There is a discussion about intelligent design going on this morning on our discussion board, in which an upset fundamentalist reader attempts to defend the effort to push intelligent design theology on American students by saying that America’s founding fathers believed in intelligent design.
When I read this claim, I am reminded of the claims made by the right wing members of the Supreme Court, like Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas, that the United States Constitution should only be interpreted according to the intentions of its authors. It’s an odd claim to make, suggesting that words have no inherent meaning in our society other than the meaning that the people who actually speak or write them want them to have.
Fundamentally, this weird linguistic theory of the right wing legal crowd is a kind of extreme linguistic relativism. Under this sort of interpretation of language, the writer of a document or speaker of a statement gets absolute say-so about how it is to be read and used. So, the logical conclusion of the Scalia and Thomas interpretation of language is that if William Bennett says that it was in no way racist when he said, “If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down,” we are forced to agree with William Bennet’s claims about what the statement means, and disregard the clear implications what the statement implies.
To engage in this kind of linguistic relativism is obvious folly when we are dealing with recent statements, but right wing judges like to pretend that they can sprinkle the intellectual equivalent of fairy dust and have the practice make sense when applied to the statements and writings of historical figures who are now dead. Judges like Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and John Roberts (as well as non-judges like Harriet Miers) argue that the Constitution ought to be read only as the people who wrote the Constitution wanted it to be read.
Consider the legal implications of this line of reasoning: If we were to apply their kind of legal interpretation to all legal documents, then contracts would only mean what the people who wrote them said that they meant. No matter what the words of the contract said, a person could walk into a courtroom and make arguments about what they really meant, in spite of those words, and get themselves out of the contract by talking about alternative arrangements that were really on their minds that day.
If our courts allowed this kind of nonsense to occur, then our society would fall apart. Yet, it is exactly this kind of nonsensical interpretation of the Constitution that right wing judges attempt to apply, and they do so in order to advance a political agenda that reduces the fundamental liberties guaranteed in contract by the Constitution.
It is extremely worrying, therefore, that intelligent design supporters and other kinds of Creationists engage in the Scalia-style revision of historical documents. The suggestion is now seriously being made that, because the founding fathers were supporters of intelligent design theology, the First Amendment must be re-interpreted to allow the forced teaching of intelligent design religious doctrine in public school biology classes.
Such disregard for the promises of the Bill of Rights is enough to warrant extreme skepticism of those who promote intelligent design theology. However, for the sake of argument, let us accept the right wing’s claims that provisions of the Constitution can be voided by claims that the writers of the Constitution didn’t really mean what they wrote.
Even if we accept this ridiculous argument, the burden lies with the fundamentalists to prove beyond a doubt that the Constitution’s authors really did want the government to force particular religious ideas about the creation of the world on American citizens. In order to foil such an attempt at proof, all that we need to do is come up with a single historical case of an author of the Constitution arguing against the kind of theocratic agenda now promoted by the Christian fundamentalist intelligent design crowd.
Of course, such an historical case is easy to find. Let me pick Thomas Jefferson, an unquestioned member of the “founding fathers” crowd. Thomas Jefferson once wrote:
“Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind-folded fear.”
Jefferson clearly valued doubt over faith, stating that
“It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.”
Jefferson had little affection for religious zealots eager to use the power of government to force their theological beliefs on others. Jefferson said,
“On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.”
What would Thomas Jefferson have said of the attempt to replace genuine science with Christian religious beliefs? Jefferson’s attitude about the proper outcome of the interaction of modern knowledge and Christianity is well reflected in his statement that
“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
On biblical literalism, Jefferson wrote:
“We discover [in the gospels] a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication.”
On Christian attempts to enforce orthodoxy, Jefferson said:
“I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.”
On the attempt to use government to promote religious ideas like intelligent design, Jefferson said,
“I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”
So there we have it: Even if we accept the game of right wing activists and pretend that the United States Constitution can only be read in the way that its authors wanted it to be read, the case of Thomas Jefferson makes it quite clear that there was not a consensus of support among the authors of the Constitution to allow for the mixing of religion and government to support theological doctrines such as intelligent design.
I guess that the linguistic relativists took their cue from Louis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty.
And the track record of the Bush/Cheney/Rove team suggests they follow the scripture of Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984.
Hey, I got written about. Pretty cool. But, I would rather my sentiments be conveyed correctly. I don’t understand your argument about how we cannot use what we know about the authors to attribute to their writing. I simply state that the strange but growing belief that Intelligent Design is unAmerican is awkward, because the Founders of America believed in it. I do believe that if someone does not have the mental capacity to accurately translate their thoughts onto paper (which I believe the writers of the Constitution did superbly), then of course you should take what they meant over what they wrote, and if you aren’t sure if what they meant is what they wrote, then you’re pretty dumb to sign the contract. Comparing this to the Constitution, it reads pretty clearly to me that they are against the favoring of any religion over another, and Intelligent Design promotes no religion over another, except to counter the government funded atheist religion that is promoted through the teaching of evolution.
But I would rather continue this discussion in the forums.
No one said intelligent design is “unAmerican”. They said that it’s not proper to mix the religious doctrine of intelligent design with the science taught in biology class.
Seems that this article gives a very accurate description of the implications of what you’ve written. You might want to think about that yourself.
OtherSide is a great example of our Christian fundamentalists. It is astonishing the heights to which they have taken stupidity. Science is not a religion. Scientists accept nothing on “faith.” They question everything, even themselves. They seek to understand the universe in which we live by observing it, forming theories to explain what they observed, testing those theories and replacing or revising them as necessary. Religious zealots take an old myth that is so totally unrealistic that it is unbelievable and try to find any facts that they can twist so they seem to support it. If these morons want to believe this fable, it is certainly their right. However, when they try to force everyone else to become as stupid and ignorant as themselves, they have stepped over the line. No amount of linguistic manipulation of the constitution can change my rights as a human being. I will defend my right to seek truth, even to the death if necessary. Let the religious zealots be forewarned.
This passage from comments cracked me up:
“Comparing this to the Constitution, it reads pretty clearly to me that they are against the favoring of any religion over another, and Intelligent Design promotes no religion over another, except to counter the government funded atheist religion that is promoted through the teaching of evolution.”
The Constitution forbids not just favoring of particular religions, but the favoring of religion versus secularity. Intelligent Design is basically an effort to sneak religion into the public schools by claiming it is not religion, but science. If the courts consider both requirements of the Establishment Clause, ID cannot possibly pass scrutiny. It is too clearly a pretext.
The last clause of the comment, in which the commenter forgets the ‘pretext’ he/she is engaged in and starts ranting about state imposed atheism had me laughing out loud.
Obviously this isn’t going to be discussed in the forums, I guess this is just a much simpler means to express your views. Let me put it this way, as I wrote in the forums, “fine, don’t mention intelligent design, JUST DON’T make evolution appear so infallible, because it isn’t” or something like that. You can check the forums if you wish.
Again, introducing intelligent design would not be placing religion over secularity, it would, at best, try to equalize the scale, which seems to make sense to me. I mean, isn’t the ideal America all about equality? About the claims that ID isn’t science, you can believe that if you want, but if you accept that science is a form of philosophy and you look at the philosophical arguments about consciousness and the cosmological argument you come up with some logical support for Intelligent Design.
Haha, science accepts nothing on faith. Science accepts everything on faith, because it is statistically impossible to prove a negative. For example, you can’t say gravity always works because there is no possible way you have tested every scenario involving gravity. Same with claiming there is no god, you cannot take that except by faith, because basically, have you looked everywhere? Talk to a deist about it.
Has science ever observed macro-evolution? How about the big bang?
“No amount of linguistic manipulation”… I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand what is wrong with reading a document how it was intended to be read, which the last paragraph of this article says is ridiculous. I mean, sure, Einstein might have said E=mc^2, and meant energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, but I think I’ll interpret it like Elephants = mice times cats squared. I mean, if you take away the meaning behin any document, don’t you take away the very purpose of the document? Maybe the article just isn’t worded well.
Of course you have your right to seek truth. Claiming that informing someone of another theory INFRINGES on the right to seek truth is hypocritical and oxymoronic.
Julian F., have you read the forums? Then again, this article itself states that what I meant has no influence on my argument, as it is now in text. Darn, i guess I just can’t win because of the false logic and definition behind “relativism”. Making up your own interpretations of someone elses work is relativism, not interpreting it as it was intended to be interpreted.
“OtherSide”, I don’t think you’re paying attention. I think this has been pointed out by somebody on the discussion boards, but nobody in science claims that the concept of biological evolution is infallible. Infallibility is not what science is for.
In science, everything, even including the theory of gravity, is open for revision when the evidence warrants revision.
Scientists do not attempt to establish infallible dogma – that’s what religion does. Maybe your long experience in religion makes it hard for you to see things in this other way.
When scientists say that biological evolution is a fact, they mean it in the sense that they can say “an apple has fallen”. There are millions, maybe billions, of cases of observations that create a very solid case.
If suitable evidence arose to suggest a rival explanation, then scientists would give that rival explanation consideration. However, there is no evidence for intelligent design that has withstood scientific scrutiny – and the same goes for other forms of Creationism.
So, scientists never say evolution is infallible. They just point out that intelligent design is theology, not real science at all, and no Christian scientist has been able to present a scientific counterargument that holds water.
OtherSide says: “..if you accept that science is a form of philosophy and you look at philosophical arguments…”. I’m a scientist and I do NOT accept that science is a form of philosophy! (I did study philosophy in college by the way) Although you can use a philosophical approach to form an understanding of the scientific method, science and philosophy have completely different mechanisms of study. Philosophy begins with ideas and then extrapolates them to the human realm. Science begins with observed facts and extrapolates them to ideas.
In the context of ID versus evolution, ID begins with the idea that there is a superior intelligent being who created the universe. ID then goes on to try to find aspects of the universe that fit into this idea. The basic initial idea is never questioned. Evolution, on the other hand, begins with observations of the universe (physical, chemical, biological, etc.) and then develops a coherent theory into which these facts fit. As new facts arise that challenge the theory, the theory is either modified or discarded (if facts PROVE that the theory is false). To this point there are no facts (obsevations) that PROVE evolution is an invalid theory.
Let us consider some historical religeous dogma foisted on the faithful as facts!
God created Adam as a Male? He then made Eve from Adams Rib as a Female. Then God decreed that Adam and Eve should NOT have sex. Once they had, two sons were produced who grew and married.. Whom?
God was PO’d with the world he had made, so he chose a drunken lecher named Noah to build a boat and fill it with two each of all the worlds animals. When the water receded, Noah and his family proceeded to re-populate the world. (So we can’t all be decended from Adam & Eve).
Then God got mad at various groups of humans that he was resposible for creating, and set his religeous followers against the rest in an effort to get rid of them. He failed. They are still here. Then he punishes a group of his followers who were trying to reach him by inflicting them with different languages so they could not communicate.
In short, God spent the whole of the old testatment relating stories of incest rape and murder in his name and then begats a son by seducing the innocent wife of one of his believers.
The son that God produced, set out to change the rules laid down by Dad in the Old Testament. and for his trouble was murdered by Romans who later chose to change history and blame God’s chosen people (the Jews), for his death, to give them an excuse to get rid of them. (They are still trying).
Then the Romans took over christianity and continued their rape and pilage of the known world.
These new religeuous leaders created this set of rules. 1 the world is flat. 2 the sun and all the planets revolve around the Earth. 3. Medicine was condemned and doctors killed. 4. All other religions were heresey. 5. Kill all heretics. 6. Torture maim and kill anyone who questioned the church’s authority. 7. The Jews are resposible for all evil. 8. The Muslims are resposible for all evil. 9. Every war since Constantin has been a religious war of Christians trying to foist these beliefs on the rest of the world.
Finaly, (I know, I know, I’m ranting) christians now believe that the aquisition of wealth is christian, and each of their money grubbing neo fascist spokepersons will stop at nothing in helping the ignorant to achieve their leaders un-christian beliefs.
If this is inteligent design, we are gonna need a lot more small busses.
Pingback: Shtikl Cartoons
That everything means something else we also learn in this hilarious commentary at Fox News:
htp://ww.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171626,00.html
This really scares me. What is the right’s indoctrination-machine teaching its disciples? Maybe: “Don’t trust your eyes! It’s under control. Sleep well. Vote GOP.”
Pingback: imablogger.net » Blog Archive » Thomas Jefferson: Intelligent Design Not Based on Religion