Pushing On All Fronts

by tristero

PZ Myers links to a critique of a most remarkable article on legal philosophy by Steven D. Smith. Smith, the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego, is an intelligent design creationist. But in his article, Smith doesn’t discuss the legal issues that have sunk the teaching of creationism so much as try to assault the meta-legal assumptions under which the teaching of creationism is deemed illegal:

[U]nder modern conventions, academic discussion is supposed to be carried on in secular terms, meaning, for the most part, the terms of scientific naturalism and of common sense everyday experience.  In attempting to explain som ehappening or phenomenon, it is perfectly permissible for modern scholars to refer to religion–or to people’s beliefs in God.  By contrast, actual appeals to God, or to anything that looks metaphysically suspicious or exotic, are out of bounds.  As a result of this drastic narrowing of the range of admissible argument or explanation, claims or positions that would once have been framed forthrightly in theological terms now must be translated into more secular terms–or else abandoned. [emphases in original.]

Wow.

It is a mistake, however, to view Smith as a lone nut. Let’s not forget that one of the arguments often advanced to inflict intelligent design creationism on schoolkids is that “modern” science arbitrarily limits and narrows the possible explanations of a given phenomenon solely to the natural, foregoing even the possibility of a transcendental, supernatural explanation. Smith is simply trying the same scam – sorry, I meant to say “argument” – on law. This is all of a piece with Scalia’s highly distorted – sorry, I meant “idiosyncratic” – reading of the Declaration of Independence and of the desire among christianists to overturn the Enlightenment and replace the exercise of reason with appeals to God. If you think I’m kidding or being paranoid, by the way, google up the Wedge Document, for starters, and be sure you put a pillow on the floor to protect your jaw when it drops.

Brian Leiter makes mincemeat of Smith’s thesis. But that won’t stop Smith or other legally-trained christianists from wasting this country’s valuable time confronting and deflecting this crap. Smith’s ideas are part and parcel of a wide intellectual assault, advancing arguments that have been refuted long ago (the Argument From Design was debunked at least as early as the Rennaissance, I think). They should be viewed not merely as crackpot notions to be laughed at (although ridicule is entirely called for) but also as a very dangerous rightwing movement. Consider how much time has been wasted fighting back attempts to redefine science as open to non-scientific explanations. It’s been an incredibly difficult fight. And that is exactly the same kind of stultifying, intellectually vacuous mischief that Smith and his cronies are trying to create in law.