Commentary: The Academic as Expert Witness

Abstract

Among the expert witnesses called by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1981, in its successful attack on the Arkansas Creationism law, was a historian and philosopher of science, namely, me. As I have explained elsewhere, my task was to bridge the gap between the theological witnesses and the scientists.' In particular, I had to show, first, that the history of evolutionary theory is not a simplistic story of dogmatic atheistic science crushing sensitive religion and, second, that judged by proper criteria, whereas modern evolutionary theory qualifies as science, Creationism does not. It was the second, philosophical part of my testimony that was the more crucial, and as it happens, the judge in the case, William R. Overton, made it part of his reasoning in denying the constitutionality of the Arkansas law. Listing some five criteria (provided by me) for the scientific status, Overton concluded that the law violated the First Amendment separation of Church and State.2 Shortly after Overton's judgment appeared, an emminent philosopher of science, Larry Laudan, harshly criticized my contribution, arguing that the criteria of demarcation I provided failed to separate science from non-science, and that Creationism (what its present-day supporters like to call Creation-science) should be excluded from the classroom because it is bad science, rather than because it is religion (of whatever kind or value).3 Now, another equally eminent philoso-