Selman v. Cobb County School District
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Selman v. Cobb County School District is a United States in court case Georgia in which a creationist sticker carried in textbooks in Cobb County was found by Federal District Judge Clarence Cooper to violate the establishment clause of the US Constitution.
The disclaimer read:
This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.
Claiming that evolution is "only a theory" without explaining that a scientific theory is a "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" and thus different from "theory" as understood in a colloquial sense to signify "conjecture", "speculation" or "opinion" is a common creationist tactic [1].
Contents |
[edit] Original decision
The original decision in January 2005 decided that the stickers violated the Lemon test, that is:
- The government's action must have a legitimate secular purpose;
- The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion; and
- The government's action must not result in an "excessive entanglement" of the government and religion.
On the first prong, the judge decided that the government's intention was secular;
"the court found that the School Board sought to advance two secular purposes... ...to encourage students to engage in critical thinking... [and] ...to reduce offense to those students and parents whose personal beliefs might conflict with teaching on evolution."
However, it noted that it violated the second prong.
The critical language of the Sticker that supports the conclusion that the Sticker runs afoul of the Establishment Clause is the statement that "[e]volution is a theory, not a fact, concerning the origin of living things." This statement is not problematic because of its truth or falsity, although testimony from various witnesses at trial and the amicus brief submitted by the Colorado Citizens for Science, et al., suggest that the statement is not entirely accurate. Rather, the first problem with this language is that there has been a lengthy debate between advocates of evolution and proponents of religious theories of origin specifically concerning whether evolution should be taught as a fact or as a theory, and the School Board appears to have sided with the proponents of religious theories of origin in violation of the Establishment Clause.
Recently this was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which remanded the case back to the original court for further findings of fact.
[edit] External links
[edit] Anti-creationist links
- http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2004/GA/308_cobb_county_disclaimer_goes_to_11_8_2004.asp
- http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2005/GA/201_victory_in_cobb_county_1_13_2005.asp
- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cobb/selman-v-cobb.html
