think Judge Jones was playing the role of "activist judge" in the Kitzmiller case. It seems clear from the trial record that the Dover, Pennsylvania school board officials who promoted the ID curriculum did so in an effort to support their belief in a particular form of direct creationism. Although ID is ostensibly a religiously neutral theory, the local pro-ID school board officials in Dover appeared to have specifically religious motives for introducing it into the curriculum. This was enough reason, I think for Judge Jones to have rejected their efforts. (In a separate post, I'll address Judge Jones' ruling about whether ID is "science," which I believe reflects a number of problems in how the law handles the question of how to define "science.")

I've come to believe that the misuse of ID theory by those Dover school board members reflects a common misuse of ID in the Church generally. In my experience, it's widely assumed by evangelical church-goers - contrary to the official statements of leaders in the ID movement - that ID supports belief in God, or more specifically supports young earth creationism, over and against evolution. Countless apologetics programs, websites, and publications designed for evangelicals respond to any suggestion that biological evolution may be true (or that direct creationism may be false) with a passing reference to Mike Behe and Bill Dembski. These would-be apologists are sometimes shocked to learn that many ID theorists accept common descent, which definitely is not compatible with special creationism (or sometimes they know better and conveniently fail to mention that fact in their presentations!).

The unfortunate reality, in my judgment, is that ID theory - or rather, a crude distillation of ID theory - has been reduced to a tool in the culture wars both inside and outside the Church. Whether the leaders of the ID movement intended for this to happen or not, Christian proponents of ID are using it just as they tried to employ "creation science" in the 1980s. Within the Church, this tends to remove ID from the realm of ideas that can be calmly and reasonably discussed, and places it instead into a "hot button" category. Even worse, the Christian believer who has been schooled to view ID as a rock-solid defense against atheism will find his or her faith shaken if the central claims of ID theory fail to withstand scrutiny. This further heightens the perceived stakes in the culture wars: a failure of ID theory is viewed as a public blow to the credibility of the Christian gospel. In my view, this is a grave mistake, underwritten by some highly questionable theological assumptions.

In my next post, I'll discuss problems with how American courts handle the question of "science." In another post to come, I'll unpack what I believe are the problematic theological assumptions underlying popular evangelical appropriations of ID theory for use in the public square.