The Supreme Court Monkeys Around

In a recent decision the Supreme Court held that a Louisiana law requiring the teaching of “creation science” along with evolutionary biology violates the constitutional mandate against an “establishment of religion.” The statute in question claimed only to advance a “balanced” view of the matters in controversy between two opposing, allegedly “scientific,” views of the world. The Court decided 7 to 2 not to accept this argument. “Creation science,” it said in effect, was a fig leaf for Biblical fundamentalism, and the purpose of the statute was to advance a religious point of view. The minority opinion, written by Justice Scalia and concurred in by Chief Justice Rehnquist, held that the Court had no business questioning the motives of the Louisiana legislators: if they said that their motives were secular and scientific the Court ought to accept their assertions at face value. At this point, let me say that I thoroughly agree with Justice Brennan and the majority: to reason as Scalia and Rehnquist do could justify nearly every Jim Crow law that was ever passed. Who ever heard of a literacy test in Alabama before 1965 that was not designed to keep black citizens from voting? The religious motives of the Louisiana law were equally transparent.

The argument here resembles that between the blind men examining the elephant. One feels the ear and the other the trunk, and neither can understand what the other is talking about. Let me illustrate. I recently saw a PBS series on evolution. A very distinguished scientist was asked about the “missing link” in the archaeological evidence that led from the higher anthropoid apes to man. He said there was no missing link: they were the same species. To prove his point, he showed a videotape of an Olympic gymnast doing his routines on the rings and on the parallel bars, and then one of an orangutan swinging from branch to branch in a forest. His conclusion was: See!

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Harry V. Jaffa

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In a recent decision the Supreme Court held that a Louisiana law requiring the teaching of “creation science” along with evolutionary biology violates the constitutional mandate against an “establishment of religion.” The statute in question claimed only to advance a “balanced” view of the matters in controversy between two opposing, allegedly “scientific,” views of the world. The Court decided 7 to 2 not to accept this argument. “Creation science,” it said in effect, was a fig leaf for Biblical fundamentalism, and the purpose of the statute was to advance a religious point of view. The minority opinion, written by Justice Scalia and concurred in by Chief Justice Rehnquist, held that the Court had no business questioning the motives of the Louisiana legislators: if they said that their motives were secular and scientific the Court ought to accept their assertions at face value. At this point, let me say that I thoroughly agree with Justice Brennan and the majority: to reason as Scalia and Rehnquist do could justify nearly every Jim Crow law that was ever passed. Who ever heard of a literacy test in Alabama before 1965 that was not designed to keep black citizens from voting? The religious motives of the Louisiana law were equally transparent.

The argument here resembles that between the blind men examining the elephant. One feels the ear and the other the trunk, and neither can understand what the other is talking about. Let me illustrate. I recently saw a PBS series on evolution. A very distinguished scientist was asked about the “missing link” in the archaeological evidence that led from the higher anthropoid apes to man. He said there was no missing link: they were the same species. To prove his point, he showed a videotape of an Olympic gymnast doing his routines on the rings and on the parallel bars, and then one of an orangutan swinging from branch to branch in a forest. His conclusion was: See!