High court rejects creationism law.

High court rejects creationism law

In a 7 to 2 decision last week, the U.S.Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional a Louisiana law that would have required the teaching of "creation science" whenever public schools taught evolution. Because of legal challenges, this 1981 law has never been implemented.

According to bacers of the law, creationscience is a body of scientific "evidence" indicating that all life forms now on earth appeared suddenly, several thousand years ago, in much the same form they hold today. Evolution, by contrast, holds that present life forms slowly evolved from earlier beings that first made their appearance many millions of years ago.

Ironically, while the scientific communityhas largely castigated creation science -- calling it nonscience or religious dogma -- the scientific basis for its teaching was not the central issue here (although it presumably would have become an issue once the state set about implementing the statute). Instead, as in the Arkansas creation-science suit (SN: 1/2/82, p.12), the court was asked merely to decide whether the state's law violated the First Amendment's separation of church and state or a teacher's right to academic freedom.

Writing for the majority, Justice WilliamJ. Brennan Jr. said the Louisiana law indeed violates the First Amendment "because it seeks to employ the symbolic and financial support of government to achieve a religious purpose" -- either the banishment of evolution from classroom teaching, or the "presentation of a religious viewpoint that rejects evolution." Though supporters of the law claimed it would further academic freedom by offering a more "balanced" teaching of life's origins, Brennan argued that its "discriminatory preference for the teaching of creation science" proved the law was anything but balanced. In fact, he noted, Louisiana educators had not been prohibited from teaching any science that challenged evolution.

Justice Antonin Scalia, in his dissent(joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist), challenged the ruling, arguing that just because creation science coincides with the beliefs of certain religions, "a fact upon which the majority relies heavily, does not itself justify invalidation of the [law]." Though Scalia conceded the law would be unconstitutional if there were truly nothing scientific to be taught under the rubric of creation science, he also noted that "the evidence before us in the case record] includes ample uncontradicted testimony that 'creation science' is a body of scientific knowledge."