A Step Toward the Legalization of Science Studies

Abstract

In February 2005, the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Michigan, sought my help as a 'rebuttal witness' for the defence in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a trial scheduled to begin early in the autumn of that year, which would be the first case to test the eligibility of 'intelligent design theory' (IDT) for inclusion alongside the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution in high school biology classes. As a rebuttal witness, my charge was to contradict the claims made by the plaintiffs' witnesses, all of whom were seasoned veterans of related trials involving creationism. However, I learned of their prior experience only once I started preparing for the trial.1 I decided to participate simply after having read the expert witness reports as filed by the plaintiffs' lawyers. These struck me as based on tendentious understandings of the nature of science that would not have survived scrutiny on an informed listserv such as HOPOS-L, let alone the peer review process of a relevant journal. My critical eye was clearly informed by knowledge gained from the science studies disciplines, since I am not a known advocate of or expert in either IDT or Neo Darwinism.2 I may be the first person to declare under oath that knowledge of the history, philosophy and sociology of science provides a better basis for evaluating the scientific standing of a field of inquiry than someone formally trained in science. However, I am not the first whose expertise conformed to this declaration. The testimony of Michael Ruse, a scientific amateur, was the intellectual centerpiece in the verdict delivered in McLean v. Arkansas (1982).3 It was based on a Popper-inspired criterion, according to which the proposed version of creation science failed to be a science by virtue of its reliance on unfalsifiable indeed, infallible Biblical pronouncements about nature. At the time, Ruse was criticized by fellow philosophers for having advanced a largely discredited conception of