1
1 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
2 ATLANTA DIVISION
3
Jeffrey Michael Selman, )
4 et al., )
Plaintiffs, )
5 )
-vs- ) Civil Action
6 ) No. 1:02-CV-2325-CC
Cobb County Board of ) Volume I
7 Education, et al., ) Pages 1-232
Defendants. )
8
9
10
11 Transcript of the Bench Trial Proceedings
Before the Honorable Clarence Cooper
12 November 8, 2004
Atlanta, Georgia
13
14
15
16 APPEARANCES:
17 On behalf of the Plaintiffs: Michael Eric Manely, Esq.
Gerald Weber, Esq.
18 Margaret Fletcher Garrett, Esq.
19 On behalf of the Defendants: Ernest Linwood Gunn, IV, Esq.
Carol Callaway, Esq.
20
21
22
23
Amanda Lohnaas, RMR, CRR
24 Official Court Reporter
United States District Court
25 Atlanta, Georgia
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
2
1 (Monday, November 8, 2004, 9:30 a.m.; Atlanta,
2 Georgia.)
3 THE COURT: Thank you. Good morning, please be
4 seated. Court is now in session.
5 The following case was set down for trial before me
6 this 8th day of November, 2004. This is a civil action, it
7 being Civil Action Number 1:02-CV-2325-CC involving Jeffrey
8 Michael Selman, et al., Kathleen Chapman, Jeff Silver, Paul
9 Mason and Terry Jackson as plaintiffs versus Cobb County School
10 District, Cobb County Board of Education as defendants.
11 Is counsel for the plaintiff ready to proceed?
12 MR. MANELY: We are, Your Honor.
13 THE COURT: Is counsel for the defendant ready to
14 proceed?
15 MR. GUNN: Yes, sir.
16 THE COURT: Counsel for each party will be given up
17 to 20 minutes to make an opening statement, during which
18 counsel may outline the issues to be addressed by the Court, as
19 well as the evidence to be introduced during the trial of this
20 case.
21 Mr. Manely, you represent the plaintiffs, you may
22 come forward and make an opening statement at this time.
23 MR. MANELY: Your Honor, may we address a brief,
24 couple of pretrial matters?
25 THE COURT: What are they? Approach the bench,
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
3
1 first.
2 MR. MANELY: Yes, sir.
3 (Following proceedings at bench.)
4 THE COURT: Mr. Manely?
5 MR. MANELY: One, we'd like to invoke the rule.
6 THE COURT: No problem.
7 MR. MANELY: Two, there were some issues about some
8 subpoenas being served on the board members. We have worked --
9 THE COURT REPORTER: Judge, I can't --
10 THE COURT: These are procedural matters, they don't
11 need to be recorded.
12 (Off-the-record discussion at the bench.)
13 (Following proceedings in open court.)
14 THE COURT: All witnesses who are now in court who
15 have been subpoenaed to testify in this case, will you please
16 stand?
17 I want all of you to go to the witness room and
18 remain in the witness room until you are called in to testify
19 as a witness in this case. And once you have testified -- hold
20 on one minute, hear me out -- and once you've testified and
21 return to the witness room, you are not to discuss what your
22 in-court testimony was with anyone. Do you understand that?
23 THE WITNESSES: Yes, sir.
24 THE COURT: Okay, thank you. You may be excused at
25 this time.
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
4
1 (Witnesses retire from the courtroom.)
2 THE COURT: As to any witnesses to be called by
3 either side who are not presently in court, so instruct your
4 witnesses when they come to court that they are not to discuss
5 their testimony prior to testifying, nor after testifying, and
6 that they are to remain in the witness room until called to
7 testify in this case.
8 Mr. Manely, do you understand that?
9 MR. MANELY: Yes, sir, I do.
10 THE COURT: Mr. Gunn?
11 MR. GUNN: Yes, Your Honor.
12 THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Manely, you may come forward
13 to make an opening statement on behalf of the plaintiffs at
14 this time.
15 MR. MANELY: Thank you, Your Honor. I'd like to
16 defer to Ms. Garrett to handle that matter.
17 THE COURT: Your name again, Counsel?
18 MS. GARRETT: Maggie Garrett.
19 THE COURT: Ms. Garrett, please come forward.
20 MS. GARRETT: Good morning, Your Honor. And may it
21 please the Court, the case before us today is a case where Cobb
22 County inserted stickers into their science textbooks. These
23 stickers disparage and disclaim a scientific theory while
24 inviting students to consider religious alternatives. This,
25 indeed, gives advantage to religious theories.
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
5
1 In 2001 the administration and the school board went
2 through the process of adopting new textbooks and in 2002
3 ultimately adopted textbooks and the disclaimers. In the
4 process the administration recommended certain science
5 textbooks. These textbooks included evolution.
6 Certain parents complained, many parents complained
7 about the curriculum and the fact that it taught evolution but
8 didn't teach any alternatives, including creationism or
9 intelligent design or other religious alternate theories of
10 origin.
11 Acting on these complaints and some of the concerns
12 of the own school board members, the school board inserted
13 stickers into the evolution textbooks -- I'm sorry, the science
14 textbooks that included evolution. The stickers state: "This
15 textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a
16 theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things.
17 This material should be approached with an open mind, studied
18 carefully, and critically considered."
19 In our case today we'll call the following witnesses.
20 First we're going to call Mr. McCoy. He's a teacher and a
21 chair of the science department at a Cobb County school and
22 he's going to testify to the effect the disclaimers have had on
23 the science curriculum and education at his school.
24 Next we'll call Ms. Rogers. She is a Cobb County
25 parent and she's going to testify that she wanted the
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
6
1 disclaimers in the case. She objected to the textbooks as
2 written because she was concerned that they only taught
3 evolution and did not teach religious alternate theories and
4 theories that taught about a creator.
5 Next we'll call Mr. Moreno. Mr. Moreno is an
6 assistant professor at Emory University and he is going to
7 testify that he and over 100 other professors sent a petition
8 to the school opposing the disclaimers that were placed in the
9 textbook.
10 Next we'll call Mr. Silver, Mr. Selman, and
11 Ms. Chapman. They're plaintiffs in this case and they're going
12 to testify that they're taxpayers, that their children attend
13 Cobb County schools, and that they are offended by the
14 disclaimer.
15 Next we will call the school board members, including
16 Mr. Johnston, Ms. Plenge, Ms. Gray, Mr. Tippins, Ms. Searcy,
17 and Superintendent Redden. They are going to testify to the
18 following: First, they're going to testify that they put the
19 disclaimers in the textbooks to meet the concerns of the
20 parents and some of the board members themselves and that they
21 contemplated intelligent design and creationism being discussed
22 in the classroom.
23 Next, they're going to testify that the disclaimer
24 applies only to evolution and not to any other scientific
25 theories.
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
7
1 They're also going to testify that they rejected
2 alternate language for the disclaimer that would apply to all
3 scientific theories.
4 They'll testify that the only area of the curriculum
5 in all of Cobb County that have the disclaimer is the teaching
6 of evolution. They will testify that the only books that have
7 a disclaimer are books that teach evolution.
8 They'll testify that they did almost no research on
9 the soundness of evolution, the soundness of the idea that
10 there are alternate theories that are scientific.
11 And, finally, they'll testify to the fact that they
12 wanted students to discuss alternate theories in the science
13 classroom.
14 Next we'll call Dr. Miller. He's the author of the
15 biology textbook and he is going to testify as to the content
16 of the book and the effect the disclaimer has on that book.
17 The case before us is not a new or a novel issue.
18 For more than 75 years some citizens have objected to the
19 teaching of evolution in public schools. But in those years
20 every federal court that has come down has said that the
21 religious views of some that contradict science cannot dictate
22 the curriculum.
23 If I may, Your Honor, with your permission, I'd like
24 to briefly set out the legal framework for the evidence to be
25 presented in this case.
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
8
1 THE COURT: Go ahead.
2 MS. GARRETT: In this case we have an establishment
3 clause case, and under the establishment clause cases we apply
4 the Lemon test.
5 The Lemon test says that the disclaimer must, first,
6 serve a secular purpose; second, not convey a message of
7 government endorsement of religion; and, third, not entangle
8 government and religion.
9 This case mostly focuses on the second prong of the
10 Lemon test, the endorsement test.
11 In that test, the Court asks whether a reasonable
12 observer would perceive that the government was endorsing or
13 disparaging religion. The reasonable observer is more than a
14 casual passerby. The reasonable observer's information is not
15 limited to just the text of the disclaimer itself. The
16 reasonable observer knows all of the reasonable facts. And
17 here that includes the text of the disclaimer, the context of
18 the disclaimer, and the history of the disclaimer.
19 The evidence will show that the text itself creates
20 an endorsement of religion. The text says, "Evolution is a
21 theory, not a fact." This discredits evolution.
22 There are two definitions of the word "theory"
23 according to Webster's New World Dictionary. There's a common
24 definition and there's a scientific definition.
25 According to this dictionary, the common definition
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
9
1 is a contemplation or speculation. It then lists theory as a
2 synonym, the scientific theory is listed as a synonym to the
3 common definition of theory, and that is defined as something
4 that implies considerable evidence in support of a formulated
5 general principle explaining the operation of certain
6 phenomena, and then they use as an example the theory of
7 evolution.
8 What the school board does, however, is misuses the
9 definition of theory, even though it's -- they're talking about
10 a scientific theory, it's being used in science curriculum and
11 it's in the science textbook and context, they use the common
12 definition of theory instead of using the scientific definition
13 of theory.
14 And what this does, it makes the theory of evolution
15 appear to be unsound and unsupported. It makes it seems weaker
16 than other scientific theories and this disparages and
17 discredits the theory of evolution.
18 The final sentence of the disclaimer implicitly
19 encourages alternative theories to be considered by students.
20 And, of course, there are only religious alternative theories.
21 The board, in fact, testifies that they want students
22 to discuss in the class these alternative religious theories.
23 This juxtaposition of the disavowal of evolution and the urging
24 of considering religious theories gives advantage to the
25 religious theories and it's exactly what has offended the
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
10
1 federal court in other disclaimer cases.
2 The school board also considered alternative
3 language. The board members will testify that they rejected
4 alternative language that stated, "This textbook contains
5 material on evolution, a scientific theory or explanation for
6 the nature and diversity of living things. Evolution is
7 accepted by the majority of scientists, but questioned by some.
8 All scientific theory should be approached with an open mind,
9 studied carefully, and critically considered."
10 This differs from the language that they ultimately
11 put in the book because it applies to all scientific theories
12 and it admits that a majority of the scientists accept
13 evolution as a sound scientific theory.
14 Testimony will show that some of the board members
15 claimed that the alternate language was too weak. They
16 preferred language that targeted evolution and did not discuss
17 all theories, and they preferred language that asked students
18 to think critically only about evolution and not all other
19 theories.
20 The evidence will also show that the context creates
21 endorsement. The evidence of the placement itself creates
22 endorsement. The sticker was placed by the board -- and the
23 sticker itself acknowledges that it's a statement from the
24 board -- it was placed into required -- textbooks that are
25 required reading for students. They're required in the course
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
11
1 and they're given assignments that they must read.
2 The evidence will demonstrate that it is clearly a
3 message from the board, and it will also demonstrate that this
4 message is given directly to impressionable students who are
5 involuntarily attending school.
6 The evidence will also show that the disclaimer is
7 limited to evolution. Teachers, board members and parents will
8 testify that there are no other disclaimers in any other
9 textbooks, that there are no other disclaimers for any other
10 scientific theories, that there are no other disclaimers for
11 any other school topic at all. And the evidence will show that
12 this is true, even though other religions do actually have
13 conflicts with some of the scientific theories and other topics
14 taught in Cobb County schools.
15 Out of the many science subjects taught in the public
16 schools, the school board chose to affect the teachings of one
17 scientific theory that has historically been opposed by certain
18 religious sects.
19 The reasonable observer's also aware of the history
20 of the disclaimer, and the evidence will show that the history
21 creates a perception of endorsement.
22 In Edwards v. Aguillard, the history -- the court
23 struck down evolution statute saying that the history -- the
24 historic and contemporaneous link between certain religious
25 denominations and the teaching of evolution showed that the
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
12
1 disclaimer was, or that the statute was unconstitutional.
2 The objections to teaching evolution because of
3 religious beliefs have been around since the 1900s. First
4 those who oppose the teaching of evolution wanted to ban
5 evolutional altogether. That took place until Epperson, where
6 they held that you couldn't do that because that was motivated
7 by a religious purpose.
8 The next attempt was to create equal time
9 requirements; that if you are going to teach evolution that the
10 schools have to teach creationism or a religious theory as
11 well. And that ended with Edwards, where they said, again,
12 that it's a religious theory and you cannot teach those in
13 schools.
14 This history is still present today in Georgia.
15 Actually as recently as 1996, the General Assembly in Georgia
16 introduced a bill that would allow school boards to have
17 optional courses in creationism.
18 And this controversy between the teaching of
19 evolution and religious beliefs is present in this case, too.
20 The stickers disparage religion and they falsely assert that
21 evolution is not proven and they are inviting alternate
22 theories. This is a different approach. Instead of having
23 equal time required being taught by the teachers, perhaps it's
24 the students who are bringing in the equal time. But the
25 evidence will show that it's equally religious and the evidence
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
13
1 will show that it's equally unconstitutional.
2 The contemporaneous history also shows that the
3 reasonable observer would perceive that there is religious
4 endorsement.
5 Looking at the background of the school approval, the
6 disclaimer was prompted by citizen complaints, and we will show
7 that the public comment forms that were presented to the Cobb
8 County board, in those forms, the only objection to the
9 textbooks were that they didn't teach religious alternate
10 theories.
11 For instance, they say the debate over origin of life
12 never mentions any theory involving a creator; or, the book
13 never mentions creationism as an alternative theory.
14 And the board members will testify that they adopted
15 the disclaimers to address the parents' concerns.
16 The school board members did no research. They
17 talked to no biologist, no geneticist. They look at no
18 peer-reviewed scientific journals.
19 This clearly fails the second prong of the
20 endorsement test. The text, the context of the history, and
21 the history create a perception of endorsement.
22 The third prong of the Lemon test is the entanglement
23 prong. Even if there were no religious effect, the disclaimer
24 would violate the establishment clause if, in order to avoid
25 that religious effect, the government had to monitor the
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
14
1 activity. The text of the disclaimer implicitly invites
2 religious discussion into the classroom. The school board
3 members will testify that they wanted the students to consider
4 these alternative theories, and the letter from parents that we
5 will show shows that parents understand that children can bring
6 up these alternative theories and are even encouraging their
7 children to do so. And in this discussion of the alternate
8 theories the teachers are in the position as monitors, which is
9 exactly where the entanglement problem comes in.
10 The defendants will argue that this is constitutional
11 for two reasons. First they'll say that the disclaimer just
12 fosters critical thinking; and, second, they'll say that the
13 disclaimer is just there to accommodate religion.
14 Even if these are secular purposes and they can
15 survive the first prong, they can't survive the second and
16 third prong of the Lemon test.
17 First we'll look at accommodation. The reasonable
18 observer will not believe that they are there for
19 accommodation; they'll perceive it as an endorsement of
20 religion. And that's, first, because there are other theories
21 that conflict with religious beliefs that are taught by Cobb
22 County but none of those are disclaimed. So there's no
23 accommodation for those; there's only accommodation, supposed
24 accommodation for this particular religious belief.
25 In addition, this is more than accommodation. They
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
15
1 are not accommodating those particular students who say that
2 they have a conflict with this teaching of science; instead,
3 what they are doing is they're introducing the other students'
4 religious beliefs into the classroom and they're putting in the
5 textbooks for all students and they're asking all students to
6 be involved in this discussion of particular students'
7 religion. So it's beyond accommodation; it's now forcing those
8 particular religious beliefs into the classroom and upon these
9 other students.
10 In addition, they said that it fosters critical
11 thinking. But the evidence of the rejected alternative
12 language shows that, really, the idea of considering critical
13 -- of critical thinking was not the objective and really is not
14 the effect, because if that were, they would not have tailored
15 the disclaimer to only apply to the teaching of evolution.
16 They rejected a disclaimer that asked them to think critically
17 about all scientific theories and instead decided that they
18 wanted one that students only thought critically about
19 evolution.
20 In Doe versus Santa Fe Independent School District,
21 the Supreme Court held that a school policy, that even though
22 it appeared neutral on its face, was unconstitutional because
23 the effect of the policy was to invite and encourage prayer at
24 football games.
25 In a commonsense real world way, the Supreme Court
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
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1 said that it refused to pretend that we do not recognize what
2 every Santa Fe high school student understands so clearly, that
3 this is a policy about prayer. Neither should this Court in
4 this case overlook what every Cobb County student and every
5 Cobb County parent knows about the disclaimer, that this
6 disclaimer is about the discussion of religious alternatives,
7 creationism and intelligent design. Thank you.
8 THE COURT: Let me ask you one question as it relates
9 to the third prong of the Lemon test.
10 Entanglement, excessive entanglement, are you taking
11 a position that you can't discuss an alternate theory without
12 teaching it? Can you discuss without teaching?
13 MS. GARRETT: Well, I think, Your Honor, that the
14 problem is that the teacher will be placed in the position of
15 monitoring the discussion. So the teacher will be in the
16 position of responding, when students say, "I believe in this
17 religious theory," the teacher will have to take a position on
18 these different religious theories and it puts them in the
19 position of trying to not endorse religion and to keep the
20 discussion to the scientific theories.
21 THE COURT: What if a teacher takes the position that
22 I'm here to teach evolution, I do acknowledge that theory and I
23 can't pursue it because my primary goal is to teach evolution?
24 Can they acknowledge it in that context?
25 MS. GARRETT: Yes, Your Honor, but I think the
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
17
1 problem --
2 THE COURT: Would that be excessive entanglement?
3 MS. GARRETT: In that situation it may not be
4 excessive entanglement. I think that this situation, however,
5 differs, because in this situation the school board has made it
6 part of the discussion. The disclaimer says that they want
7 students to think about alternative theories. In fact, one
8 school board member will testify that the disclaimer is a good
9 idea because it shows teachers that these discussions should be
10 held in a classroom.
11 THE COURT: Thank you.
12 Mr. Gunn, let me hear from you and you might want to
13 respond to that at the end of your opening statement.
14 MR. GUNN: Certainly.
15 THE COURT: Thank you.
16 MR. GUNN: Thank you, Your Honor.
17 Your Honor, the Origin of Species was published in
18 1859. Ever since then there have been some people that felt
19 that science and religion on this topic in particular were in
20 hopeless conflict.
21 The Origin of Species relates to the natural friction
22 between science and religion, and Darwin discusses it. He says
23 at one point, "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and
24 death, the most exalted object which we are capable of
25 conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals,
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
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1 directly follows. There is a grandeur in this view of life,
2 with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the
3 Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this
4 planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of
5 gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most
6 beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being,
7 evolved."
8 If you wanted to take that statement by Darwin out of
9 context, I suppose you could argue that was a religious
10 statement. Of course, that's not what the Origin of Species
11 was about.
12 In the same way this case is not about a sticker,
13 which has 33 words on it. It's about textbooks which include a
14 great deal of scientific information about evolution, and they
15 also happen to allow for the belief that evolution doesn't
16 explain everything. You have to look at the context of the
17 quote from Darwin and you have to look at the context of Cobb
18 County School District's actions in this case.
19 If you look at this case in context, what the school
20 district did is to allow for the possibility of religious
21 belief at the same time that we improved our science
22 curriculum.
23 My opponent says there's nothing new and novel about
24 this case, and I'm sure they'll argue that this falls in a long
25 line of cases where courts have uniformly struck down
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
19
1 activities that were deemed religious.
2 What is new or novel is I don't think you'll find any
3 of those cases where there were so many strides made by a
4 government entity to promote the scientific belief that is
5 urged to be in opposition to the religious belief.
6 I think the real issue in this case is whether
7 religious faith and evolution instruction are mutually
8 exclusive or whether they can somehow peacefully coexist.
9 The regulation that the school board adopted, which
10 is what addresses how you actually teach evolution in the
11 classroom, says in part: "It may be appropriate to acknowledge
12 that science itself has limits and is not intended to explain
13 everything and that scientific theories of origin and religious
14 belief are not necessarily mutually exclusive."
15 The unspoken premise of the plaintiffs' case is that
16 evolution instruction and religious belief are in hopeless
17 conflict. That's a logical underpinning of their arguments:
18 The only reason for any attack, any disparagement on evolution
19 is a religious one. They view the case as a set of scales
20 where if you have anything that detracts from evolution, it
21 must inure to the benefit of religion and vice versa.
22 The evidence will show that there were many people in
23 the community who took that same position and there were also
24 those who complained about the board's choice of textbooks.
25 Some people felt that the comprehensive curriculum in the new
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
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1 textbooks, they didn't like it, they didn't like the fact that
2 it approved evolution instruction and they felt that it would
3 compromise their religious beliefs.
4 The plaintiffs don't like the idea that any possible
5 acknowledgment of faith was made, even though it's in a sticker
6 that doesn't say anything about faith, doesn't say anything
7 about religion. And, again, the argument is if there's
8 anything in that sticker that casts doubt on evolution, it must
9 necessarily be religious.
10 What the school board did was they adopted the best
11 textbook you could find and at the same time they recognized
12 this natural friction. The natural friction doesn't just exist
13 in Cobb County schools, the natural friction between science
14 and religion. And they accommodated those who might be
15 offended by the instruction by offering a statement that the
16 material should be approached with an open mind.
17 If I could, I'd like to show you a graphic that gives
18 some of the information from the textbook.
19 I was encouraged that the plaintiffs acknowledge
20 there's a reasonable observer standard that's involved here.
21 The reasonable observer is going to look at this textbook that
22 has 33 words on the inside cover that may create some doubt
23 about evolution. They're probably also going to look at some
24 of the contents of the textbook.
25 Now, this is not all of the contents of evolution.
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
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1 There's 101 pages just in the unit on evolution in this
2 textbook. There were other textbook selections the school
3 board could have made but they selected this one.
4 Chapter 15 deals with -- and these are only the major
5 headings dealing with evolution in this textbook -- The Puzzle
6 of Life's Diversity, Ideas that Shaped Darwin's Thinking,
7 Darwin Presents His Case, Genes and Variation, Evolution as a
8 Genetic Change, The Process of Speciation, The Fossil Record,
9 Earth's Early History, Evolution of Multicellular Life,
10 Patterns of Evolution, Finding Order in Diversity, Modern
11 Evolutionary Classification, and Kingdoms and Domains.
12 A reasonable observer would look, not just on the
13 inside cover, but is probably going to look at what it's
14 attached to.
15 The sticker says, first, that the book contains
16 material on evolution. Now, that's a significant statement
17 because of the history that the reasonable observer is aware
18 of, the context. The previous practice you're going to hear
19 about of the school district was to allow students to opt out
20 of evolution instruction, they said you don't teach evolution
21 in middle schools. And you'll hear about some things that were
22 done to avoid this conflict.
23 The written policy of the school district has stated
24 that the curriculum of the school district would be organized
25 to respect family teachings. And it said -- which is
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22
1 consistent with the position of the plaintiffs -- that the
2 science of evolution was inconsistent with some family
3 teachings. Under this policy evolution was avoided in the
4 classroom. Some textbooks were adulterated, there were pages
5 taken out of textbooks in order to avoid this conflict.
6 The evidence will show that the school district's
7 policy now says, quote, "It's the intent of the board of
8 education that this policy not be interpreted to restrict the
9 teaching of evolution."
10 A reasonable observer is aware that the Cobb County
11 Board of Education has made a public statement of the purposes
12 behind its teaching on evolution, in addition to all the
13 contexts attached to the statement which is the textbook
14 itself.
15 I think it's important to recognize there were no
16 existing textbooks and someone got a religious idea to
17 incorporate information into them. This was a new textbook
18 adoption where they improved what they were teaching and they
19 inserted the sticker into it. The sticker doesn't exist
20 independently of the 101 pages about evolution.
21 The next sentence of the sticker says that,
22 "Evolution is a theory, not a fact."
23 This is an accurate statement. If you look in Ken
24 Miller's book, it says evolution is a theory. It's broader
25 than a fact, it's much broader than a fact, it includes facts,
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
23
1 but it also includes some areas which are not as clear. It's
2 called the theory of evolution and some of the chapter headings
3 refer to evolutionary theory for a reason: It's not a fact.
4 I understand the position that in a science textbook
5 we're taking laymen's language and using it for a sticker, but
6 the fact of the matter is it's a science textbook and a
7 reasonable observer can look up the definition of theory in the
8 unit on evolution and see that a theory is a collection of
9 facts and hypotheses and other principles which explain
10 phenomena in the natural world.
11 THE COURT: You said the textbook acknowledges the
12 fact that evolution is a theory and not a fact. Why would it
13 be necessary to put a sticker in the front of the book to
14 reinforce what was already in the book?
15 MR. GUNN: Well, I think that was because of the
16 community concerns that came out, for one thing, about what
17 else was in the book. The book starts with that proposition,
18 but nowhere in that textbook, you will see, does it say
19 anything about the fact that this may not be all there is. I
20 think that's the idea that's behind the sticker. The statement
21 that it's a theory, not a fact is accurate.
22 Not only that, plaintiffs make the point that this is
23 the only theory that is singled out. You won't hear any
24 evidence that there were individuals that came to the Cobb
25 County Board of Education meetings and complained about the way
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
24
1 we were teaching the theory of gravity, the theory of
2 relativity, cell theory, any other theories that you want to
3 imagine.
4 It's a unique theory, not only because it raises
5 these questions that we're here about today, but it's a unique
6 theory because it's broad, it's an underpinning of biology.
7 And, because of its breadth, it has some areas that are less
8 clear than others and it also offers some unique opportunities
9 for critical thinking exercise because of its breadth. It's
10 not a fact; it's a huge, huge theory.
11 Finally, the statement says that, "the material
12 should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and
13 critically considered."
14 Now, if this is a religious fundamentalist
15 expression, I don't know why they would have said study this
16 information in Unit 15 carefully.
17 I think the key phrase is approach it with an open
18 mind, approach it with the idea that this may conflict with
19 some of your beliefs, but this is what you are going to learn,
20 and those beliefs and this science are not necessarily mutually
21 exclusive, just as they said in the regulation.
22 And, again, if the board's purpose behind all of this
23 was to promote religion, I'm not sure why they would have
24 adopted such a comprehensive text, when they had other
25 alternatives, and then encourage students to study it
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25
1 carefully, and in particular study evolution carefully.
2 The plaintiffs' case is based on these broad
3 generalizations that if it's against evolution, it's for
4 religion. And I think it ignores to some extent the
5 evidentiary burden that they have, the showing that there's
6 actually religion involved, more than saying this is one of the
7 long line of cases.
8 The Supreme Court cases are very clear that you have
9 to consider every establishment clause case in its unique
10 context. This is not a case where there was an existing
11 curriculum which was altered. It's not a case where there was
12 a curriculum which was somehow changed to detract from the
13 evolutionary instruction; it's got comprehensive evolution
14 instruction. They not only expanded what's in the textbook,
15 but they also removed the impediments that were in the policy
16 and the regulation that really relate to teaching the policy.
17 The only objectionable thing, apparently, in this
18 whole sea of evolutionary material was portions of a sticker
19 which neither acknowledges God nor really explicitly
20 acknowledges the limits of science. If you view the action in
21 context, what the school district did was to dramatically
22 improve its evolution instruction.
23 I'd like to briefly address the Lemon test. The
24 purpose, I think you will see in listening to the board
25 members, the board members were not unified. Although they
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26
1 voted that there was some need for a sticker because there was
2 so much outcry about what they were doing, they were not
3 unified in their purpose, although they did see a purpose to
4 trying to get past this point of improving their instruction
5 and actually get the instruction in the classroom. They wanted
6 to accommodate religion and they wanted to promote critical
7 thinking.
8 I think the effect that this sticker had is best
9 shown by the procedural process of this case. This case is a
10 facial challenge to a facially neutral sticker. The plaintiffs
11 had an opportunity for two years to allege that something
12 happened in a classroom, and Mr. Selman will testify that he
13 was looking for an opportunity and was looking to see how Cobb
14 County School District was going to implement what he was
15 concerned about in that sticker.
16 They haven't done it because the sticker doesn't have
17 the effect of promoting religion. The practical commonsense,
18 day-to-day effect, it doesn't have that effect and there's not
19 any evidence that it does.
20 The endorsement issue is an interesting one because,
21 as Your Honor knows, endorsement gives the impression that
22 there's a certain group that are favored insiders and another
23 group that are disfavored outsiders. And I would suggest to
24 you that when you say approach evolution with an open mind,
25 critically consider it, and when you write the things that they
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1 put into their written policy statement of what they believe,
2 what you're saying is not there's a disfavored group of
3 scientists; you're saying we want people to study this subject
4 matter because it's important and it's important enough for us
5 to adopt the best text that we can, while at the same time
6 reassuring those who may have a problem with it, because we
7 don't, and that's what we said in the regulation.
8 The entanglement issue I think, again, if there was
9 entanglement there was an opportunity for two years in the
10 course of this case to show the Court why there was some
11 entanglement and to allege that there was some actual
12 entanglement. And this case started as a request for
13 injunctive relief to take the sticker out of the book and
14 that's where it is today, it never changed in that respect.
15 If we did not have a sticker in the book and if we
16 had just implemented that textbook as is, I think it's beyond
17 the realm of possibility that these issues are not going to
18 arise in the classroom.
19 What you are going to hear in the evidence is these
20 issues arose before, they arise in other school districts, and
21 they're going to arise. And the reason they arise is because
22 Darwin is talking about creation. He doesn't really address
23 how life got there, he talks about how it evolved over time,
24 but it raises the obvious question that anyone who's thinking
25 in a critical way, which is what we want to encourage, well,
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1 how did that life get there? And it's not an issue that's
2 addressed by scientists.
3 If we didn't have a sticker, the same kids whose
4 parents came to the school district and complained about the
5 sticker and complained about how extensive our biology text
6 was, would have been raising these issues in the classroom.
7 There's no reason in the world to think they wouldn't.
8 Children like Mr. Selman's children and other
9 children, they're going to be saying there's no dispute about
10 this, other kids are going to be saying I've read that there's
11 some issues about this aspect of evolution, I'm hearing that
12 chaos theory has some effects on evolutionary theory which
13 makes it unlikely that evolution explains everything as we know
14 it. A legitimate scientific question, not a religious
15 question.
16 Those kinds of things are entanglement in the sense
17 that they raise the issue which ought to be raised and is a
18 legitimate issue but has nothing to do with the government
19 action in this case, which is Cobb County School District
20 implementing a huge text which has 101 pages of evolutionary
21 text in it.
22 THE COURT: Is it the position of the defendants,
23 that is, the school board and the school district, that science
24 and religion can coexist in an educational context without
25 violating the separation of church and state?
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1 MR. GUNN: I think that it's clearly our position, as
2 we stated in the regulation, that the two can coexist. I think
3 the difficulty is the issue Your Honor raised, how is it
4 actually implemented in the classroom, is it implemented in a
5 way to encourage some kind of religious coercion, or is it
6 implemented in such a way to keep it on the science while at
7 the same time acknowledging that religious position has some
8 validity, it's just not what we're here about.
9 I think that's what you'll hear is what we try to
10 instill in our teachers. I think that's the real key.
11 THE COURT: Would the sticker as you view it
12 encourage a discussion of creationism?
13 MR. GUNN: I don't think so. I think it acknowledges
14 an existing conflict.
15 THE COURT: What have teachers been told with regards
16 to the sticker? The science teacher.
17 MR. GUNN: What has a science teacher been told?
18 THE COURT: If a student were to say I want to talk
19 about or discuss another theory, that being creationism.
20 MR. GUNN: Well, I think the idea is, and I think
21 you'll hear about this, the idea is that --
22 THE COURT: What does the teacher say or do?
23 MR. GUNN: Well, there's a scientific discussion and
24 there's a religious discussion and we're going to talk about
25 the scientific discussion; if you want to talk about scientific
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30
1 facts, then we can talk about scientific facts.
2 The issue of faith doesn't have a place in that
3 discussion because it's completely contrary to the scientific
4 method. The whole point is the two don't have to completely
5 counteract each other and you don't have to disrespect
6 someone's position at the time that you get the discussion back
7 on track.
8 The defendant's obligation, Your Honor, again, is
9 neutrality and we have an obligation to those who felt very
10 strongly about this, as well as we have an obligation to
11 Mr. Selman. And you'll hear a little bit about that as well.
12 THE COURT: Thank you.
13 MR. GUNN: Thank you, Your Honor.
14 THE COURT: Okay. I want the plaintiff to call your
15 first witness.
16 MR. MANELY: We'd like to call to the stand Marjorie
17 Rogers.
18 (Pause in the proceedings.)
19 THE COURT: Mr. Manely, was the witness whom you
20 called here earlier?
21 MR. MANELY: Yes, sir.
22 (Pause in the proceedings.)
23 THE COURT: Were there any witnesses in the witness
24 room? We are going to take a 15-minute break. Court will be
25 in recess.
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31
1 (Recess.)
2 THE COURT: Thank you, please be seated. Ask the
3 witness to come forward.
4 Thank you, ma'am. Please come forward. Please step
5 up, face me, and raise your right hand.
6 MARJORIE ROGERS,
7 having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as
8 follows:
9 THE COURT: You may lower your right hand. Please be
10 seated. I want you to make yourself comfortable, and when
11 you're ready, let me know.
12 THE WITNESS: I'm ready.
13 THE COURT: I want you to speak into the microphones.
14 Mr. Manely, your witness.
15 MR. MANELY: Thank you.
16 DIRECT EXAMINATION
17 BY MR. MANELY:
18 Q. Ms. Rogers, would you please state your name for the
19 Court?
20 A. Marjorie Rogers.
21 Q. And you are a resident of Cobb County?
22 A. Yes, sir.
23 Q. And you have a child in school as well; is that right?
24 A. I don't currently have a child in Cobb County schools.
25 Q. In 2002 did you have a child in a Cobb County school?
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1 A. Yes, I did.
2 Q. And I believe that you practice law somewhere near the
3 Marietta Square?
4 A. Yes, sir.
5 Q. Were you around when the school board was considering
6 adopting certain science textbooks?
7 A. Yes, I was.
8 Q. And did you go down to the school board and review those
9 textbooks?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. In the course of reviewing the textbooks, did you have the
12 opportunity to provide a comment on them?
13 A. I had limited opportunity.
14 Q. And the comment was a written comment to the school board
15 raising your concerns or objections?
16 A. I had a couple of different opportunities. When we were
17 invited, we being parents, were invited to come to the, I don't
18 know what they called it, but the textbook review committee had
19 a forum where they invited public comment. They had the
20 textbooks all in a big room and people who were in charge of
21 the textbook adoption committee gave us a little presentation
22 about the process they had been through. And then they gave
23 us, I think it was 30 minutes, maybe, not much time, maybe it
24 was an hour, but it was not a lot of time, was a room full of
25 science textbooks and they said, here they are, look at them
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1 and if you want to make some comments here are some pieces of
2 paper.
3 So I had that opportunity. It was, as I say, not
4 really realistic for me to review all those textbooks in that
5 short amount of time and give any meaningful comments.
6 So at a later time I requested, and was allowed, to
7 look at the books again. I didn't at that time submit any
8 cards. They didn't have any of those -- I mean, not cards,
9 they were sheets of paper. But I wrote up some comments in
10 letter form and submitted those to the board and then I also
11 had an opportunity at the working meeting of the Cobb County
12 school board to make my concerns known. And then I had another
13 opportunity at the actual meeting where they voted on it. So
14 yes.
15 Q. So you attended not only a review of the textbooks, but
16 also the work session and later on the full board meeting where
17 they actually took a vote?
18 A. Yes. Two reviews of the textbooks. One was the formal
19 review and then I went on my own a second time.
20 Q. Do you recall reviewing one of the textbooks called Life
21 Science issued by Prentice Hall?
22 A. Not off the top of my head, but I have some notes if you
23 would allow me to look, or if you have an exert from it I could
24 look at that.
25 MR. MANELY: Your Honor, if it please the Court,
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1 since the witness has expressed a lack of recollection, I would
2 like to be able to refresh her recollection.
3 THE COURT: Sure, you may.
4 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Does that look like your handwriting?
5 A. That is my handwriting.
6 Q. If you could just take a moment to read over your comments
7 and I want to ask you about that.
8 A. Okay. Just this one comment, not the rest of it?
9 Q. We'll just start with that one page.
10 A. Okay.
11 (Pause.)
12 THE WITNESS: Okay, I've read it.
13 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Do you recall, after having refreshed
14 your recollection, that you commented, one of your concerns
15 about this book is that it teaches origins of man from
16 bacteria?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Do you also recall that one of your complaints was that
19 the textbook presented no alternate theories?
20 A. Well, I said that there was no evidence for evolution,
21 just theories made by people who believe in evolution. No
22 alternate theory presented, yes, I did say that. No
23 opportunity to exercise critical thinking with two possible
24 theories presented, there was just the one theory presented.
25 There weren't any criticisms of that prevailing theory and no
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1 other theories were presented.
2 Q. Other theories that you're talking about there would
3 include, I believe, creationism?
4 A. It could.
5 THE COURT: Don't lead the witness, please.
6 MR. MANELY: All right.
7 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Would one of the theories be creationism?
8 A. It could be.
9 Q. Would one of the theories be intelligent design?
10 A. It could be.
11 Q. And are those some of the alternate theories that you're
12 thinking about there?
13 A. Sure.
14 Q. Let me ask you to flip to the front of the packet. Do you
15 recall reviewing -- before you do that, let me see if you need
16 your recollection refreshed. Do you recall reviewing a title
17 called Biology by the authors Campbell, Reece, and Mitchell?
18 A. Yes, I do.
19 Q. Do you recall what your complaints were about that text?
20 A. That had a very offensive passage, in my mind, where it
21 presented evolution as a fact. The heading for the text was
22 "What is Theoretical about the Darwinian View of Life" and the
23 discussion that follows it says that there really isn't any
24 kind of question that evolution happened. It presents it, just
25 blatantly said it is a fact, evolution did happen. You know, I
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
36
1 would love for you to read that whole passage.
2 But, at any rate, and then it says the only question
3 that remains open to debate is how it happened, whether or not
4 it was, you know, by natural selection or other processes made
5 it happen, but that there was absolutely no question, it says,
6 let's see --
7 MS. CALLAWAY: Your Honor, I -- Carol Callaway. I
8 object to her reading from the material that she's been shown.
9 She can refresh her --
10 THE COURT: It was given to her to refresh her
11 memory. If you need to refresh your memory you can do that
12 before answering, just don't read that.
13 THE WITNESS: All right. It says there's no question
14 about how life --
15 THE COURT: Ma'am, don't read it.
16 THE WITNESS: The only question is how it happened,
17 as opposed to that it did happen, evolution happened.
18 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Do you remember in this complaint talking
19 about the fact it had an interview with Richard Dawkins?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And do you remember raising the question why is his theory
22 given prominence over creation science theories?
23 A. Yes, that's what I wrote here. But, again, this was those
24 pieces of paper that they gave me when I had 30, 45 minutes to
25 review a room full of books, just slapping down something on a
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37
1 piece of paper in a big time hurry. You know, I wish I had had
2 more time to reflect and think and consult and make a more
3 intelligent response.
4 Q. You kind of had to go with your gut?
5 A. Yeah, yeah. And I was outraged because Richard Dawkins
6 was interviewed and he made a statement, something like humans
7 are fundamentally not exceptional, they're just evolved from
8 the same common ancestors as, you know, everything, rats and
9 bugs and everything else. And that totally offended me and I
10 don't believe there's any science to support that.
11 Q. Okay. Although the science text certainly addresses a lot
12 of science to support that, didn't it?
13 A. Well, that's kind of the whole problem. It only presented
14 science that supports it; it didn't present any science that
15 criticizes it. And presented a lot of science that it says
16 supported it that has actually been disproven and outdated and
17 is just not true.
18 Q. Now, currently we're talking about a biology text, right?
19 A. Correct.
20 Q. And it's at least 500 pages long, is it not?
21 A. I don't know that. It was a big book.
22 Q. Okay. Do you recall commenting or complaining about page
23 497, that it never mentioned a creator?
24 A. Yes. I said that on this piece of paper.
25 Q. So this biology science textbook is at least 497 pages
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1 long, correct?
2 A. Yes, that would be true.
3 Q. Now, from reviewing the texts, I take it when you reviewed
4 the text there was no disclaimer in the text; is that right?
5 A. Correct.
6 Q. I take it at the time what you were looking at was a nice
7 big text without the imposition of the Cobb school board's
8 statements upon it; is that correct?
9 A. It was a big textbook.
10 Q. But it didn't have the imposition of --
11 A. It did not have a sticker.
12 Q. Okay. As a result of your textbook review, did you start
13 to gather, put together a petition?
14 A. Yes. But that wasn't immediate. In the line of the
15 events of things that came after the working meeting that I
16 attended.
17 Q. Okay. Did it come before the adoption of the textbook?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And I understand that you went among the community far and
20 wide and gathered somewhere around 2300 signatures?
21 A. Well, I personally didn't, but, yes, there were 2300,
22 approximate, signatures gathered.
23 Q. From folks in Cobb County and the environs?
24 A. Cobb County, exclusively Cobb County.
25 Q. And I understand that you wanted the school board to do
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
39
1 certain things as a result of the petition; is that right?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Let me know if you don't happen to recall what they are
4 because we have copies that will help refresh your
5 recollection.
6 A. I have not read the language on the petition in a while.
7 Q. Okay, let me hand you -- I'll retrieve the other document
8 since we're done with it.
9 A. Okay.
10 Q. Let me hand you copies of your petition. If you can just
11 take a moment and read the heading there.
12 A. Out loud?
13 Q. No, just to yourself.
14 (Pause.)
15 THE WITNESS: I've read it.
16 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Now that you've had an opportunity to
17 refresh your recollection, do you recall that one of the things
18 your petition said you wanted the school board to do is clearly
19 identify presumptions and theories and distinguish them from
20 fact?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. So to say: This is a theory, not a fact, this is a
23 theory, this is a fact, that sort of thing?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Okay. Where a textbook violates that rule, you want the
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
40
1 student to be notified; is that right?
2 A. Where a textbook violates what rule? I'm confused.
3 Q. The rule that it doesn't clearly identify theory from
4 fact, you want the student notified?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Yes? All right. You want the Cobb school board to make
7 sure that all theories are presented; is that correct?
8 A. Well, you know, they've got in there the theory that life
9 came from outer space, and, you know, if they've got something
10 that far out I think that anything that is close to having that
11 much credibility at least should be included.
12 I just want an even footing, you know, if there's any
13 kind of a scientific support for a theory. I don't want
14 something out there that has no scientific support. So if
15 you're going for if I want religion taught, I don't, okay?
16 It's got to be science in a science textbook.
17 Q. Now, we've just had an opportunity to look through the
18 three pages of comments that you have written over textbook
19 review.
20 A. Yes, sir.
21 Q. And nowhere in them was there any complaint that one of
22 the textbooks taught that life came from outer space, was
23 there?
24 A. I had not had an opportunity to review them. On my second
25 review of the textbooks I was stunned and dismayed in two of
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41
1 them to find that that theory was actually presented to the
2 students, yes, that life actually came from outer space as a
3 viable theory that was presented in two of those textbooks.
4 Q. What textbooks were those?
5 A. Let me see, if you give me a second I'll try to find them.
6 Biology by Campbell, Mitchell, and Reece, I think is one of
7 them, if you've got that handy. And I'm sorry, I need just a
8 minute to find that. I've got a copy of the page but I can't
9 tell you what book it came out of. It says Chapter 26, "Early
10 Earth and Origin of Life," page 497, "It's possible that at
11 least some organic compounds reached the early Earth from
12 space" --
13 MR. GUNN: Your Honor, objection.
14 THE COURT: I'm going to let that in. Objection
15 overruled. Thank you, you just want to be specific. You don't
16 recall the name of the text, though?
17 THE WITNESS: No, sir, I don't, but I have a copy. I
18 mean, you could figure it out from looking, it's page 497, just
19 look through all the 11 books and figure out which one that is.
20 Q. (By Mr. Manely) So if I understand you correctly, perhaps
21 I misunderstood your concern, it's not that life came to Earth
22 fully formed from outer space, like spacemen, but that life
23 came in the form of organic compounds, perhaps, to Earth?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Okay. You had mentioned the Campbell, Reece, Mitchell
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42
1 book as containing this. Perhaps it will help to refresh your
2 recollection again, but while I notice that you said that
3 Darwinism promotes atheism, I don't see anywhere where you
4 complain about life coming from outer space.
5 A. Well, again, in those little handouts on that one
6 particular day where I had the opportunity to fill out those
7 forms, I didn't have the time to read all the textbooks with
8 any kind of thoroughness.
9 Q. May I see the pages you were just looking at?
10 A. Yes, if I can find it here. Here it is.
11 Q. Thank you.
12 A. You're welcome. I think there's another one, too.
13 Q. Okay. And, again, you were refreshing your recollection
14 about your concern about organic compounds coming from space
15 from a science textbook that the Cobb school board was
16 considering adopting; is that right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And whichever science textbook that was, that was on page
19 497; is that right?
20 A. Yes, sir. This was something I had an opportunity, the
21 second time I went to review the textbooks, I had a little more
22 time and at that point that's when I found that.
23 Q. Let me hand you back your comment record there,
24 specifically about the textbook Biology, Campbell, Reece, and
25 Mitchell, one of the texts you cited as talking about organic
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
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1 compounds coming from space. Do you recall making a specific
2 reference to page 497 in the Campbell, Reece text?
3 A. What you've handed me has page 497 and it could have been
4 the same book. I don't know.
5 Q. All right. And your comment on 497 was that the debate
6 over the origin of life never mentions any theory involving a
7 creator; is that right?
8 A. That's what my comment was at that time, at that meeting.
9 Q. But nothing about --
10 A. But that certainly doesn't mean that -- I mean, I was in a
11 big rush. I was trying to write things down as fast as I
12 could, reading through stacks of books and flipping them and
13 jumping around. That certainly doesn't mean that was the only
14 thing I objected to on that page or to that book or to any
15 other book. I didn't fill out these cards for every single
16 book, you'll notice, and I certainly didn't exhaustively review
17 them.
18 Q. All right. So at least at that time the only thing that
19 concerns you about page 497 was its failure to mention the
20 creator?
21 A. That's all I wrote down. I can't say that that's all I
22 was concerned about.
23 Q. Let's go back to your petition. One of the things we were
24 just talking about is that you want the Cobb school board to
25 present all theories, which took us off on the tangent of
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1 organic compounds coming from space. So except for that
2 theory, which you don't want presented, would some of the
3 theories as we talked about before include intelligent design?
4 A. I did not say I did not want that one presented. My thing
5 is I want all theories that have a scientific foundation, that
6 are scientifically accepted by scientists with science behind
7 them, to be given equal treatment.
8 Those that are more prominent, obviously, such as
9 Darwinian evolution, would have the lion's share of the text
10 material devoted to them. That's fine, I don't have any
11 problem with that.
12 My problem is that only Darwinian evolution is
13 presented. None of the criticisms were presented and none of
14 the theories which support other ideas are given any mention.
15 I don't expect them to be given equal footing. If there's one
16 that's more prominent it should have more --
17 Q. So back to my question. Is one of the theories you want
18 presented intelligent design?
19 A. I would like it to be presented, yes, as long as it's
20 presented in a scientific way. I don't want the Bible taught
21 in the science room.
22 Q. And intelligent design --
23 A. I think intelligent design, as I understand it, I'm not a
24 scientist, but as I understand it there is a wealth of science
25 that supports the theory of intelligent design and --
Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
45
1 Q. Ma'am, ma'am --
2 A. Excuse me.
3 Q. -- do I --
4 THE COURT: Let her give her answer.
5 Go ahead, ma'am, finish.
6 THE WITNESS: And to that extent I think it's
7 appropriate and to the extent that it is accepted by a growing
8 number of scientists, I see no reason in not having a free
9 marketplace of ideas. And I believe the truth will rise to the
10 top. Children or students should be given all science and then
11 given the opportunity to decide which theory they believe.
12 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Do you understand any of the tenets of
13 intelligent design?
14 THE COURT: Any of the what?
15 MR. MANELY: Tenets.
16 THE WITNESS: Give me an example. I don't know what
17 you mean.
18 THE COURT: What do you mean by tenets? Explain it
19 to her.
20 MR. MANELY: Okay.
21 Q. (By Mr. Manely) One of the principles being that it
22 posits the existence of a designer.
23 A. That life was designed, yes.
24 Q. By some intelligence, does it not?
25 A. Yes, there's intelligence behind it. But it could be
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1 Buddha. I mean, it could be -- I don't know -- it could be any
2 kind of intelligence. It doesn't go so far as crossing the
3 line into religion to describe what form that intelligence
4 takes. It's just a scientific conclusion from science that
5 there are so many patterns evident, like DNA and all of these
6 things that are so particularly laid out that they could have
7 not have happened by random chance, that there had to have been
8 a design in place for these things to have happened.
9 Q. Would you consider yourself an adherent to intelligent
10 design?
11 A. Not really. I'm a creationist. I'm a six-day, literal
12 biblical creationist myself. But I don't purport that that
13 should be taught in school because it's not science; it's my
14 faith.
15 Q. So when you were reviewing Campbell, Reece, Mitchell's
16 book, complaining about pages 425 through -26 -- excuse me, 412
17 to 413, that it didn't reference creation scientist theories,
18 you didn't really intend for the school to teach that, did you?
19 A. I would love it if they would teach science.
20 Q. Creation scientists?
21 A. As long as it's not based on the Bible, as long as it's
22 based on science, yes.
23 Q. One of the things, according to the petition, that you
24 wanted the Cobb school board to do was to place a statement
25 prominently at the beginning of the text which warns students;
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1 is that right?
2 A. I believe -- is that the language I used? I forget.
3 Which one is that? Which number?
4 Q. If it helps to refresh your recollection, it's item number
5 3.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Yes, is that right, you wanted the Cobb school board to
8 place a statement prominently in the beginning of the text
9 which warns the students?
10 A. That was my third choice. But, yes, I thought that would
11 be the least they could do, is let the students know that the
12 material that they were about to be reading is not factual, but
13 rather theory.
14 Q. All right.
15 A. My first choice was that they should provide supplemental
16 information which fills in the holes of facts that are missing
17 and exposes the material in the textbook that was not factual.
18 That was my first choice.
19 Q. Would you not seek a disclaimer on all, on texts that have
20 all scientific theories that are debatable?
21 A. Such as -- I don't really understand what you mean.
22 Q. Would it not be in the best interest of the children to
23 have a disclaimer on all scientific theories that are
24 debatable?
25 A. That are debatable? What do you mean by that are
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1 debatable? I mean, there's the theory of gravity.
2 Q. Yes.
3 A. No, I don't think you need -- I don't know of any science,
4 and I could be wrong, I'm not a scientist, if there is science
5 that would dispute the theory of gravity, then they should be
6 taught that science.
7 Q. So you have no problem with the germ theory, then?
8 A. I don't know anything about the germ theory.
9 Q. You aren't aware the Christian Scientists do have a
10 concern about the germ theory?
11 A. No, don't know anything about the germ theory. But if
12 they're science, I mean, why are you censoring science?
13 Science is science.
14 Q. Well, I take it that you would leave it to the scientists
15 to determine what science is?
16 A. Yes, I would.
17 Q. I understand that you submitted this 2300-signature
18 petition to the board; is that right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. I understand later on that you wrote a letter to the board
21 on May 23, 2002; is that correct?
22 A. I know I wrote them a letter.
23 Q. Pardon?
24 A. I know I wrote them a letter. I don't know the date.
25 Q. Perhaps this will help refresh your recollection.
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1 A. Thank you. Okay, this is after the sticker had already
2 been passed.
3 Q. And you were addressing the school board, that you wanted
4 a response to some particular requests; is that right?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. If I understand correctly, one of the things that you were
7 asking the school board to do -- and if you need to read your
8 letter for a moment to refresh your recollection before you
9 respond, feel free to -- is that you wanted specific provisions
10 and new policies and guidelines regarding the teaching of the
11 theories of origin for teachers to be secure in their right to
12 discuss criticisms of neo-Darwinian theories and to discuss
13 alternative theories of origin; is that correct?
14 A. Correct. I know a lot of teachers were intimidated by
15 people that were in favor of evolution and threatened and --
16 Q. Ma'am, I'm not seeking hearsay.
17 A. Well, that was the reason why I put this in here, is
18 because I was concerned that teachers had expressed a fear
19 of --
20 MR. MANELY: Your Honor, I have to ask --
21 THE WITNESS: -- of an honest discussion.
22 MR. MANELY: -- her testimony --
23 THE WITNESS: Sorry.
24 THE COURT: Try to confine your answers to his
25 questions. If you don't understand, so indicate so he can
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1 rephrase it.
2 But be more precise in your questioning, Counselor,
3 okay?
4 Q. (By Mr. Manely) I understand also from your letter that
5 you were wanting the school board to provide students materials
6 such as, for example, Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells; is
7 that right?
8 THE COURT: Can you say yes or no? And then you can
9 explain your answer.
10 THE WITNESS: Yes. I think that was on my list.
11 Wait a minute, let me look down here on my list. Yes, that's
12 on the list.
13 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Another one is publications listed by the
14 Discovery Institute; is that right?
15 A. And submitted to the Ohio State Board of Education, yes,
16 that's on the list.
17 Q. Now, you're familiar with the Discovery Institute being
18 probably the leading proponent of intelligent design in the
19 United States?
20 A. I don't know if that's true or not. I know of the
21 Discovery Institute.
22 Q. Are you aware that it is a proponent of intelligent
23 design?
24 A. Yes, I am.
25 Q. Do you know what the -- how the National Academy of
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1 Sciences defines scientific theory?
2 A. No, I don't.
3 Q. And I take it you do some reading in the course of your
4 coming up with certain opinions; is that right?
5 A. Yes. I hope you're not going to quiz me.
6 Q. Pardon?
7 A. I hope you're not going to quiz me.
8 Q. In a manner of speaking. And I assume that you're pretty
9 inquisitive when you look for truth; is that right?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. In the course of your searching for truth, did you have an
12 opportunity to read Scientific American's issue on evolution?
13 A. No.
14 Q. In your search for truth, did you have an opportunity to
15 read this month's National Geographic?
16 A. This month's?
17 Q. Yes.
18 A. Are you talking about now or then?
19 Q. Now.
20 A. Yeah, I saw that.
21 Q. Okay. Have you had an opportunity to read it?
22 A. I don't want to be quizzed on it. I looked at it. You
23 scare me when you say have you read it, I'm afraid you --
24 THE COURT: You said you looked at it. Did you read
25 it?
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1 THE WITNESS: Yes.
2 THE COURT: Okay, she read it.
3 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Okay. So you recall that National
4 Geographic's answer to was Darwin wrong was no?
5 A. I came away with not with that strong of a no. No, I
6 don't agree with that. But, you know, that was after this
7 whole school board thing. What does that have to do with
8 anything?
9 Q. Just curious as to how interested you really are, ma'am.
10 That's all I have, ma'am. Thank you.
11 THE COURT: Thank you. Mr. Gunn?
12 Let me ask one question before you start your
13 cross-examination.
14 Was the petition for which you collected 2300
15 signatures motivated by a desire to have creationism taught
16 alongside evolution?
17 THE WITNESS: No, sir.
18 THE COURT: What motivated this petition drive on
19 your part?
20 THE WITNESS: The inaccuracies in the textbooks. The
21 textbooks contained -- and I would love to have an opportunity
22 to go through them but I sense that you all don't want me to --
23 that the textbooks contained inaccurate information and
24 excluded any information which would be critical of Darwinian
25 evolution and I felt that was intellectually dishonest and
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1 amounted to something, I guess, akin to censorship, did not
2 give the students the opportunity to view evidence on both
3 sides of the controversy.
4 I mean, they acted like there wasn't even a
5 controversy, it's all fact. As you review it they show these
6 charts where they show on one side a bacteria, they work their
7 way around and on the other end is a human and that happens
8 throughout the textbooks. It's just presented as a fact.
9 And the passage that we referred to just a minute ago
10 says that it's a fact, the only question that remains is the
11 process by which it happened.
12 That's just not true. I know there's a controversy
13 in the scientific world about whether or not it is a fact and
14 it was intellectually dishonest to me that our textbooks didn't
15 disclose that to the students.
16 THE COURT: Thank you.
17 You may begin your cross-examination.
18 MS. CALLAWAY: Thank you, Your Honor.
19 CROSS-EXAMINATION
20 BY MS. CALLAWAY:
21 Q. Ms. Rogers, we've met and talked briefly.
22 A. Yes, ma'am.
23 Q. When you went to the board meetings, you went to several
24 board meetings to present your ideas?
25 A. I think three.
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1 Q. Three, and those board meetings were open to the public --
2 A. Yes, ma'am.
3 Q. -- is that true? And there were, would you say, a good
4 many people there?
5 A. At the first one it was just myself and my girlfriend that
6 I brought for support.
7 Q. What about at the others?
8 A. The others were crazy. There were -- I mean, it was lined
9 with, the last one in particular, they had TV cameras. I mean,
10 it was a zoo.
11 Q. And would it be fair to say that all kinds of opinions
12 were listened to that day?
13 A. Oh, yes.
14 Q. All across the spectrum?
15 A. Very strong opinions, yes, ma'am.
16 Q. You've discussed some critiques you had about various
17 science texts. Was that all the books that were out there for
18 comment? Did you have a chance to critique all of them?
19 A. I think so.
20 Q. And did you find things that were wrong about all of them?
21 A. Yes, ma'am.
22 Q. Every science book that was proposed, you found something
23 wrong?
24 A. Every single one of them had something in there that was
25 either not true, had been disproven, had been abandoned even by
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1 those who support evolution. I mean, all these, you know --
2 it's just a long list. I know you don't want me to go through
3 it.
4 Q. Now, is it your contention that the text as adopted has
5 any religious content to it?
6 A. The text?
7 Q. Uh-huh.
8 A. Yeah, to me it does. I think it's atheistic and secular
9 humanism. And evolution as it's presented, you can't prove it
10 with science, it's not like -- real science is testable and you
11 can re-create the same result, that's what makes science.
12 And by its nature the whole theory of origins can't
13 be re-created, can't be tested. So it's not science in the
14 pure science form. It's nothing but a theory or a belief
15 system.
16 And in my mind the belief system that is presented
17 there is one of atheism. I mean, in several places it contains
18 slams against people who would dare to think that there could
19 be some supernatural element. There were two or three excerpts
20 that I could tell you about if you would let me.
21 Q. That's okay, I understand what you're saying.
22 A. Okay. There were several places in the textbook where
23 they went so far as to just ridicule the idea of any kind of
24 supernatural element. So they crossed the line, in my mind,
25 from science into a belief system and went so far as to
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1 criticize those who would have theistic beliefs.
2 Q. Now, after the adoption of the sticker, which was in March
3 of 2002, you wrote a letter to the board in April of 2002. Do
4 you recall that letter? May I show you that?
5 A. Please, yes. Thank you.
6 MR. MANELY: Excuse me, may I see it?
7 MS. CALLAWAY: Pardon me, sure.
8 THE WITNESS: Thank you. Yes, ma'am.
9 Q. (By Ms. Callaway) I would like to ask you some questions.
10 A. Where is the letter that I wrote them that had the
11 textbook excerpts? Has nobody presented that?
12 Q. I don't think I have that.
13 A. That goes through textbook by textbook and has excerpts
14 from each of the textbooks of things that are not true and
15 things that are disputed, and I wish we had that.
16 Q. Let me ask you about these things that --
17 A. Okay, I'm sorry, sure.
18 Q. It's my understanding that you had some concern about the
19 disclaimer, as you called it?
20 A. Yes, ma'am.
21 Q. The sticker?
22 A. Yes, I did.
23 Q. Were you -- you didn't like the sticker?
24 A. Didn't make me happy, didn't think it went far enough.
25 Q. What didn't you like about the sticker? What did you ask
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1 the board to do?
2 THE COURT: First of all, what was it you disliked
3 about the sticker? Then tell us what you asked the board to
4 do.
5 THE WITNESS: Again, off the top of my head -- do you
6 have the sticker language there?
7 THE COURT: I have it, I'll let her see my copy.
8 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Judge, I appreciate it.
9 Okay, the sticker says --
10 THE COURT: In the middle of the page.
11 THE WITNESS: Thank you. Well --
12 THE COURT: You better read it, want to make sure
13 we're talking about the same sticker.
14 THE WITNESS: All right. It says: "This textbook
15 contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a
16 fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material
17 should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and
18 critically considered."
19 And, you know, again, I guess my primary
20 disappointment with that is that it didn't go -- it was just a
21 sticker. It didn't go into the fact that there are criticisms
22 by other scientists and there is a lot of science which would
23 go against the theory and it just didn't go far enough, in my
24 mind.
25 And I was a little concerned about the loose use of
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1 the term "evolution" because, you know, evolution as far as
2 changes within a species is a scientific fact. I don't know of
3 anybody that disputes that you can crossbreed corn and get
4 sweeter corn or yellower corn or you can take a bunch of dogs
5 and crossbreed them and get different kinds of dogs, but you're
6 still going to end up with a dog or you're still going to end
7 up with corn. That kind of microevolution stuff is science and
8 I was afraid that it was a little vague on that.
9 Q. Did you ask the board to clarify?
10 A. Yes, I did.
11 Q. What did you ask them to do?
12 A. I asked them to clarify that microevolution versus
13 macroevolution distinction. I think that's all I said. I
14 don't remember.
15 Q. And did the board clarify that?
16 A. No.
17 Q. You asked the board to offer electives, I believe?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And what was the nature of that? What did you want done
20 about electives?
21 A. Well, there are electives on comparative religions. There
22 are electives on all kinds of kind of out there subjects. And
23 I thought a subject of this much importance and this much
24 interest, that it would just make sense to me, if you didn't
25 want to offer it in a mainstream biology course, to offer it as
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1 an elective for those students that might be interested in
2 studying it. If we can teach them about Hinduism and Buddhism
3 and comparative religions, then why couldn't we teach them on
4 theories of origin as an elective if they want to take it.
5 Q. And did the school board do that?
6 A. No. They were not listening to me. I think they thought
7 I was kind of a raving lunatic at that point.
8 Q. You asked them to provide supplements?
9 A. Yes, I did. They didn't do that, either.
10 Q. They didn't do that, either. In fact, did the school
11 board do any of these things that you --
12 A. They didn't do anything I wanted them to do.
13 Q. Okay.
14 A. You know, I'm glad they did what they did, I don't mean to
15 sound like that. I think, you know, it was marginally
16 effective. It was better than nothing, certainly better than
17 nothing.
18 Q. Have you had a chance to review the Cobb County's policies
19 and procedures?
20 A. Yes. And the regulations --
21 Q. And the regulations?
22 A. -- implemented after that, yes, I've looked at those.
23 Q. And do you disagree with those?
24 A. Again, I'm disappointed that they don't go so far as to
25 give the teachers a warm, fuzzy feeling about really delving
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1 into alternate theories. I think it does give the teachers
2 some leeway to discuss scientific criticisms of Darwinian
3 evolution, maybe, but --
4 Q. But it just doesn't go far enough?
5 A. It doesn't really, no, in my mind, go far enough.
6 MS. CALLAWAY: Thank you very much.
7 THE COURT: Sure. Do you wish to recross --
8 MR. MANELY: Yes, please, sir.
9 THE COURT: -- redirect the witness?
10 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
11 BY MR. MANELY:
12 Q. Do you still have the comments for the text up there with
13 you?
14 A. Yes. These that you gave me?
15 Q. Yes.
16 A. Yes. There's this letter you gave me, too, if you want it
17 back.
18 Q. Sure, thank you.
19 Now you say that evolution is not testable; is that
20 right?
21 A. In a purely scientific re-creating of the same result over
22 and over and over again, which is my understanding of that, no,
23 it's not.
24 Q. Okay. And you're not a scientist, right?
25 A. No, I'm not.
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1 Q. You're saying that evolution is not a fact; is that right?
2 A. I think everyone would agree to that, yeah.
3 Q. But you're not a scientist, correct?
4 A. No.
5 Q. All right. So you couldn't be qualified to talk to us
6 about the evolution of the horse and how that proves evolution,
7 could you?
8 A. It doesn't prove evolution.
9 Q. You wouldn't be qualified to speak on that, would you?
10 A. That would be up to the judge. I've read about it and I
11 know there are scientists that have exposed that as an unviable
12 support for evolution.
13 Q. How about the evolution of Rhagoletis palmetto?
14 A. I don't know about that.
15 Q. You're not prepared to show how that doesn't prove
16 evolution, correct?
17 A. I don't know what that is.
18 Q. How about Hawthorn and apple flies?
19 A. I don't know what that is.
20 Q. It's because you're not a scientist, right?
21 A. Maybe, or maybe it's because I haven't read about it. I
22 can read about science and not be a scientist.
23 Q. Now, you asked that the school board place a statement
24 prominently at the beginning of the text which warns students
25 that some of the information contained in the book is not
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1 factual, but rather theory, didn't you?
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 Q. And you got that, didn't you?
4 A. I suppose in a sense I did, yes.
5 Q. You asked that the school board craft a policy and
6 guideline regarding the theories of origin so the teachers
7 would be secure in their right to discuss criticisms of
8 neo-Darwinian theories and to discuss alternate theories of
9 origin, didn't you?
10 A. I asked for that, yes.
11 Q. And you got that, didn't you?
12 A. No, sir, I would disagree with you on that. I don't think
13 they went far enough on that.
14 Q. All right. So if the policies do promote the discussing
15 of criticisms and alternate theories, then you would say you
16 did get what you were looking for there?
17 A. If they did, yes. But they don't.
18 Q. When you're referring to the supernatural, are you also
19 referring to the divine?
20 A. You've got my head spinning. I don't know what you mean
21 by that.
22 Q. You were talking about the science books talking about how
23 they can't tackle the supernatural, that's not the realm of
24 science.
25 A. No, no, no, no, no. What I said was they crossed that
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1 line, they did address the supernatural.
2 Q. Are you referring, by supernatural, to, say, for example,
3 creator?
4 A. The textbook that Cobb County paid $7 million for talks
5 about supernatural.
6 Q. Ma'am, what I asked --
7 A. If I could read you the quote of exactly what it said I
8 think it would be helpful.
9 Q. What I'm asking you is when you talked about the
10 supernatural, are you talking about, for example, the creator?
11 A. When I talk about it?
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. Sure. But it's not what I talk about that is of concern
14 to this court, it's what the textbooks that are put in the
15 hands of these students talks about. And that is where a
16 science textbook talking about supernatural stuff and slamming
17 it, now, if it's going to do that then it's got to have
18 something on the other side or it -- it doesn't even need to be
19 in there to begin with. But since it was in there, you've got
20 to present both sides. Once you cross that line out of science
21 into talking about supernatural stuff, then you better be
22 careful. You've got to present both sides.
23 Q. And I understand that you wanted the school board to offer
24 electives on comparative religion, for example?
25 A. No. There already is an elective on comparative religion.
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1 Q. You talked about it would be nice to know what the Hindus
2 believe, I think was something you were talking about on --
3 A. I said that the students are allowed to learn what the
4 Hindus believe and I don't have a problem with that. I think
5 students should be taught the theory of evolution, I think they
6 should be taught Hinduism, I think they should be taught
7 everything.
8 I mean, why would you not want a child's education to
9 include all beliefs and then let them decide for themselves?
10 It's an insult to their intelligence to limit what they're
11 taught.
12 MR. MANELY: Thank you.
13 THE COURT: Any questions on recross-examination?
14 MS. CALLAWAY: No, sir.
15 THE COURT: Thank you very much. You may be excused.
16 May she be excused?
17 MR. MANELY: Yes, Your Honor.
18 MR. GUNN: Yes, Your Honor.
19 THE COURT: You may be excused, thank you very much.
20 Call your next witness.
21 MR. MANELY: Your Honor, we would like to call --
22 THE WITNESS: Do you want these?
23 THE COURT: Leave them there.
24 THE WITNESS: These are actually mine. Do you want
25 these, Mr. Selman?
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1 MR. MANELY: They were yours, you brought them this
2 morning. If you want to keep them, that's fine.
3 THE COURT: Thank you very much.
4 MR. MANELY: Your Honor, we would like to call Dr.
5 McCoy.
6 THE COURT: He's the Emory professor?
7 MR. MANELY: He is the teacher from North Cobb High
8 School.
9 THE COURT: Okay, thank you.
10 Come forward, please. Please step up, face me, and
11 raise your right hand.
12 ROGER WESLEY MCCOY,
13 having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as
14 follows:
15 THE COURT: You may lower your right hand. Please be
16 seated. I want you to speak into the microphone as you're
17 testifying. Please talk loud enough so that we all can hear
18 your testimony.
19 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
20 THE COURT: Make yourself comfortable. Are you
21 ready?
22 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir, I am.
23 THE COURT: Your witness.
24 DIRECT EXAMINATION
25 BY MR. MANELY:
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1 Q. Dr. McCoy, could you please state your name for the
2 record?
3 A. I'm Roger Wesley McCoy.
4 Q. And do you hold any advanced degrees?
5 A. Yes. I have a master's degree from the University of
6 Georgia in science education and also a Ph.D. in science
7 education from Georgia State University.
8 Q. What do you do for a living right now?
9 A. I'm science department chair at North Cobb High School in
10 Kennesaw, Georgia. I also teach genetics and biology and
11 astronomy.
12 Q. How long have you been the chair at North Cobb High
13 School?
14 A. Since 1989 -- 1987.
15 Q. Do I understand correctly that North Cobb High School is
16 within the Cobb County system?
17 A. Yes, sir.
18 Q. And how long have you been a science educator?
19 A. This is my 26th year as a science teacher.
20 Q. Did you have anything to do with the consideration of
21 potential textbooks for inclusion in the curriculum back in
22 2001?
23 A. Sure. I served on the biology textbook selection
24 committee.
25 Q. How did you come to be placed on that committee?
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1 A. I was asked to volunteer by Dr. Don Nesbit, who at that
2 time was the science supervisor for Cobb County.
3 Q. And in the course of serving on this committee what did
4 you all do?
5 A. We used the American Association for the Advancement of
6 Science methods for evaluating science textbooks. My small
7 group is specifically supposed to look at the biology textbooks
8 that had been recommended by the state of Georgia. So we
9 analyzed those based on our state curriculum and the AAAS
10 methods to determine which ones we should use for our students.
11 Q. Why did you use the AAAS methods?
12 A. Well, those were actually brought to us by Barbara Piper.
13 She was suggesting that those had been used in other school
14 systems to great effect and they were very good at helping to
15 winnow the textbooks that were good in science from books that
16 perhaps weren't as good.
17 Q. In the course of your committee work were you all able to
18 arrive at certain texts that you wanted to recommend to the
19 board?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And how did you feel about the quality of those texts?
22 A. We were thrilled. They were excellent textbooks. I
23 remember the committee was saying that the Miller, Levine
24 biology textbook was the best they had seen for our students,
25 for high school students.
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1 MR. MANELY: Do you have any objection to going ahead
2 and using this?
3 MR. GUNN: No.
4 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Let me hand you what's been marked
5 Defendants' Exhibit 4. You were talking about Miller, Levine.
6 Is this the text you were talking about?
7 A. Yes, sir.
8 Q. You're saying you were excited about the text. Are they
9 complete?
10 A. Is the textbook complete?
11 Q. Yes.
12 A. Yes, sir, it is. In fact, this is not all there is to it.
13 There's also some online components and some CD-ROMs and
14 teacher materials that were very well produced, very well
15 organized for our teachers.
16 Q. Are they accurate?
17 A. Yes, they are.
18 Q. Did you recommend certain texts to the board?
19 A. Yes. We recommended this text, Biology by Miller and
20 Levine, for the biology courses that we teach. We also
21 recommended some other biology books, though, for other courses
22 as well, our AP biology, our honors biology, zoology, and so
23 on.
24 Q. How many texts do you recall recommending to the board?
25 A. Let's see, we were in the life sciences group, so it seems
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1 to me we would have recommended seven, maybe eight books. I
2 can count them up if you would like.
3 Q. Let me hand you a document, see if it refreshes your
4 recollection.
5 A. Okay. I remember the micro book. There was a genetics
6 book as well that we recommended, I don't see it on the list.
7 But we definitely recommended the AP biology, AP environmental,
8 biology 101, 102, 103, botany, environmental science, zoology,
9 microbiology, and then the genetics book which is not listed.
10 Q. I'll retrieve that.
11 A. Okay.
12 Q. And were all the texts you recommended to the board
13 accurate and complete?
14 A. Yes, of course.
15 MR. MANELY: Your Honor, we would like to tender
16 Defendants' 4.
17 MR. GUNN: No objection.
18 THE COURT: Admitted without objection.
19 Q. (By Mr. Manely) In Defendants' 4 is there any teaching
20 about creationism?
21 A. I've not seen any, no, sir.
22 Q. Okay. Why is that?
23 A. Well, in science textbooks, what we typically look for is
24 books that restrict themselves to the scientific view of
25 nature. So we look for books that are focusing on observations
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1 of the natural world and looking for natural explanations of
2 those observations.
3 Q. And does creationism fit that bill?
4 A. Not that we've seen, no, sir. It usually posits the
5 intervention of a divine creator, which is something we can't
6 measure with scientific tools.
7 Q. Does the text include anything about intelligent design?
8 A. No, sir.
9 Q. Why not?
10 A. Well, again, if you're positing the intervention of a
11 supreme being or an alien advanced civilization, that's not
12 something that you can detect with scientific instruments.
13 That would be something you could suppose philosophically, but
14 it's not something you could actually measure.
15 Q. I understand that you were an instructor in science in the
16 county before these texts were adopted?
17 A. Yes, sir.
18 Q. For many years before?
19 A. Yes, since 1978.
20 Q. And as a science educator in Cobb County, were you
21 familiar with the county policy on the teaching of evolution
22 prior to the adoption of these textbooks?
23 A. Yes, sir.
24 Q. Can you please tell the judge what that policy was?
25 A. Sure. Our policy was to teach the QCC, the Quality Core
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1 Curriculum of the state of Georgia, and to address all the
2 issues that were brought forth in that curriculum. So we were
3 teaching evolution in our biology classes before the inclusion
4 of the sticker.
5 Q. Was there a restriction about human evolution?
6 A. We were asked to not have human evolution discussed in the
7 required courses for graduation, to restrict that to those
8 courses which were considered electives, such as AP biology,
9 for example.
10 Q. So do I understand correctly that the teaching of
11 evolution prior to the adoption of these textbooks was mandated
12 by the state curriculum?
13 A. Yes, sir. As I understood it, yes, sir.
14 Q. Why have you all been teaching evolution all along?
15 THE COURT: I'm sorry, what was the question again?
16 MR. MANELY: Why have you all been teaching evolution
17 all along.
18 THE WITNESS: Okay. Evolution is, in the view of
19 scientists, is key to understanding how the different parts of
20 science fit together, how organisms relate to one another, how
21 organisms have developed over time. It's sometimes called a
22 foundational issue in science.
23 Q. (By Mr. Manely) The texts that you all recommended to the
24 school board, did you recommend them with the disclaimer that
25 the school board came up with later on?
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1 A. No, sir, there was no disclaimer.
2 Q. Did the texts need the disclaimer?
3 A. No one that I talked to seemed to think that they did
4 but --
5 Q. What did you think?
6 A. I certainly did not think so. I thought it was a
7 troublesome inclusion.
8 Q. Does the disclaimer convey truth or inaccuracy?
9 A. That's a difficult question to answer. I would say that
10 it confounds the teaching that I do in the classroom.
11 Q. Do you teach evolution as theory?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Do you also teach evolution as fact, something --
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. -- that occurs?
16 A. Yes. In the sense that evolution is the change over time
17 of groups of organisms, and that certainly is true.
18 Q. Okay. In your view, does the sticker impact your ability
19 to instruct on evolution in the classroom?
20 A. Yes, sir, I'm afraid so.
21 Q. In what way?
22 A. Well, one of the things that I've noticed is that when
23 students direct my attention to the sticker in the textbook
24 there are several things that happen.
25 One is they usually add a word that's not actually in
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1 the sticker. Most students point to the sticker and include
2 the word "just," as in evolution is just a theory, even though
3 it's not printed there. So that in some ways diminishes the
4 status of evolution among all other theories. There are a lot
5 of different theories that are mentioned in the book and
6 evolution is set apart in that sticker from the other theories,
7 such as the chromosome theory, which, of course, we teach in
8 genetics, and so on.
9 And the most important intervention or confusion that
10 has occurred in my classroom has been between the teaching of
11 the term "fact" and the teaching of the term "theory." So it's
12 become more troublesome now after the sticker has been in
13 there. It's always been an issue, but now it's more in the
14 forefront of my teaching. I spend a longer time now making
15 sure that students know the distinction between the term "fact"
16 and the term "theory."
17 Q. Do I understand correctly that you have a finite time with
18 these students?
19 A. Well, of course. I have 90 days.
20 Q. And you have much material to cover?
21 A. I have a great deal of material to cover, I'm afraid, yes.
22 Q. In class do you teach the scientific method?
23 A. Yes, sir.
24 Q. And what do you teach the students the scientific method
25 is?
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1 A. Well, different textbooks disagree but the way I teach it
2 usually goes something like this: That we start in science by
3 observing the natural world. We observe phenomena. Then we
4 come up with a hypothesis, a guess, a preliminary explanation
5 of why the observation's working the way it is, why the
6 phenomenon occurs. Then we do some kinds of data gathering,
7 either gathering about things that are happening now or things
8 that have happened in the past. And then we analyze that data
9 to determine if our hypothesis was or was not correct.
10 After enough of those data-gathering sessions, enough
11 of that analysis, then we can suppose a theory, an explanation,
12 we can propose a theory. That theory would be an explanation
13 for why we think this phenomenon is occurring.
14 Q. Does evolution use the scientific method?
15 A. Yes, sir.
16 Q. Does the scientific method include or encourage scrutiny
17 of everything?
18 A. Oh, yes, sir. There are certain limits to what science
19 can do, though. I mention to my students that science doesn't
20 do a very good job of analyzing poetry. So we limit ourselves
21 to what we can and cannot investigate in science.
22 Q. You are the department chair of the science department --
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. -- in North Cobb? How many teachers do you have there?
25 A. We're at 15 right now.
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1 Q. And of those 15, how many have Ph.D.s?
2 A. Four.
3 Q. And of those 15, how many have undergraduate degrees in
4 biology?
5 A. Six have undergrad degrees in biology.
6 Q. So if my math is correct, does that leave you nine
7 teachers without even so much as an undergraduate in biology?
8 A. That's right.
9 Q. Are those folks as well versed in evolutionary discipline,
10 fact, and theory as you are?
11 A. Well, I'd have to say no. I can -- should I name names?
12 Q. No, that's okay.
13 A. Okay.
14 THE COURT: Please don't.
15 THE WITNESS: What I will say is that there are some
16 people who are very well-versed in evolution theory, the people
17 with Ph.D.s, for example, and other folks I have coached quite
18 a bit and helped them along so that they have a lot more
19 comfort with what they've been able to do.
20 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Okay. How do your nine teachers that
21 don't have so much as an undergraduate in biology handle the
22 challenges that are coming up as a result of the sticker?
23 A. They sometimes come to me and ask me my advice for what I
24 think they should do in the classroom. And I think one of my
25 skills is I'm able to calm them down and help them with
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1 formulating words that they can use in the classroom when
2 students bring them unusual questions or when they bring things
3 from their church to the classroom and so on.
4 Q. You said from the church to the classroom. Are you all
5 experiencing that the students are challenging you on religious
6 bases to evolution?
7 A. It does happen, yes, sir. It happened to me twice last
8 year.
9 THE COURT: Is that the most frequent basis on which
10 you are challenged?
11 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir, yes, sir.
12 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Is your department similar to the other
13 Cobb high schools?
14 A. Yes, sir, I think so. I think, actually, at our school
15 we've done a very good job of helping students understand
16 evolution and helping the parents of those students, as well,
17 understand what we're teaching and why we're teaching it.
18 I'm not convinced that every Cobb County school has
19 done that thorough of job at teaching evolution and helping the
20 community understand what's going on. We're not perfect, you
21 understand, but we do try very hard to make that understandable
22 to our parents.
23 Q. How many other Cobb high schools are there?
24 A. I think there are 13 -- I don't know, 14? I can't keep
25 track. Do we count the Barnes Center?
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1 Q. Thirteen, fourteen, somewhere --
2 A. Something like that.
3 Q. So I understand correctly, before the policy changed, you
4 were required to teach evolution, but human evolution could
5 only be taught in electives; is that right?
6 A. Yes, sir.
7 Q. After the policy changed, you can still teach evolution;
8 is that correct?
9 A. Yes, sir.
10 Q. But is there a policy change permitting with regard to
11 religious discussion?
12 A. Well, that's an interesting thing about the regulation.
13 It mentions in the regulation that Cobb County schools is not
14 trying to restrict the teaching of evolution, which is a very
15 good thing; but also it mentions that they are not trying to
16 promote or require the teaching of other theories. Well, that
17 seems to me it leaves an opening that it does permit, it allows
18 the teaching of those theories. So that is a little puzzle to
19 me.
20 Q. And by those theories, I'm referencing the religious
21 theories?
22 A. I suspect so, yes, sir, the intelligent design theory.
23 THE COURT: Let me ask you this. You can teach
24 evolution, human evolution, but acknowledge other theories that
25 you can discuss. Can you discuss other theories without
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1 teaching those theories as you teach evolution?
2 THE WITNESS: Well, certainly. There's, as far as I
3 know no one has ever brought up to me that there's a
4 restriction to the sorts of questions I can allow my students
5 to ask me. Certainly students don't restrict themselves.
6 THE COURT: Sure.
7 THE WITNESS: So when they come into my classroom and
8 ask me something, I've never hesitated to answer a question.
9 I've never told a student that's something we can't discuss.
10 Q. (By Mr. Manely) In your classroom, what has the effect of
11 the sticker been on teaching evolution?
12 A. The effect of the sticker on teaching evolution?
13 Q. Yes.
14 THE COURT: I thought you had already asked him that.
15 Did you not ask him that earlier?
16 MR. MANELY: It may be redundant.
17 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Did you endorse the sticker or did you
18 have fault with it?
19 A. Well, I was very worried about it when I saw it. I wasn't
20 sure if the wording that I saw coming out in the newspaper was
21 accurate so I tried to get in touch with the school board to
22 let them know that I was worried about putting such a sticker
23 into the book because I thought it would diminish the quality
24 of our science teaching.
25 I was especially worried about our young folks who
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1 were going off to college. I didn't want them to have college
2 admissions officers thinking less of them and less of their
3 science education because they had come from a school with some
4 kind of unusual sticker in the textbook.
5 So I sent a rewrite of the sticker, a sticker that I
6 liked a little bit better. I asked Dr. Eugenie Scott of the
7 National Center for Science Education what kind of sticker, if
8 we're going to put a sticker in the book, what kind of sticker,
9 what might we put in there.
10 So together we worked on the sticker that mentions
11 that evolution is a theory or explanation of the natural world.
12 It doesn't say that evolution is a fact, not a theory. So we
13 reworded the sticker and give that to school board members and
14 people in the administration.
15 Q. The school board's disclaimer, were you concerned about it
16 requiring you to moderate religious entanglements with the
17 students in your class?
18 A. I knew that it would -- I knew that it would cause
19 students to question evolution more than they had before.
20 That's what I was worried about.
21 Q. Let me hand you Plaintiffs' Exhibit 2 and ask if you can
22 identify this document.
23 A. Yes. This is the wording that I submitted as an
24 alternative to the sticker.
25 Q. And you submitted this wording to the school board?
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1 A. Yes. I sent it to the school board and to Dr. Don Nesbit,
2 science supervisor, and Mr. Dale Gaddis, who was an assistant
3 superintendent, I think, at that time.
4 MR. MANELY: Your Honor, we tender Plaintiffs' 2.
5 MR. GUNN: No objection.
6 THE COURT: Admitted without objection.
7 Since it's been admitted, read it to us.
8 THE WITNESS: Oh, sure. The sticker says: "This
9 textbook contains material on evolution, a scientific theory or
10 explanation for the nature and diversity of living things.
11 Evolution is accepted by the majority of scientists, but
12 questioned by some. All scientific theory should be approached
13 with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically
14 considered."
15 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Did the board accept that --
16 A. No.
17 Q. -- sticker?
18 A. I heard people talking about it. Mr. Nesbit, Dr. Nesbit,
19 in fact, before he retired, told me that he was sure that this
20 would be the wording of the sticker, but it turned out not to
21 be the case.
22 Q. Did you ask to be able to specifically put that sticker in
23 your textbooks?
24 A. Yes, I did.
25 Q. And what was the board's response to that?
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1 A. I was told I could not do that. Also I asked him, I
2 wanted to put a sticker that had the definition of the word
3 "fact" and the definition of the word "theory," I wanted to put
4 a sticker like that in the textbook as well just to clarify
5 what we meant by "fact" and "theory," and I was not allowed to
6 do that, either.
7 Q. How would you have defined "fact" in this proposed
8 sticker?
9 A. Could I get the paper I wrote it down on?
10 Q. If it helps to refresh your recollection you certainly
11 may.
12 A. Okay. I used the wording from the National Academy of
13 Sciences: "Fact, in science, is an observation that has been
14 repeatedly confirmed. Theory, in science, is a
15 well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural
16 world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences and tested
17 hypotheses."
18 Q. Thank you. In your classes do you teach the chromosome
19 theory of inheritance?
20 A. Yes, sir.
21 Q. Do you teach Galilean heliocentrism?
22 A. Yes, sir.
23 Q. Do you teach the theory of gravity?
24 A. Yes, sir.
25 Q. Do you teach the germ theory of disease?
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Do you teach the atomic theory?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Are you aware of any disclaimers that the Cobb school
5 board has required its students to look at for any of those
6 theories?
7 A. No, sir.
8 Q. And are you aware that those theories also have some
9 religious overtones and objections to them?
10 A. Oh, sure. There are some groups that oppose them.
11 Q. Do some of your students come to you and talk to you about
12 whether or not evolution even exists?
13 A. Yes, sir.
14 THE COURT: Is that as a result of the sticker or was
15 this happening --
16 THE WITNESS: It's a difficult thing to say, Your
17 Honor.
18 THE COURT: But you attribute it to the sticker?
19 THE WITNESS: I can. The --
20 THE COURT: You can or cannot?
21 THE WITNESS: Well, the only time I can absolutely
22 say that the sticker is responsible for something is when a
23 student uses their finger and points to it, and that happens
24 maybe twice a year.
25 THE COURT: What I'm saying is prior to the sticker
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1 being placed in the texts, in previous texts the students
2 raised that question?
3 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
4 THE COURT: Okay, so it was not novel.
5 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Since the disclaimer has been placed in
6 the textbooks, are you saying that you have had students
7 specifically refer to the disclaimer and argue with you whether
8 or not evolution exists?
9 A. They have expressed their opinions that from what they've
10 heard evolution is not true. A student in particular I'm
11 thinking of told me that evolution is a lie and soon that
12 scientists would be revealed as being liars and she wanted me
13 to explain to her why that theory was in the book. So I did.
14 Q. And she referenced the disclaimer itself?
15 A. Well, she was pointing to it, yes.
16 Q. As a result of the disclaimer, are you seeing students
17 handing out creationist literature in your classes?
18 A. I am having students who bring creationist literature to
19 the classroom occasionally, again maybe twice a year.
20 THE COURT: The sticker --
21 THE WITNESS: I don't know if it's because of the
22 sticker.
23 THE COURT: Okay.
24 THE WITNESS: I can't say for sure.
25 THE COURT: And did this phenomenon occur prior to
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1 the sticker being placed in --
2 THE WITNESS: There were students who brought in
3 things. For example, I had some Jehovah's Witness students who
4 brought books to me before the sticker was in place.
5 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Are you seeing an increase in these
6 incidents since the disclaimer was placed in the book?
7 A. I have not seen an increase. It's not happening more
8 frequently.
9 Q. Okay. Before the disclaimer was there, certainly students
10 couldn't have referenced it as part of their support?
11 A. No, sir.
12 Q. Have you been invited to present with South Cobb teachers
13 at a conference?
14 A. Yes, sir.
15 Q. Can you tell the Court about that?
16 A. Sure. I had -- I did a presentation about how to teach
17 evolution in the classroom here in Atlanta at the National
18 Science Teachers Association meeting last April. And some
19 teachers at South Cobb High School came to me and said we want
20 to do a presentation about the same kind of topic at the
21 Georgia science teachers meeting. They were very concerned
22 about this issue. They had a lot of teachers who were having
23 difficulty explaining evolution to their students, so they
24 wanted to help other teachers by doing this presentation.
25 I was not able to attend that meeting with them, so I
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1 told them I couldn't present, but I did help them organize
2 their thoughts, I guess I would say.
3 Q. And were the teachers dealing with how to teach evolution
4 in light of the religious questions coming up?
5 A. Yes, sir. That was the main issue.
6 Q. And when was this conference, again?
7 A. The conference, I don't remember exactly when the GSTA
8 conference is going to be. It will be in February sometime.
9 Q. So it's still coming up?
10 A. Yes, sir.
11 Q. They're still dealing with this?
12 A. Uh-huh.
13 Q. And did you mention that you had made a similar
14 presentation at the National Science Teachers Association?
15 A. Yes, sir.
16 Q. And has the school board, have you organized seminars for
17 teachers on how to handle religious discussions from students?
18 A. Yes, sir. I was asked to do a presentation about how to
19 teach evolution in the high school classroom. That
20 presentation was held at South Cobb High School on a teacher
21 workday and I did two different sessions and altogether there
22 were between 60 and 65 teachers who participated in that.
23 Q. Okay. Now, you are a Ph.D. --
24 A. Yes, sir.
25 Q. -- in science? You are the chair of the science
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1 department at North Cobb High School, so I would imagine you
2 present a rather formidable person to approach and dispute
3 evolutionary theory and fact with from a student's perspective;
4 would that be fair to say? You've got all the facts?
5 A. I have a lot of training about evolution, that's true,
6 yes. I try not to be too formidable to my students, though.
7 Q. For all those poor teachers who haven't even the benefit
8 so much as an undergraduate degree in biology, are they
9 experiencing more problems in the classroom about the religious
10 issues coming up?
11 A. There are certainly still teachers who are having
12 difficulties. There are still teachers who are coming to me
13 for advice.
14 THE COURT: Let me ask you this.
15 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
16 THE COURT: Correct me if I am wrong. Is it your
17 opinion that the sticker has had a negative impact on the
18 teaching of evolution?
19 THE WITNESS: Oh, absolutely, yes, sir.
20 THE COURT: And for what reasons? Briefly.
21 THE WITNESS: Briefly, to me, the biggest problem in
22 the classroom is the confusion between theory and fact, that's
23 for sure, and that applies to all theories and all facts as a
24 result of the sticker.
25 But also it's an endorsement from the Cobb County
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1 Board of Education that evolution is somehow different from all
2 other scientific theories, that evolution should be considered
3 separately from all other theories. That's the message that
4 we're getting from the sticker.
5 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Lastly, have you had an opportunity to
6 pick up this month's National Geographic?
7 A. I have.
8 Q. Have you had a chance to read it?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Do you endorse it?
11 A. I do. David Quammen's article about evolution, yes, sir.
12 Q. Okay, thank you.
13 THE WITNESS: Hey, Mr. Gunn.
14 CROSS-EXAMINATION
15 BY MR. GUNN:
16 Q. Hi, Dr. McCoy, how are you?
17 A. All right.
18 Q. We've talked about this subject before, haven't we?
19 A. Yes, we have.
20 Q. Okay. Evolution isn't like other scientific theories, is
21 it?
22 A. I don't know what -- how do you mean it's not like other
23 scientific theories?
24 Q. Let me ask you this. Have you made any presentations to
25 teachers with any group about how to teach the theory of
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1 gravity in recent years?
2 A. No, not about that.
3 Q. Okay. Have you had presentations you made about teaching
4 things like cell theory?
5 A. Well, I did presentation about how to do the
6 biotechnology, so moving genes from one cell to another, that
7 sort of thing. Is that what you mean?
8 Q. No. I'm trying to get you to address the unique issues
9 that arise when you're teaching evolution. There were issues
10 that arose in teaching evolution before this debate arose in
11 the Cobb County --
12 A. Yes, sir.
13 Q. -- school district, right?
14 A. Yes, sir.
15 Q. And those kinds of issues related to the intersection of
16 science and religious faith, right?
17 A. Yes, sir.
18 Q. Oftentimes?
19 A. Same thing with cell biology. There's quite a debate
20 about stem cells right now and that is frequently a religious
21 issue that impinges upon my classroom.
22 Q. Right. And you actually are a person who -- let me ask
23 you, you believe that science and religion, in particular
24 evolutionary theory, are not mutually exclusive, right?
25 A. Yes, sir.
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1 Q. And you're a member of some organizations that deal with
2 precisely that kind of issue, right?
3 A. Yes, sir.
4 Q. There are organizations devoted to the intersection of
5 science and religion related to other types of scientific
6 theories generally, other than the exceptions, things like stem
7 cell research, evolution is a unique animal, right?
8 A. Certainly evolution has been an issue in Cobb County for a
9 long time.
10 Q. Right.
11 A. I don't know how unique it is in that way.
12 Q. Okay. I mean, that's not unique to Cobb County; that's a
13 societal issue, right?
14 A. Yes, sir.
15 Q. Okay. And you said, I think, that you, since -- in the
16 past year you had had two inquiries about the religious
17 implications of evolution?
18 A. Yes, the students in my own classroom.
19 Q. Okay, so two in one year. What was the rate of frequency
20 in prior years?
21 A. I would say it's roughly the same.
22 Q. Okay. So not really an increase in the amount of
23 inquiries?
24 A. Not in my classroom, no, sir.
25 Q. Okay, and you don't usually observe other individuals'
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1 classrooms, right?
2 A. I do, but not on a daily basis, of course. I go in and
3 visit their classrooms from time to time since I'm their
4 supervisor.
5 Q. But you would have a hard time of testifying about the
6 rate of frequency those kind of issues come up in other
7 classrooms?
8 A. Right. All I can do is tell you how many times teachers
9 have come to me to ask advice, which for each teacher may be
10 twice a semester.
11 Q. And that was true before this issue arose that we're
12 talking about, right?
13 A. There was a flurry of activity right after the board
14 meeting, a flurry of students. In fact, some of our students
15 came to the board meeting the night that this was adopted. But
16 after that it kind of died back down to the same level.
17 Q. Okay. You referred to evolution as a foundational issue,
18 right?
19 A. Yes, sir.
20 Q. And it's a theory, but it's a -- would you agree it's an
21 exceptionally broad theory, in the sense that its ramifications
22 extend across a wide range of scientific inquiry, right?
23 A. I would think so, yes, sir.
24 Q. Okay. So in that sense, it wouldn't really be accurate to
25 refer to it as a fact, right?
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1 A. It's very much a fact.
2 Q. In every sense -- well, let me ask you this way. You
3 referred earlier to your alternative version of the sticker,
4 which you thought that version of the sticker was
5 etiologically correct and scientifically accurate, right?
6 A. Sure. That's not what I would have chosen. I would have
7 chosen no sticker at all.
8 Q. But given the alternatives, this is your preferred version
9 of the sticker?
10 A. Uh-huh.
11 Q. And it says: "Evolution is accepted by the majority of
12 scientists, but questioned by some."
13 A. Uh-huh.
14 Q. So there are some scientists who question a fact, in your
15 view?
16 A. Yes, sir.
17 Q. So you disagree with those scientists who question
18 evolutionary theory?
19 A. I disagree with scientists who question evolutionary
20 theory. I think there are a lot of people who question how
21 evolution occurs, that's different from whether or not it has
22 occurred.
23 Q. But the sticker you proposed would say evolution is
24 accepted and just says: "Evolution is accepted by the majority
25 of scientists, but questioned by some"?
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1 A. Yes, sir.
2 Q. And in your classroom the issues of how science and
3 religion relate to one another came up on a regular basis,
4 although rare before this flurry of activity around the time of
5 the board meetings?
6 A. They definitely occurred ever since I started teaching,
7 yes, sir.
8 Q. And would you agree that's because of the nature of the
9 inquiry, when we're talking about what Darwin did and creation,
10 it raises some -- it naturally raises some questions about
11 faith and religion, doesn't it?
12 A. Yes. I think a lot of scientific theories raise our
13 interest in how that impinges upon science in our daily life,
14 on our religion, which is a very important part of the human
15 experience.
16 Q. And when you were testifying about the effect of the
17 sticker, you really couldn't testify as to, other than students
18 that told you this sticker makes me inquire about this area,
19 you couldn't testify about whether it was a sticker that caused
20 that kind of inquiry or just the general type of questioning
21 that --
22 A. Right.
23 Q. -- arose before?
24 A. Have to use the index finger test for that, yes, sir.
25 Q. Okay. If I may, I would like to show you an exhibit. You
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1 testified earlier that you were on the textbook adoption
2 committee which adopted the Miller, Levine text that we're
3 talking about --
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. -- right? And you did that because it was the best
6 available alternative, right?
7 A. We thought so, yes, sir. That was the consensus.
8 Q. How would you characterize in general terms the treatment
9 of the topic of evolution of that text as opposed to some of
10 the alternatives?
11 A. I think this textbook did a very good job of presenting
12 what we mean by theory and what we mean by fact, how data is
13 gathered, how data is analyzed, and how theories change over
14 time.
15 Q. Well, and, again, you teach this text all the time, right?
16 A. This year I don't use this textbook, but I have.
17 Q. Okay. So you're familiar with the fact that it's got an
18 entire unit devoted to evolution, right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And can you identify -- I don't know if you can see it
21 from there -- can you identify that this is Unit 15, which is
22 the unit that deals with evolution? It's --
23 A. Sure.
24 Q. -- Chapters 15 through 18?
25 A. Yes.
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1 Q. Okay. And this is not all the text, though?
2 A. Oh, no, sir.
3 Q. This is just the part about evolution, right, 101 pages?
4 Is that about right?
5 A. Looks about right to me, yes, sir.
6 Q. Okay, and this is the front cover and the sticker?
7 A. Yes, sir.
8 Q. So you can identify that as an accurate depiction of the
9 relationship between the sticker and the text?
10 A. Yes, sir, I agree.
11 Q. And when we're talking about the impact of the sticker, we
12 can't talk about the impact of the sticker without talking
13 about what it's attached to, right --
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. -- because it doesn't exist independently?
16 A. Correct.
17 Q. Okay. Is it your testimony that the primary idea
18 communicated by what's depicted here is religious?
19 A. I would not think so, no, sir.
20 Q. Okay. Can you tell the Court, in general terms, the
21 difference between a policy and a regulation in the Cobb County
22 School District?
23 A. I'm not sure. I thought the regulation had to do with how
24 teachers address problems in a classroom. Is that what you
25 mean?
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1 Q. Yeah. As to this issue, the policy would be a more
2 general statement and the regulation would be a more --
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. -- specific statement of how the policy is applied; is
5 that --
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. -- fair? Okay. I'd like to show you the current
8 regulation on theories of origin. Can you identify that?
9 A. Yes, sir.
10 Q. Is that the regulation on how theories of origin are
11 actually taught in the classroom?
12 A. Yes, sir. This is the newer one, uh-huh.
13 Q. And what's the date on that regulation?
14 A. January the 8th, 2003.
15 Q. Okay. Do you recall what the previous regulation said?
16 A. I don't remember the exact wording, no, sir. I remember
17 that we were to not discuss the theory of evolution pertaining
18 to humans in the required courses for graduation.
19 Q. Okay. Do you remember that there was some language about
20 family teachings and respecting --
21 A. Yes, respecting families, certainly.
22 Q. Okay. Can you tell the Court, did you have any hand in
23 the process of arriving at that language of the regulation?
24 A. You had called me to a meeting, and I think Dr. Stickel
25 was also there, and we were in a room for a number of hours
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1 giving you some advice about what we thought should be true
2 about this regulation.
3 Q. Okay. And this was after the time when you had presented
4 the option of the language on the sticker, which the board
5 ultimately --
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. -- decided not to adopt, right? The regulation, as I
8 recall one of the things you were concerned about was the fact
9 that teachers did have a difficulty in teaching this subject
10 because of the social ramifications of it; is that fair?
11 A. Sure, uh-huh.
12 Q. And one thing that we wanted to accomplish was to make
13 teachers feel able to teach the science and not worry so much
14 about that. Is that a fair statement?
15 A. Yes, sir.
16 Q. Okay. And the regulation, do you think that regulation
17 accomplishes that goal of promoting the teaching of the
18 science?
19 A. It certainly helps. It's much better than the previous
20 regulation. Yes, it may be appropriate to acknowledge that
21 science itself has limits and is not intended to explain
22 everything. That's a helpful statement.
23 Q. I think that was your statement that we inserted?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Isn't that right?
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1 A. That's why I like it so much.
2 THE COURT: What was there about the previous
3 regulation that you didn't like?
4 THE WITNESS: What I recall was it restricting the
5 teaching of evolution. I remember that.
6 THE COURT: So this is less restrictive?
7 THE WITNESS: I would think so, yes, sir.
8 THE COURT: And you proposed this change?
9 THE WITNESS: Well, certainly some of my language is
10 in here. I don't know -- Mr. Gunn took my recommendations and
11 I didn't see the finished regulation until it came out in the
12 newspaper.
13 THE COURT: Thank you.
14 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) In the process, though, we talked about the
15 idea that we wanted to make the regulation legal, was one
16 requirement?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And we also wanted to give teachers a little encouragement
19 in teaching this difficult area; is that true?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Okay. When you participated in that process when we
22 drafted that, there was not an intent discussed at the time to
23 promote teaching creationism or intelligent design, was there?
24 A. Not to promote it. But my concern, I believe in the
25 meeting, was that the policy would allow it.
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1 Q. Okay. And one of the things you mentioned in your direct
2 testimony was the idea that as far as you know, you, as a
3 teacher, can't really tell students don't enter here when they
4 raise their hand and have a question they want to ask unless
5 it's an inappropriate question, right?
6 A. Right. I'm the moderator, I guess you would call it,
7 moderator of questions in my classroom, like all teachers are,
8 and we use our professional judgment to decide whether a
9 student's question has merit and should be discussed in the
10 class.
11 Q. Right, okay. And even though the regulation doesn't
12 specifically say creationism, intelligent design can't be
13 discussed, it was not the intent at the time of drafting of it,
14 as far as you know, to promote that? That wasn't anything we
15 discussed at the time?
16 A. We weren't --
17 MR. MANELY: Objection, Your Honor, it calls for
18 conclusion, speculation as to --
19 THE COURT: I think in a previous question he
20 addressed that issue.
21 MR. GUNN: Okay.
22 THE COURT: Let me ask you this. If a student raises
23 his or her hand and asks a question about creationism, under
24 this regulation and the policy would you discuss it?
25 THE WITNESS: I certainly could, yes, sir.
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1 THE COURT: What have you told the people in your
2 department?
3 THE WITNESS: The same. I've never felt any
4 objections from my administration, from my principals, for
5 example, to tell me to not discuss those kinds of issues if
6 students bring them up. They're certainly not part of our
7 lesson plan, but if a student brings them up and we want to
8 discuss them, either privately with a student or as part of a
9 group discussion, we are allowed to do that, if in our
10 professional judgment it's the appropriate thing to do.
11 THE COURT: Has any discussion of creationism impeded
12 your ability to teach evolution?
13 THE WITNESS: It can take a little too much time out
14 of my day, that's for sure.
15 THE COURT: But other than that, no problem?
16 THE WITNESS: I can't think of it being an impedance
17 to my teaching of evolution other than simply taking time away
18 from it.
19 THE COURT: And the students, after that discussion
20 on creationism, refocus on evolution, you have no problems?
21 THE WITNESS: Refocus their behavior, not necessarily
22 their mind. I'm not always able to convince people to change
23 their minds, that's for sure.
24 THE COURT: Was it discussed previously?
25 THE WITNESS: By previously you mean --
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1 THE COURT: Before the sticker.
2 THE WITNESS: Oh, yes, sir.
3 THE COURT: It was discussed then, too?
4 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
5 THE COURT: And you discussed it?
6 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
7 THE COURT: So no change?
8 THE WITNESS: I don't think there's a significant
9 change in that discussion of creationism in the classroom.
10 THE COURT: Okay. So this discussion took place
11 prior to the sticker? I want to make sure.
12 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
13 THE COURT: From time to time?
14 THE WITNESS: Yes.
15 THE COURT: Okay.
16 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) And although that discussion may arise as a
17 result of a question from a student, you don't teach
18 alternative theories like intelligent design or creationism, do
19 you?
20 A. No, sir.
21 Q. Has anyone in Cobb County school district that's a science
22 teacher told you that they do that?
23 A. I have had a science teacher in Cobb County tell me that:
24 I always stand in front of my classroom and say, well,
25 students, you know that I'm a Christian, so you know where I
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1 stand, but I'm going to teach you evolution, anyway.
2 So a teacher has told me that.
3 Q. Did you report that to the administration?
4 A. Mentioned it to Wendy Delano.
5 Q. Okay. And when was that statement made?
6 A. It was around the same time that we were meeting, so it
7 would have been maybe February of 2003, sometime around then.
8 Q. It was, then, maybe before, even before the regulation was
9 adopted --
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. -- since we met at the time?
12 A. It was after the sticker but before the regulation came
13 out.
14 Q. And the regulation specifically says that you should not
15 use this topic in an effort to coerce a student in any way,
16 right?
17 A. That's right.
18 Q. And that would be a coercion; wouldn't you agree --
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. -- that would be a violation of the regulation? Do you
21 believe, if you look at the -- let me back up. You were on the
22 textbook adoption committee and you thought this was the best
23 text, and part of that reason would be because, I assume,
24 evolution is a really underpinning of the whole theory of, the
25 whole issue of biology --
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1 A. Yes, sir.
2 Q. -- the whole curriculum? That's why there's a whole unit
3 in the book devoted to it. You thought that was a good book
4 and probably you thought it was the best book, I'm sure?
5 A. Yes, sir.
6 Q. Were there other books that dealt at all with the issue of
7 that there may be supernatural issues, there may be creators
8 and you may believe in that, but this is science and that's
9 not? Was that issue ever addressed in any of the textbooks?
10 A. That was addressed in one part of the book by Campbell,
11 Mitchell, and Reece, I think. There was a paragraph about the
12 differences between a supernatural and a natural explanation,
13 if I'm remembering correctly.
14 Q. Okay. Was that a competing text with this one or is that
15 a different --
16 A. It was adopted for a different course.
17 Q. Okay. But referring just to the ones that we're talking
18 about, primarily tenth grade biology, which is what this is,
19 right?
20 A. Well, that's used for tenth grade biology, which is the
21 regular level course. But I also teach, I use the Campbell,
22 Mitchell, Reece book in my tenth grade honors biology.
23 Q. Okay. So this is the regular level and the honors level
24 has some discussion of that issue?
25 A. Yes, sir.
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1 Q. Okay. You think that's appropriate?
2 A. I think it's appropriate to say what science is and what
3 science is not.
4 Q. Okay. Does this book, do you recall, ever make that
5 distinction vis-a-vis evolution?
6 A. I don't remember any mention of that in the book.
7 Q. Okay. And you said the issue about teaching fact versus
8 theory, that was an issue before the sticker?
9 A. Well, it was, but not more than any -- it was sort of a
10 vocabulary word issue and now it's become a bit more
11 problematic. There are definitely more students asking me
12 about evolution as a fact versus evolution as a theory now
13 since that sticker is in the book.
14 Q. Okay. And there's been a lot of media coverage of this
15 whole --
16 A. Sure.
17 Q. -- right?
18 A. Yes, sir.
19 Q. When you give these workshops, you participated in just
20 one workshop or a number of workshops to Cobb's teachers about
21 how to teach this subject matter?
22 A. I did -- one day I did two in-service training sessions at
23 South Cobb. I did one at Emory University last summer.
24 Q. Was that for Cobb's teachers?
25 A. There were some Cobb teachers who participated but it was
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1 for students -- it was teachers from the metro Atlanta area.
2 So there were about seven Cobb teachers who participated.
3 Q. Okay. One of the things you would address, I would think,
4 in those workshops is how do you handle that religious
5 question. How do you handle --
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. -- maybe not a religious question but one you think may be
8 religiously motivated, where it's trying to attack particular
9 parts of Darwinism which have been attacked in the past?
10 A. It's true. There are two main purposes for those
11 workshops. One was to make sure that teachers understood what
12 evolution was. A lot of them had not had much training in
13 learning about evolution themselves.
14 Q. Right.
15 A. And the other was then how do you present that to students
16 effectively.
17 Q. Okay. And one of the workshops you taught was for
18 exclusively Cobb teachers?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And one was for Cobb, as well as other school districts?
21 A. Yes, sir.
22 Q. And both of them dealt with that same issue about how you
23 handle that kind of inquiry, right?
24 A. Yes, sir.
25 Q. Okay. You said earlier you're a member of some
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1 organizations that deal with this very topic about this
2 friction between religious faith and evolution, right?
3 A. Yes, sir.
4 Q. Tell the Court what that is.
5 A. I'm on the executive board for a group called the
6 Presbyterian Association for Science, Technology and the
7 Christian Faith. So I was elected to that board back in '95.
8 And since that time we've had a number of meetings published, a
9 number of newsletters and books about science and faith issues,
10 one of the issues being the understanding of the theory of
11 evolution from a religious perspective.
12 Q. Okay. And I've seen where you've written, and you've
13 written the Cobb County Board of Education, about the fact that
14 there are a number of religious groups that actually endorse,
15 at least in broad terms, the theory of evolution?
16 A. Yes, sir.
17 Q. And your own personal view, there's not any conflict
18 between your personal religious faith and teaching what you
19 teach every day in this textbook or other ones, right?
20 A. Yes, sir.
21 Q. And in your personal viewpoint, when you look at the
22 material, just the material presented on evolution and the
23 sticker, given that you disagree with the language, does that
24 communicate to you that you're an outsider in any respect?
25 A. Does the sticker --
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1 Q. No. This whole -- the whole textbook. This textbook has
2 the sticker in it, the sticker has some language that you think
3 raises some questions, but does this tell you that the Cobb
4 County school district thinks less of you because you have a
5 religious belief or more of you because you have a religious
6 belief or because you espouse evolutionary theory?
7 A. Well --
8 THE COURT: Do you understand the question?
9 THE WITNESS: I think I do. The thing is the sticker
10 itself, it's written in black and white, but to my eyes it's
11 red and orange and flashing. It's a signal that --
12 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) You don't like the sticker?
13 A. I don't like it. Apparently there are a lot of folks who
14 would rather we not teach evolution, I think that's very
15 apparent.
16 Q. That's right, and you came to some of the board meetings
17 where there were a lot of people that didn't want us to teach
18 it or wanted us to teach alternative theories?
19 A. Yes, sir.
20 THE COURT: Is it your opinion that it disparages the
21 teaching of evolution, the sticker?
22 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir, I think so.
23 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) In your opinion is -- you mentioned the --
24 you were asked about National Geographic. The cover of that
25 publication asks the question was Darwin right?
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1 A. Was Darwin right, uh-huh.
2 Q. Is that a religious question?
3 A. No, I don't think so.
4 Q. Okay, thank you.
5 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
6 BY MR. MANELY:
7 Q. You were starting to talk about the sticker, to your eyes,
8 may be black and white, but it looks like it's red and flashing
9 orange. You didn't get to finish that statement. Would you
10 please tell the Court how that sticker appears to you?
11 A. Well, as I said earlier, it's a signal to me that there
12 are folks on the school board who definitely want to take the
13 theory of evolution out and separate it from other theories and
14 say that it's not the same, it's not as scientifically valid,
15 it's not as useful to people, and as a result it should be
16 treated differently in the classroom, should be treated
17 differently by the students.
18 Q. You talked earlier about recommending to the board a fair
19 number of texts; is that right?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And of that fair number of texts, how many of the texts
22 that you recommended to the board did the board decide to place
23 this disclaimer in disclaiming evolution?
24 A. All of them, as far as I know, I don't have the list here
25 with me, but all of them except the human heredity.
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1 Q. Let me hand you the list and see if it helps you to
2 remember.
3 A. Yes. The books were -- we were told to place the stickers
4 in all these books except the book of genetics, the human
5 heredity book.
6 Q. Okay, if I can retrieve that document. Is it science's
7 position that evolution is a fact as well as a theory?
8 A. Yes, sir.
9 Q. The sticker that you proposed to the board, was that
10 something that you would have come up with if the board hadn't
11 wanted to impose its own view of evolution?
12 A. Oh, not at all. Eugenie Scott said if we're given lemons
13 we might as well try to make lemonade.
14 Q. Mr. Gunn was talking with you about a meeting that you all
15 had, you and he and perhaps some other people, working on
16 preparing the regulation; is that right?
17 A. Yes, sir.
18 Q. Were any school board members present at the regulation?
19 A. No, sir.
20 Q. And is it your understanding that the policy and
21 regulation permit, though do not require, full discussion of
22 creationism and intelligent design?
23 A. That's the way I read it, yes, sir.
24 Q. And nobody in administration has told you you were wrong;
25 is that right?
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1 A. There has been a statement from Dr. George Stickel, who is
2 sitting at that table there, who is our science supervisor now,
3 and he has told our teachers to not teach creationism in the
4 classroom.
5 Q. Okay, so not teach?
6 A. Yes.
7 THE COURT: Is there a distinction between teaching
8 and discussing?
9 THE WITNESS: It's an interesting question. I mean,
10 if something is in my lesson plans it means I intended to teach
11 it. But if a student brings up flying saucers and UFOs in my
12 astronomy class, even though it wasn't in my lesson plan, I may
13 choose to discuss that with the students. So I would consider
14 that teaching, even though it wasn't part of the plan. It's
15 not part of the curriculum, in other words.
16 Q. (By Mr. Manely) How many science teachers, roughly, are
17 there in Cobb County?
18 A. I'm not good at this. You didn't tell me there was going
19 to be math.
20 Q. All right. I think I had asked whether or not the 13 or
21 14 high schools were roughly similar to your high school.
22 A. Sure. Maybe 15 teachers average at the 14 high schools.
23 Q. And how many semesters do you have each year?
24 A. How many semesters do I have --
25 Q. Each year.
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1 A. Each year? Two semesters.
2 Q. Are there any other school districts in Georgia that
3 disclaim evolution, to your knowledge?
4 A. I don't know of any except perhaps Clayton County may have
5 had a sticker inserted in their textbooks at one time.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 MR. MANELY: Nothing further, Your Honor.
8 THE COURT: Anything further on recross?
9 MR. GUNN: Just briefly, Your Honor.
10 THE COURT: Sure.
11 MR. GUNN: If I could approach?
12 THE COURT: Sure, you may.
13 RECROSS-EXAMINATION
14 BY MR. GUNN:
15 Q. Mr. Manely asked you about whether evolution is a fact in
16 science lingo.
17 A. Yes, sir.
18 Q. Refer you to page 369 of Miller, Levine, the second
19 paragraph. How does that define evolutionary theory?
20 A. The theory, the term "theory" in this book says: "A
21 theory is a well-supported testable explanation of phenomena
22 that have occurred in the natural world."
23 Q. Okay. And it talks earlier about the fact that theories
24 include facts, right?
25 A. The answer is a collection of scientific facts,
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1 observations and hypotheses known as evolutionary theory, yes.
2 Q. You said that you're not sure exactly how many high
3 schools, but you have 15 or so teachers in each of those high
4 schools and the sticker was first placed in 2002, so it's been
5 two full school years and part of another one since the sticker
6 was there?
7 A. Yes, sir.
8 Q. How many instances are you aware of of teachers teaching
9 creationism?
10 A. I've not heard of teachers teaching creationism.
11 Q. How many instances are you aware of of teachers teaching
12 intelligent design?
13 A. I've heard of a teacher who brought up intelligent design
14 in the classroom.
15 Q. And what happened about that?
16 A. I don't know what the outcome of that was. It was in a
17 literature class, from what I understood.
18 Q. It wasn't in a science class?
19 A. Right.
20 Q. Thank you.
21 A. Yes, sir.
22 THE COURT: Anything further?
23 MR. MANELY: No, sir.
24 THE COURT: We're going to -- thank you, you may be
25 excused.
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1 We're going to be in recess until 1:30. Court is in
2 recess until 1:30.
3 (Luncheon recess.)
4 THE COURT: Thank you. Please be seated.
5 Call your next witness, Mr. Manely.
6 MS. GARRETT: Your Honor, we would like to call
7 Jeffrey Silver.
8 THE COURT: Thank you.
9 Please step up, face me, and raise your right hand.
10 JEFF SILVER,
11 having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as
12 follows:
13 THE COURT: You may lower your right hand. Please be
14 seated. Please speak into the mike as you're testifying, talk
15 loud enough so that we all can hear your testimony.
16 Your witness.
17 MS. GARRETT: Thank you.
18 DIRECT EXAMINATION
19 BY MS. GARRETT:
20 Q. Would you please state your name for the record?
21 A. Jeff Silver.
22 Q. And are you a plaintiff in this case?
23 A. I am.
24 Q. Are you a resident of Cobb County?
25 A. I am.
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1 Q. How long have you lived in the county?
2 A. About two and a half years.
3 Q. Have you been paying taxes to Cobb County for all these
4 years?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And do the taxes go towards Cobb County schools?
7 A. Yes, a portion.
8 Q. Do you have any children who attend Cobb County schools?
9 A. I do.
10 Q. And what grade is she in?
11 A. High school.
12 Q. High school. Is your daughter planning to go to college
13 after high school?
14 A. I hope so, yes.
15 Q. Has your daughter ever been assigned a science textbook
16 that has a disclaimer in it?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And in what class was she assigned that book?
19 A. Sophomore biology and I believe her current Earth science
20 textbook has one as well.
21 Q. She's currently a senior?
22 A. Junior.
23 Q. Junior, excuse me. Was she required to read that book as
24 part of the class curriculum?
25 A. Yes.
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1 Q. So she was given assignments in that textbook?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Are you a member of a church?
4 A. A temple.
5 Q. And do you attend temple regularly?
6 A. Semi-regularly.
7 Q. And does your daughter attend temple with you?
8 A. Most times.
9 Q. When did you first learn about this disclaimer?
10 A. The dates I can't tell you. There was an article in the
11 AJC profiling Jeff Selman and the whole issue, as well as
12 another individual who was opposing his viewpoint. That's
13 probably approximately a year and a half ago or more, maybe two
14 years at this point.
15 Q. And did it surprise you that Cobb County inserted this --
16 A. I was shocked. I was really shocked and outraged.
17 Q. And why were you outraged?
18 A. For two reasons. One, it seemed to me to be language that
19 opened the door to introducing schools of thought based in
20 faith and religion into science classes.
21 And because it had the potential for particular
22 religious beliefs -- going from that, had the potential for
23 certain religious beliefs to be promoted, and by the school
24 board, an organization carrying a great weight as far as the
25 perceived authority. And it also imposed those beliefs on
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1 students who have no choice but to be in those classes, they
2 have no alternative, and to be subjected to that.
3 Q. And as a parent of someone who had one of these textbooks,
4 how did that make you feel?
5 A. Well, as I say, shocked that it would be something that I
6 would be dealing with at all. I had recently moved to Cobb at
7 that point into what I believed to be one of the more affluent
8 and well-educated parts of -- counties in the state, so I was
9 totally shocked to hear that an issue like this was an issue at
10 all.
11 Q. And did you think that it was imposing a religious belief,
12 it was supporting a religious belief?
13 A. I think that the way the language is worded, I believe
14 that it implies a door has been opened to particular religious
15 beliefs in science classes, where I feel that it is totally
16 inappropriate.
17 Q. Do you think that the disclaimer disparages evolution?
18 A. Yes, I do.
19 Q. And that it asks the students to think about alternative
20 theories?
21 A. Do I think it asks them to consider --
22 Q. Do you think that it implies that?
23 A. Oh, certainly. I think just by virtue of the fact that it
24 singles out the theory of evolution above all others, it does
25 set it up to be, essentially, the end result being to disparage
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1 or to denigrate that one particular area in the curriculum.
2 Q. And are you aware that --
3 THE COURT: Excuse me. Does it also, in your
4 opinion, encourage religious-based beliefs? You said it
5 disparages evolution.
6 THE WITNESS: I believe that the wording of the
7 sticker --
8 THE COURT: You said open the door and I'm trying
9 to --
10 THE WITNESS: Yes, I believe it does open the door to
11 introducing faith-based teaching.
12 THE COURT: Okay.
13 Q. (By Ms. Garrett) And are you aware that some people who
14 oppose the teaching of evolution do so for religious reasons?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And when evolution is singled out like that, do you
17 believe that it's, you know, prompted by these religious
18 beliefs?
19 A. In this case I believe it was.
20 Q. And do you believe that, knowing the history, knowing the
21 text of the disclaimer and the context, that in this case it
22 endorses religion, it brings out those religious beliefs?
23 A. I believe there's certain language that in a certain
24 context as common knowledge and what reasonable people would
25 view as being held by certain groups, in this case people who
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1 have certain religious beliefs. So because that wording was
2 used in the context that it was used, I believe that it
3 implies, yes, religious beliefs.
4 Q. And earlier you said you were outraged, correct?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And would you say that you were offended?
7 A. To some degree, in that the -- given the beliefs that I
8 just laid out, given the fact that those beliefs are held by a
9 minority of the general population, which is not to make any
10 kind of judgment on the value or worth of those beliefs, but
11 that those beliefs were being imposed on the greater
12 population. So offended in that sense; not as a personal
13 affront to me.
14 Q. But you felt as though those views were being imposed
15 on --
16 A. On everyone who has that science book.
17 Q. Right. Thank you.
18 THE COURT: Thank you.
19 CROSS-EXAMINATION
20 BY MS. CALLAWAY:
21 Q. Mr. Silver, I'm Carol Callaway. We haven't met. I think
22 you said you'd been in Cobb County two and a half years; is
23 that correct?
24 A. As of this point, yes.
25 Q. Okay. Were you involved in any of the board interaction
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1 or did you come --
2 A. No.
3 Q. -- before the board to talk about the sticker? What was
4 the first time you saw the sticker?
5 A. Again, I can't tell you the date; I can only refer to that
6 newspaper article. Shortly after that, after I became aware of
7 it and then saw it later in my daughter's book.
8 Q. And how did you come to be a plaintiff in this lawsuit?
9 A. I was a member of an organization that was working to --
10 called GCISE, Georgia Citizens for Integrity in Science
11 Education. This issue was kind of a rallying point for that
12 organization being formed and I was asked to participate, if I
13 was willing to participate, having been a member of that group.
14 Q. After you became aware of the sticker, did you -- were you
15 aware there was a policy being promoted and regulations being
16 adopted?
17 A. Vaguely. To the extent that I could follow the -- the
18 details of the process were a little more than I could follow
19 in terms of knowing the difference between a policy and a
20 regulation, but I did have a general sense that there were
21 ongoing processes, yeah.
22 Q. And did you take part in that discussion with the board or
23 write any letters or appear?
24 A. I did not appear, I did not write letters. I was involved
25 through my participation with GCISE, which was focusing its
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1 efforts on those ongoing activities.
2 Q. Have you had a chance to review the policies?
3 A. To review them?
4 Q. To review the policy, uh-huh.
5 A. No.
6 Q. Okay. I want to show you what's been marked Defendants'
7 Exhibit 6. Can you identify that? Have you ever seen that
8 policy?
9 A. At various -- I cannot identify this particular one. At
10 various times I believe I did read, again, a variety of
11 different language for different policies and regulations that
12 were either existing at the time or in process. At this point
13 I couldn't differentiate one from the other, quite honestly.
14 Q. If you would look at number 3, I believe it is, and read
15 that sentence.
16 A. Out loud?
17 Q. Read it to yourself.
18 (Pause.)
19 THE WITNESS: Okay.
20 Q. (By Ms. Callaway) What does that say to you?
21 A. In a nutshell, that personal religious beliefs should not
22 be introduced as part of the curriculum. In theory, as it's
23 stated on that paper.
24 Q. Doesn't it say that teachers under no circumstances shall
25 teach instruction in religious subjects?
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1 A. I believe it does. I think -- I believe that real world
2 application could be different than what's stated on the page.
3 Q. So you don't deny, though, that the board has adopted a
4 policy that says under no circumstances can religion be taught?
5 A. If that's the policy on that page that you just showed me,
6 yes, that is what it says.
7 Q. Have you had any opportunity to communicate with the board
8 about any other subject?
9 A. No.
10 Q. Have you actually seen the textbook that -- I believe it's
11 your daughter, correct?
12 A. Yes. Yes, I have seen the textbook.
13 Q. You have seen the textbook. And have you had an
14 opportunity to review that material that's in there?
15 A. The sticker?
16 Q. No, the material that's in the textbook.
17 A. Well, no. But I have no issue with the material in the
18 book to begin with. My issue was with the sticker and the
19 language in the sticker.
20 Q. So you approve of the text but you just haven't reviewed
21 it?
22 A. That's a fair assessment.
23 Q. Okay. Have you reviewed any other text regarding how
24 teachers are supposed to instruct on this material?
25 A. No.
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1 Q. And do you have a science degree?
2 A. No.
3 Q. You've already indicated that you have an affiliation, a
4 religious affiliation.
5 A. Uh-huh.
6 Q. Has the teaching of this interfered with your religion in
7 any way, the teaching of religion -- of evolution?
8 A. No. But I never contended that it did.
9 Q. Now, again, tell me what it is about the sticker that you
10 object to specifically. Is it the wording of the sticker?
11 A. I'm not sure that I see any real need for the sticker at
12 all, first of all. As I said, the way it's worded, it does
13 single out the theory of evolution for scrutiny above all other
14 material in the book. And for the reasons I gave earlier, I
15 believe it does open the door for there to -- for religion to
16 be introduced into a science classroom.
17 Q. Has religion been introduced into your daughter's science
18 classroom?
19 A. I believe she mentioned, and, again, this is probably
20 going back a year, I do believe she mentioned an issue that was
21 brought up by one of the other students in her, one of her
22 science classes last year that related to all of this, yes.
23 Q. One student last year?
24 A. I believe so.
25 Q. And it wasn't the teacher that brought it up; it was a
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1 student in the class?
2 A. I could not swear to you who brought it up. I just
3 remember her telling me it had come up in the classroom. I
4 could not tell you for sure who it was.
5 Q. Have you ever discussed the theory of evolution with your
6 children?
7 A. Probably. I don't remember a specific instance.
8 Q. Do you think it's reasonable for the school board to
9 promote tolerance of religious beliefs?
10 A. I do believe they should promote tolerance of religious
11 beliefs. I'm not sure why that should become an issue only in
12 science classes, if that is the stated policy. But, yes, I
13 think there, in general, should be teaching of tolerance for
14 religion.
15 MS. CALLAWAY: Thank you. I have nothing further.
16 THE COURT: Anything on redirect?
17 MS. GARRETT: Yes.
18 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
19 BY MS. GARRETT:
20 Q. I'm going to hand you a document, it's marked Defendants'
21 Exhibit 5. Can you tell me what it says at the top, what it
22 identifies itself as?
23 A. Oh, Cobb County board policies?
24 Q. Yes. And does it say which policy it is?
25 A. Theories of origin.
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1 Q. Can you look at the second paragraph of that policy and
2 just read it over?
3 A. Okay.
4 Q. Actually, you can look at the whole thing.
5 (Pause.)
6 THE WITNESS: Okay.
7 Q. (By Ms. Garrett) You don't see anything in that policy
8 that prohibits the teaching of religious theories, alternate
9 theories of origin, do you?
10 A. I'm sorry, ask me the question again, please.
11 Q. You don't see anything in that that prohibits the teaching
12 of religious theories of evolution, do you? Or, I'm sorry, you
13 don't see anything in there in the policy that prohibits the
14 teaching of alternate theories of evolution or religious
15 theories of origin?
16 A. On a very quick reading, no, I don't think I do.
17 Q. Thank you.
18 MS. GARRETT: That's all.
19 THE COURT: Anything further?
20 MS. CALLAWAY: Nothing further.
21 THE COURT: Thank you, you may step down.
22 Call your next witness.
23 MR. WEBER: Your Honor, may Mr. Silver be excused?
24 He has to pick up his daughter.
25 THE COURT: Sure. Do --
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1 MR. GUNN: No objection.
2 THE COURT: He may be excused. Thank you.
3 MR. MANELY: Your Honor, we would like to call --
4 MR. GUNN: Can we approach the bench?
5 THE COURT: Sure.
6 (Following proceedings were had at the bench.)
7 MR. GUNN: We had discussed the appearance of
8 witnesses and discussed whether we were going to have an
9 agreement about that. Mr. Manely had served several witnesses
10 and there are three school board members who are here now and
11 I'm wondering if there's something we can do about scheduling
12 because I was told they were going to be testifying early on
13 and I understand there are a couple other individuals that have
14 to catch flights out. So I'm wondering --
15 THE COURT: I would prefer hearing from those people
16 who are here from out of town.
17 MR. MANELY: Yes, sir, there is one.
18 THE COURT: And then we'll hear from the people who
19 are here.
20 MR. MANELY: Yes, sir.
21 THE COURT: I think we better do it that way.
22 MR. GUNN: I just inquired because Mr. Silver is one
23 of the plaintiffs and I wasn't sure how many of the plaintiffs
24 we are going to hear from. The board members are in the
25 witness room --
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1 MR. MANELY: I can answer that, no more witnesses.
2 We'll have one more witness and he has to catch a flight this
3 afternoon.
4 THE COURT: All right, thank you.
5 (Following proceedings in open court.)
6 MR. MANELY: We would like to call Dr. Kenneth
7 Miller.
8 THE COURT: Dr. Miller, please come forward. Please
9 step up, face me, and raise your right hand.
10 KENNETH RAYMOND MILLER,
11 having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as
12 follows:
13 THE COURT: Thank you, please be seated. Speak into
14 the microphone and testify loud enough so we can hear your
15 testimony.
16 Your witness.
17 MR. MANELY: Yes, Your Honor.
18 DIRECT EXAMINATION
19 BY MR. MANELY:
20 Q. Dr. Miller, would you please state your name for the
21 record?
22 A. My name is Kenneth Raymond Miller.
23 Q. And what do you do for a living?
24 A. I'm a professor of biology at Brown University in
25 Providence, Rhode Island.
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1 Q. And is there anything else that you do for a living
2 besides being a professor of biology?
3 A. Well, being a faculty member at a place like Brown
4 includes running a research laboratory. I'm a cell biologist.
5 I work on the structure and function of biological membranes,
6 do research on membrane structure and organization. I also
7 teach courses in cell biology and general biology at my
8 university. And I also write the results of my scientific
9 workup. I write papers and essays and I've also written a
10 trade book and a number of textbooks that are widely used in
11 high schools and colleges around the country.
12 Q. So you're an author as well?
13 A. Yes, sir.
14 Q. What do you perceive your job is as an author?
15 A. When I'm writing a textbook, I think my job as an author
16 is to present science accurately, to present it clearly, and to
17 present it in as exciting and enticing a way as I possibly can.
18 With no disrespect intended to other disciplines,
19 such as the law, humanities, social sciences, I, for the life
20 of me, can't understand why any young person would want to go
21 into any field other than science, and I try to write about
22 biology incorporating that passion into the textbooks that I
23 write with the hope of trying to convince young people that
24 science in general, and biology in particular, is simply the
25 most exciting thing on the horizon. And, hopefully, in so
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1 doing, produce resource material that will be useful to high
2 school and college teachers in helping them with their courses
3 and helping to open the world of science to their students.
4 Q. So is it fair to say you try to turn your kids on to
5 science?
6 A. Yeah, that's the best way I could possibly put it.
7 Q. How many textbooks have you written?
8 A. I've written a total, with my co-author Joe Levine, I've
9 written a total of five: two college biology textbooks and
10 three high school textbooks. And the three high school
11 textbooks to date I think have appeared in 11 different
12 editions. So that's a total of about 13 books and editions all
13 counted.
14 Q. How many school districts have adopted your texts
15 throughout the United States?
16 A. That's very hard to say. The number is certainly in the
17 thousands. Our latest textbook, the one with the dragonfly on
18 the cover, has been available for almost three years and in
19 that time, my understanding, according to my publisher, is that
20 it's been the largest selling high school textbook in the
21 country. The specific numbers I could give you, for example,
22 the past year the state of Texas did a textbook adoption and 55
23 percent of the high schools in Texas selected our textbook. So
24 it is used all around the country in all 50 states.
25 Q. Let me hand you what's been already admitted as
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1 Defendants' Exhibit 4 and ask if you can identify this tome?
2 A. This is the 2002 edition of our textbook, Biology by
3 Miller and Levine.
4 Q. How many districts have adopted this text?
5 A. Once again, that's hard to say, but the number is
6 certainly in the thousands. It has been used all over the
7 country. In my area of the country up in the northeast, I
8 would say that probably 40 or 50 percent of the school
9 districts now use this particular edition and this book.
10 Q. From how many states?
11 A. That's a more difficult question to answer, and the reason
12 for that is that several states, about -- let me try to get
13 this exactly right -- 29 of the American states are with
14 publishers called open territory, which means every individual
15 school district makes up their own budget for textbooks and
16 buys books whenever they feel they need them. Twenty-one
17 states are adoption states, meaning that they adopt books in a
18 particular subject during a particular year.
19 Quite a few adoption states, and the examples that
20 come to my mind right now are Indiana, North Carolina and
21 Texas, have their state adoptions or are having them very
22 recently and therefore they would not have adopted the 2002
23 version, they would have adopted the 2004 version. But my best
24 guess is that this textbook, it's certainly used by more than a
25 thousand school districts in more than 30 of the 50 states.
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1 Q. Is your text used anywhere outside of the United States?
2 A. It is also used in a number of English-speaking countries,
3 including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain.
4 Q. Is it also used for the Armed Forces high schools?
5 A. Yes. Quite a few of the Armed Forces high schools around
6 the world have adopted this book for use in their high schools.
7 Q. When writing that textbook, how did you decide what
8 scientific topics to include?
9 A. My co-author and I like to joke that the business of
10 putting together a textbook is an exercise in triage. And what
11 I mean by that is there's so much material, that you basically
12 have to decide what you're going to include and what you're not
13 going to include.
14 Our first guide to that, and this has been very
15 helpful in the last five or six years, my first guide to that
16 are the National Science Education Standards which are
17 permitted by the National Academy of Sciences, the most
18 prestigious scientific body in the United States.
19 And because so many states, including Georgia, have
20 used the National Science Education Standards to model their
21 state curricula, we thought several years ago, when we laid the
22 foundations for this book, the best thing to do would be to
23 start with the National Science Education Standards.
24 After we had roughed out a table of contents and the
25 outline that would meet those standards, we then began to look
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1 into state-specific curricula. And as somebody, I live in the
2 state of Massachusetts, I work in the state of Rhode Island,
3 I'll tell you quite honestly, we didn't pay any attention to
4 small states, so Rhode Island's curriculum was not very
5 influential, for example, but Georgia's was, and so was New
6 York, California, Texas, Illinois.
7 And we tried to write a book that would give students
8 the background material, more importantly give teachers the
9 resource material to prepare students for the various state
10 standards in all of those states.
11 And having done that and having made sure that our
12 book was complete enough to meet those standards, the third
13 line in effect comes from the authors. Joe and I are both
14 active and practicing scientists. For example, I'm the
15 chairman of the Education Committee of the American Society for
16 Cell Biology, one of the largest experimental scientific
17 organizations in the country. I attend cell biology meetings
18 regularly, I read scientific journals, I go to meetings with
19 other scientists, and I am always keeping a file of new
20 scientific developments that I will include in the textbook to
21 make sure that it's current and make sure that new
22 breakthroughs that are not anticipated in the state standards
23 get into the textbook.
24 So it's really a combination: The national
25 standards, state and local standards, and then finally my own
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1 and my co-author's own scientific experience and expertise.
2 Q. Do you conduct any peer reviews of your textbook?
3 A. Absolutely. My co-author and I, first we serve as each
4 other's first editors. And our fields are quite complementary.
5 I'm a cellular molecular biologist. My co-author is an
6 evolutionary biologist and a marine biologist. So our fields
7 sort of interdigitate. I am his first editor, so I check his
8 first drafts, revise and correct them. He does the same to me.
9 It then goes, each manuscript then goes through two
10 rounds of editing by the senior editors in our publisher,
11 Pearson Prentice Hall. And then when we finally have a
12 manuscript or chapter, manuscript in good enough shape, it then
13 goes out to a panel of scientific experts.
14 And for this particular book, our panel included 27
15 scientists, all of whom hold a Ph.D., and most of whom had
16 teaching positions at some of the country's leading colleges
17 and universities, and they then engaged in scientific and also
18 stylistic critiques of what we had written. So the peer review
19 for every single chapter of this book is extensive.
20 Q. Can you pick out just any one of the peer reviewers and
21 give us a sense of what kind of qualifications those people
22 have?
23 A. I think probably the one that I would pick just as an
24 exemplar is David Brautigan, who is a professor at the
25 University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He's also the
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1 director of the Center for Cell Signaling. Cell signaling is a
2 really very hot field in cellular molecular biology and this is
3 David Brautigan's specialty. He's a leading researcher in that
4 area. But in addition to that, he runs an institute at
5 Virginia for cell signaling.
6 In addition to that, David is the former chairman of
7 the education committee, sort of my counterpart, in the
8 American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. So he
9 has a deep and long-term interest in education. And he's also
10 been involved in biotechnology outreach programs for the public
11 schools in the state of Virginia.
12 So the sort of person that we're looking for in peer
13 review is someone who is a recognized expert in their field,
14 and David certainly is, and also has an understanding and an
15 appreciation of what is required to bring quality science
16 education to the classroom.
17 Q. Do you submit it to any high schools for review?
18 A. Yes. We have a large panel of high school reviewers.
19 Since I have a copy of the book here, I can refer to it, page
20 Roman Numeral V lists high school reviewers and contributing
21 writers.
22 Our panel, I think, is between 50 and 60 high school
23 teachers all around the country and they review our book, in
24 many cases for scientific accuracy, because I regard high
25 school biology teachers as scientists and members of the
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1 scientific community first. And they have picked up quite a
2 few scientific errors or asked us to explain things that
3 weren't clear.
4 But, more importantly, they have helped us make sure
5 that our writing style and the manner of explanation, the
6 analogies that we use and so forth, are relevant to their
7 students. And this very large panel also reviews every one of
8 our manuscript pages before it goes to final copy.
9 Q. Do you have any practicing scientists review your book as
10 well?
11 A. Almost every one of the 27, as I said, content reviewers
12 that I mentioned earlier are, in fact, practicing scientists.
13 Q. Why did you determine that evolution should be included in
14 the textbook?
15 A. Well, the simple answer is that education -- I mean that
16 evolution is one of the centerpieces of the National Science
17 Education Standards. And if you read the science education
18 standards carefully, they include evolution as one of the key
19 core principles of the biological sciences.
20 Evolution also features very prominently in the
21 science education standards of just about every state in the
22 United States, including Georgia, and therefore as a matter of
23 state law in the state of Georgia we had to include evolution
24 in our book, and a thorough coverage of it at that.
25 And then, finally, any biological scientist would
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1 tell you, as the great geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky did
2 several years ago, that nothing in biology makes sense except
3 in light of evolution.
4 And what Dobzhansky meant by that is that without
5 evolution to tie things together, biology is just a collection
6 of observations, the shape of a leaf here, the structure of a
7 spinal cord over there, the activities of a cell here. He
8 actually once referred to it as just stamp collecting unless
9 you have evolution to tie things together.
10 And the implications of evolution basically bear on
11 just about everything else in our textbook in terms of ecology,
12 population growth, competition between individuals, the
13 structure of the vertebrate body, the structure of
14 invertebrates, the development of plants and the history of
15 life on Earth.
16 Q. Do you believe it's important for children to learn
17 evolution well so that they can go on to good schools?
18 A. I think it's important for young people of the United
19 States to learn science well, and evolution is an essential
20 part of the biological sciences.
21 So the simple answer to that is yes. I think the
22 continued success and the prosperity of this country at our
23 position in the world is dependent upon young people in the
24 United States being masters of science and that we -- if we
25 allow our young people to sort of slough off science in their
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1 education, we're setting the stage for economic, social, and
2 political disaster in the years ahead.
3 I can go back to my own personal experience. I was
4 always interested in science when I was a kid. The best thing
5 that ever happened, in my opinion, to science education in the
6 United States is that the Russians beat us putting a satellite
7 into orbit, Sputnik, and as a result there was an enormous
8 influx and interest in science education.
9 I benefited from that. I went to graduate school at
10 the University of Colorado and earned my doctorate under a
11 National Defense Education Act fellowship, and that fellowship,
12 which was given in the name of national defense, precisely
13 recognized the fact that scientific training was important to
14 the future of this country.
15 Q. Are there other subjects that are covered in your text
16 besides evolution?
17 A. Oh, of course. Biology is an enormously diverse field and
18 the other subjects that are covered in our textbook include the
19 nature of science, biological chemistry, cell biology,
20 molecular biology, ecology. We have a phylogenetic survey in
21 which we try to acquaint students with representative organisms
22 for each of the six living kingdoms and the three great domains
23 of life.
24 And, finally, we have an extensive section on the
25 human body and human physiology and evolution is one of those
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1 areas and it ties into the others as well.
2 Q. Is it on as sound a ground as those other subjects?
3 A. Oh, I certainly think so. I think most scientists would
4 say, as would I, that there is nothing special about evolution
5 from the point of view that our current understanding of
6 evolution is as well grounded as our current understanding of
7 cell biology or molecular biology or human physiology.
8 Evolutionary -- studies of evolution form a part of the entire
9 fabric of biology and there's no particular reason to place it
10 on higher or lower ground than any of the other subjects in
11 biology.
12 Q. When you were writing material on evolution did you add
13 any information regarding the Big Bang theory?
14 A. The Big Bang theory?
15 Q. Big Bang theory.
16 A. No. And I suppose your next question would be how come?
17 Q. Why, yes.
18 A. Okay. Because our textbook is not a book on astronomy and
19 the Big Bang is a popularized explanation of the origin of the
20 cosmos. In a book perhaps on Earth science or astronomy, I
21 think the Big Bang, the origin of the universe would be a very
22 important part of it.
23 But the history of life on this planet, geologists
24 tell us that our planet is about four and a half billion years
25 old. The history of life on this planet begins about a hundred
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1 million years after the formation of planet Earth and that's
2 actually, when we write about the history of life, that's where
3 we start because we want to go far enough back in time to tell
4 students about the very first fossils that provide evidence of
5 life on Earth, and at that point this book begins, not with the
6 Big Bang. It's just not a part of biology.
7 Q. When you were writing the material on evolution did you
8 add any information regarding Raelianism?
9 A. Raelianism?
10 Q. Yes.
11 A. No. And there's good reason for that. The Raelians are,
12 I suppose it's not too pejorative to call them a sect, but
13 they're a group that a couple of years ago made the apparently
14 quite clearly bogus claim of having cloned a baby. And I think
15 the subsequent investigation of that nonsense has shown very
16 clearly that they don't operate by the means of the rules of
17 science.
18 But the Raelians, as I understand them, claim that
19 our species on this planet was produced by a race of superhuman
20 aliens and the human race was sort of miraculously deposited by
21 these aliens and then the aliens flew away and they communicate
22 with a single person living in France who goes under the name
23 of Rael. And they try to interpret human history by means of
24 these space visitors that supposedly created our species.
25 There isn't a shred of scientific evidence for any of this and
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1 therefore we certainly didn't put anything about it in our
2 textbook.
3 Q. When you were writing material on evolution did you add
4 any information on creationism?
5 A. No, we did not. And the reason for that, once again, is
6 there is no scientific evidence that supports the idea of
7 creationism.
8 Now, it's very important to define what one means by
9 creationism. I'm a Roman Catholic, for example, so I believe
10 that the universe was created. So you could always say,
11 ah-hah, that means you're a creationist.
12 But in the modern usage of that language in the
13 United States, the word "creationist" means something quite
14 different other than a person who simply believes in a supreme
15 being and thinks that there is meaning and order and purpose to
16 the universe.
17 In the current usage in the United States,
18 creationist is taken to mean someone who thinks that the Earth
19 is only six to 10,000 years old, that all living organisms were
20 simultaneously created during a very brief period of time,
21 perhaps six days, and that the entire geological record is an
22 illusion, a column of flood deposition from a single 40-day
23 flood that has been misinterpreted for 250 years by the
24 geological sciences as a series, a system of geological ages.
25 For what it's worth, creationists also think that the
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1 universe is no older than six to 10,000 years, so therefore
2 they reject the basic scientific underpinnings of cosmology,
3 astronomy, geology, and biology. And because they reject so
4 much of science, I think it's very clear that that version of
5 creationism is not a scientific theory or a scientific idea and
6 therefore we didn't cover it in our book.
7 Q. When you were writing your material on evolution did you
8 add any information on intelligent design?
9 A. No, I did not. And the reason, once again, is because
10 we've been unable to find scientific evidence supporting the
11 idea of intelligent design.
12 And, once again, it's very important to get the
13 definitions right. I think it's fair to say that theists,
14 people who believe in any sort of god, myself included, think
15 that there is in a sense a kind of intelligence to the
16 universe, that we're here for a reason, that all of this is not
17 accidental. But that's different from the contemporary meaning
18 of the word "intelligent design" as it's used in the United
19 States.
20 Intelligent design theorists, so-called, argue that
21 evolution simply cannot explain the appearance of organisms on
22 this planet and the only way to do that is to posit that all of
23 these organisms were designed intelligently by a supernatural
24 process, a process operating above and beyond the laws of
25 nature. Because the very idea of this kind of supernatural
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1 intervention in living systems is, by definition, not testable
2 by science, it simply is not a scientific idea, and therefore
3 we didn't include it in our book.
4 THE COURT: Is it religious based?
5 THE WITNESS: The advocates, Your Honor, of
6 intelligent design would argue very strongly that their ideas
7 are not religious based. They would say it is a
8 straightforward conclusion of the analysis of information,
9 theory, and what they regard as the deficiencies of
10 evolutionary theory.
11 But I think it's also clear that the people who
12 embrace intelligent design in the United States argue very
13 strongly that they have a religious -- argue very strongly that
14 if intelligent design is not included, then their own religious
15 beliefs will suffer. So they certainly, in my own experience,
16 many of them have religious motivations for embracing this
17 particular idea.
18 THE COURT: How do you see it?
19 THE WITNESS: Pardon me, sir?
20 THE COURT: How do you see it?
21 THE WITNESS: How do I see it? I'm a -- if I had to
22 describe myself philosophically, I'd describe myself as a
23 pragmatist, which if it works, that's good enough for me.
24 And with respect to intelligent design, I'm still
25 waiting, and I've been waiting for about ten years for
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1 intelligent design theory to provide a single testable
2 scientific explanation that holds up under peer review, under
3 scientific analysis, and it simply hasn't.
4 And to put it in terms that my family in southern
5 Indiana, mostly a farming family, would understand, this dog
6 don't hunt. And in the case of intelligent design, I think
7 that's a very good way to describe it.
8 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Maybe part of what his honor is asking
9 you about is how do you see it in terms of a religion,
10 intelligent design, positing a designer, a creator?
11 A. Well, by definition any explanation that requires a
12 creator, an intelligent designer is religious on its -- is
13 certainly religious on its face, and therefore the very fact
14 that intelligent design presupposes such a creator makes it so.
15 Now, I have to say that some of the advocates of
16 intelligent design, one I can think of in particular, Michael
17 Behe, who is a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University
18 in Pennsylvania, a fellow whom I've debated six or seven times
19 on television, on radio, and in person in various places,
20 Michael will say that intelligent design theory doesn't require
21 that the designer be a deity; the designer could be, just like
22 the Raelians say, could be super intelligent space aliens.
23 But I also have to say that, given the embrace of the
24 sort of anti-evolutionary aspects of the religious movement in
25 the United States, that most people realize quite clearly that
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1 the designer is not a space alien or some other super
2 intelligent being from outer space.
3 William Dembski of the Discovery Institute, who is
4 one of the leading lights of the intelligent design movement,
5 has said very clearly that most Christians will recognize the
6 intelligent designer as the God of Abraham. He used exactly
7 those words to describe it and I think he's quite right about
8 that.
9 Q. Touch base with you on something, you described yourself
10 as a Roman Catholic, as a small sea creationist thinking that
11 God created the world, the universe, I think you said, as a
12 theist, but in reading over your textbook, I don't see anything
13 about Roman Catholicism, theism, or small sea creations
14 anywhere in your textbook. Why?
15 A. I think the reason you don't see it is if I had written a
16 textbook on mathematics or if I had written a textbook on
17 organic chemistry or if I had written a textbook on the rules
18 of NCAA fast-pitch softball, in which I'm an umpire,
19 incidentally, you wouldn't see any reference to the creator on
20 those, either. Although as an umpire I will tell you that
21 coaches frequently come out and they make references to the
22 creator after they've seen the strike zone and that sort of
23 stuff.
24 But the reason, the reason the references are not
25 there is because these are religious ideas and religious
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1 concepts and this is a book of science.
2 My co-author and I have never neglected the
3 opportunity in a public forum -- we have talked to teachers,
4 we've talked to members of the public about our books -- to
5 point out something that we don't think is relevant in the
6 textbook itself, but to point out, as I've mentioned that I'm a
7 Roman Catholic and my co-author Joe Levine is an observant Jew,
8 and we both respect religion enormously. We do our best, our
9 human best, with all of our failings, to practice it and to
10 follow it.
11 But we draw, basically, a line of separation. When
12 we're writing about science, we try to write a book that is
13 neither supportive of our own individual religious views or is
14 hostile to the religious views of other people, and I think
15 that's exactly what we've done.
16 Q. When you were writing your material on evolution did you
17 add information about the scientific evidence against
18 evolution?
19 A. The short answer to that is no. But it's clear, as you
20 read through our textbook, when we talk about the evidence
21 supporting evolution, that we regarded, we essentially wanted
22 to tell it like it is, to give a straight story to the
23 students. And we talked, for example, in many places about
24 areas where it's now clear that Charles Darwin was wrong. And
25 one of those areas, for example, concerns what evolutionary
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1 biologists call the mode and tempo of evolutionary change. In
2 other words, how quickly things change and what the tempo or
3 pace is.
4 There's an idea known as punctuated equilibrium,
5 which is really quite different from the understanding that
6 Darwin had of change over natural history and we try to
7 describe in our textbook exactly where those differences arise.
8 We also point out in many cases that there are a lot
9 of unexplained problems in constructing an evolutionary
10 scenario, particularly around the origin of life.
11 In the section of the textbook where we write about
12 the origin of life, we point out that there are many questions
13 in the origin of life that science cannot answer. One of those
14 questions, it's a very important one, is where the first living
15 cell came from. We have a diagram that shows a number of
16 processes leading to the first living cell. That diagram is
17 studded with question marks to try to make it very clear, not
18 in a sort of quick and easy to miss way, but right on the
19 diagram say, look, kids this is something that we just don't
20 understand.
21 Now having said all that, are any of those question
22 marks evidence against evolution?
23 Well, the answer to that is I think not. The fact
24 that there are certain events in natural history that we cannot
25 currently explain, that observation could be applied to another
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1 discipline as well. For example, we might take the Battle of
2 Gettysburg and say there are elements of the Battle of
3 Gettysburg, despite the eyewitnesses accounts, despite the
4 archeology that has been done in the battlefield, that we don't
5 quite understand. Does that mean the battle of Gettysburg
6 never took place? The answer is, of course not; it certainly
7 did. But the fact that we can't reconstruct everything in the
8 terms of the ebb and flow of the battle of exactly why the
9 Pickett's Charge failed or a whole list of other things, that
10 doesn't mean it didn't take place.
11 With respect to evolution and biology, is there
12 evidence, good scientific, solid evidence that directly
13 contradicts the theory? I would say, no, I haven't found any,
14 and most scientists would give the same answer.
15 Q. When you were writing material on evolution did you add
16 any information about alternate theories of origin?
17 A. Such as? When you talk about alternate theories, there
18 are quite a few places in the textbook we point out to the
19 students that there are a number of ways that certain phenomena
20 in nature might be explained. So you might call those
21 alternate theories.
22 In the evolution section of our textbook, we point
23 out that scientists, for example, disagree about the relative
24 importance of natural selection, sexual selection, chance,
25 species hybridization, and a whole host of other factors, all
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1 of which influence evolution. So when you say are these
2 alternate theories, yes.
3 However, there is no single alternate theory that
4 stands in direct opposition to evolution that really has any
5 scientific basis. And one of the things that we decided from
6 the very beginning, my co-author and I, Joe Levine and I have
7 been writing together for almost 20 years, and from the very
8 beginning we resolved that we would never put in any of our
9 textbooks any material that would make us feel as though we had
10 sort of looked down our oath as scientists. Scientists don't
11 take an oath, but the informal oath that I think most people
12 engaged in the scientific enterprise respect is to follow the
13 evidence wherever it leads and to base your science on
14 empirical observations and the theories that tie those
15 observations together. And so since we could find no such
16 alternatives to evolution we simply did not include them in the
17 book.
18 Q. But there is legitimate scientific disagreement about a
19 scientific theory. Did you set that out in the text?
20 A. Well, there is a legitimate scientific disagreement about
21 everything in science. In my own field in cell biology I
22 cannot tell you how heated the arguments get at scientific
23 meetings with respect to what the motor is that moves
24 chromosomes apart in cell division during mitosis.
25 There's no doubt the chromosomes move. Some people
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1 think it's a protein called kinesin that pulls them apart.
2 Another group thinks it's a protein called dynein that pushes
3 them apart. Some people think it's the depolarization of
4 little tubes of protein called microtubules.
5 So this is hot stuff. This kind of disagreement
6 occurs everywhere in science. And it occurs in evolutionary
7 biology, as well. And one of the things that we made very
8 clear in our discussion of evolutionary biology is evolutionary
9 biologists continue to argue about this, that, and the other
10 aspects of evolutionary theory. And we tried wherever we
11 possibly could to expose students to that disagreement within
12 the scientific community and I think we did a fair job of it.
13 Q. Is there a legitimate scientific disagreement about
14 whether or not evolution occurs?
15 A. I think the answer to that is no. And there is no serious
16 disagreement within the scientific community, first of all,
17 about the fact that evolution occurred, which is to say change
18 through time. It is as much of a fact as anything else that we
19 know in science, that the life of today is descended from the
20 life of the past.
21 And as we go farther and farther into the past, and
22 we have the physical evidence, fossils and other information
23 about that life in the past to go on, as we go farther and
24 farther into the past, life becomes more and more dissimilar
25 from life today.
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1 So it's very clear, and we have the physical evidence
2 to show it, that life has changed or evolved over time. That
3 kinds of plasticity, that ability to change, and we can look at
4 the world around us and we can ask the following question: Is
5 that ability to change only in the past, or are organisms alive
6 today in the process of changing and adapting and giving rise
7 to new species?
8 And the scientific community would also answer that
9 question as yes. And the reason for that is all the elements
10 that are required for evolutionary change to take place are
11 available in organisms today, they can be demonstrated in the
12 laboratory. And if you want me to, that's the reason I brought
13 my little notebook up here, I can give you three or four
14 scientific papers that are published in the last, oh, five or
15 six years that document the evolution or the incipient
16 evolution of brand new species right here in the North American
17 continent happening right now. So evolution continues today.
18 Q. Is evolution testable?
19 A. I think evolution is testable. And it's testable in a
20 number of ways.
21 Once you accept Darwin's ideas, in other words, once
22 you say, okay, let's entertain this idea of what Charles Darwin
23 actually called descent with modification -- a term that he
24 much preferred to the term evolution -- once you accept that
25 idea, you place what I would call testable constraints on the
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1 patterns of change in natural history.
2 And I can give you a couple of examples of that. One
3 of those tests is that novel structures and organs should be
4 found only in the actual descendents of organisms in which
5 those novel structures and organs first appear. And when you
6 examine the fossil record you see that that is indeed the case.
7 It should also show that as we get better and better
8 details, as new discoveries fill in the details of the fossil
9 record, they should more and more and more closely conform to
10 the idea that evolution proceeds over time by a series of
11 branching or splitting patterns. We should see more and more
12 complete evolutionary trees. And we have been able to see
13 that. We can even see that on our own species, where the human
14 fossil record has become astonishingly complete in the last
15 quarter century simply because we have filled in so many of the
16 gaps.
17 And, finally, what we should -- so what happens is,
18 as the fossil record fills in, we find a consistent pattern of
19 ancestor-descendent relationships, and we have found that.
20 And then, lastly, organisms themselves should show a
21 nested series of relationships in the living world today, and
22 that nested series of relationships comes about by common
23 ancestry through evolution. So all of that is testable.
24 Finally, the mechanism of evolution itself, kinetic
25 change in natural selection, is something that can be tested in
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1 the laboratory, it has been tested, it's been observed in the
2 laboratory, and it's been observed in nature.
3 If we went back in time and we were to discover
4 contemporary living organisms all the way back in the oldest
5 strata, in the oldest sediment, we would immediately know there
6 was something fishy about the fossil record. We haven't found
7 that, despite 250 years of investigation. If we were to
8 discover that living organisms today could not adapt to sudden
9 radical changes in their environment, that would falsify
10 evolution, but they do.
11 THE COURT: Does it apply to the human species also?
12 THE WITNESS: Yes, it certainly applies to the human
13 species.
14 THE COURT: So the human species is still evolving?
15 THE WITNESS: Absolutely, Your Honor. What you need
16 for evolution to take place in any organism -- basically it's
17 just two things. The first thing is variation. So for the
18 individual members of the species to have variable
19 characteristics, and with all due respect you can look around
20 the courtroom today and you can see there's a lot of variation
21 in the human species.
22 The second thing that is required for evolution is
23 differential reproductive success, which is to say different
24 individuals leave different numbers of offspring. My wife and
25 I have been blessed to leave two offspring. I would wager that
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1 there are some people in this room who have left more than that
2 and there are some people who have left fewer. And that's an
3 example of differential reproductive success.
4 The other thing it is doing is that we continue to
5 evolve because we continue to face new environmental
6 challenges, HIV, AIDS is a very good example of that. Fifteen
7 years of investigation have made it very clear that some
8 individuals, a small number of the population, but some
9 individuals are dramatically resistant to viral insertion by
10 HIV. These are people who are known as long-term
11 nonprogressives, people who can be infected with this virus,
12 some people, sadly, die very, very quickly from this terrible
13 disease, other people live decades and seem to be able to
14 tolerate it and fight back. And we now know that has a genetic
15 basis. What that means over the long term is that our species
16 continues to be able to adapt.
17 Many human genetic disorders are, in fact, related to
18 our continuing battle with microorganisms and parasites, and
19 it's one of the reasons why human beings show up with genetic
20 disorders, probably like cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs disease.
21 It's because individuals who were heterozygous, sorry about the
22 scientific term, two different alleles, two different versions
23 of the gene for these subjects were partially resistant to
24 either typhus or one of the other diseases that were prominent
25 in Europe at the time and we see the residue of that in our own
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1 population today. So evolution continues.
2 Q. Does your textbook foster critical thinking about science?
3 A. I certainly hope so because we designed it from the ground
4 up to foster critical thinking. In every section of every
5 single chapter in this book we included critical thinking
6 questions, we included them at the end of the chapter.
7 One of the jobs of the 50 or 60 high school reviewers
8 who read this book was to evaluate how good our critical
9 thinking exercises were and, if they were not good, to suggest
10 or to write new ones, and quite a few members of the teaching
11 panel did.
12 I am also convinced from the very strong reception
13 that our book has had the teachers absolutely agree with what I
14 just said, that this is the best textbook available in terms of
15 fostering critical thinking about evolution, but also about
16 everything else in biology as well.
17 Q. What is the scientific method?
18 A. What is the scientific method? Scientific method is the
19 four- or five-part chain of reasoning that every student reads
20 in the first chapter of every science book and then promptly
21 forgets. That's one way to define it.
22 The usual way in which one talks about the scientific
23 method is to say that one goes ahead by, first of all,
24 formulating a hypothesis, an idea. And the only useful
25 hypotheses in science are the ones that are testable. A
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1 hypothesis might be great but if there's no way to test it it's
2 scientifically useless.
3 So you formulate a testable hypothesis. You then go
4 out and construct either an experiment or a tested and
5 controlled series of observations that will test that
6 hypothesis. You then gather your data or you conduct your
7 experiments. You then analyze them and see whether they
8 confirm or refute the hypothesis. And if they refute the
9 hypothesis, you say, great, throw it away, and you start over.
10 If they confirm the hypothesis, and this is an
11 important thing, very important thing to get across to
12 students, you do not consider it proven because nothing in
13 science is ever considered to be proven. You do consider that
14 it has survived the test and it's worth testing further. And
15 that is essentially the way the scientific method works.
16 Q. Have you seen the disclaimer that -- I wanted to ask you,
17 first of all, does evolution subscribe to the scientific
18 method?
19 A. Of course. Evolution being the branch of science, it does
20 subscribe to the scientific method. Very often I think this
21 causes trouble with people because they think, well, you know
22 when you talk about the evolution of -- an evolutionary event
23 that, let's say, occurred a hundred or a hundred and
24 twenty-five million years ago, since that event was in the
25 past, how can we tell anything about it scientifically.
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1 Well, the answer turns out to be you can't do
2 experiments, but you can make observations and can construct
3 hypotheses that are testable in terms of how they work.
4 And I'll give you an example of a testable hypothesis
5 that now has been experimentally verified. One of the things
6 evolutionary biologists who work on these creatures have been
7 telling us for quite a long time is that cetaceans, swimming
8 mammals, like whales and dolphins, are descended from
9 land-dwelling animals and that their move back into the water
10 occurred, oh, about 60, 65 million years ago. But the whole
11 notion had been called into question because people said, well,
12 find some intermediates or find some intermediate forms.
13 Well, the problem with looking for fossils of a
14 specific evolutionary transition is it's a big world. Where
15 did this transition take place?
16 Well, it's now very clear that the key elements of
17 the transition took place in the Indus River Valley in the
18 border between India and Pakistan. And now that
19 paleontologists know where to look, they've dug up one fossil
20 after another that has documented the transition from land to
21 water.
22 Now, here's the testable part of that. It turns out
23 that the kind of hearing device that we have, and most land
24 mammals have, is perfectly put together for hearing in air
25 because air vibrations come to you, and I'm sure you realize if
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1 you turn your head to the side you can tell where the sound is
2 coming from because it arrives a little quicker at one ear than
3 the other and that enables you to turn right or left to hear
4 the sound. That's what you need in the air.
5 In the water, however, the movement of sound is
6 different and you need an entirely different kind of auditory
7 apparatus in the water. And cetaceans have that, swimming
8 mammals have a middle ear apparatus which is completely
9 different from us and from other land-dwelling animals.
10 So if this transition really took place, we should be
11 able to find an intermediate form. In other words, at some
12 point these organisms must have had an auditory apparatus that
13 was midway between the land version and the underwater version.
14 And in the last two years there have been a series of papers in
15 the British journal Nature that have reported exactly such a
16 finding, which is a series of auditory apparatus that worked
17 pretty good on land and pretty good in water because it
18 represented an intermediate between the two forms and then its
19 fossils descendents as well. And that's an example of what I
20 would call a testable hypothesis that can be applied to
21 evolution.
22 Q. Does your text teach that evolution is a theory and not a
23 fact?
24 A. That's a difficult question to answer, and the reason for
25 that has to do not with our textbook but with the use of
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1 language.
2 In English we often use the word "evolution" to mean
3 two entirely different things.
4 The first way in which we mean it is to describe what
5 happened in the past. The scientific community really is of
6 one mind that evolution took place, that we are descended with
7 modifications from earlier organisms and so is everything else
8 on this planet. This is supported by a host of facts,
9 including the fossil record, including biogeography, and even
10 our own genetics and our own physiology. So the notion that
11 this descent with modification took place, namely that life in
12 the past was different from life in the present and that the
13 life of the past evolved or changed into the life of the
14 present, that's as much of a fact as anything else we know in
15 science.
16 How this took place, that's the respect in which
17 evolution is also a theory. So when we speak of evolutionary
18 theory, what we're talking about are the mechanisms that drove
19 this change. And there's considerable -- there's considerable
20 disagreement and considerable scientific work as to the
21 relative merits of geographical isolation, what's known as
22 ecological isolation, sexual selection, natural selection,
23 physiological selection, and so forth.
24 So in a way it would be really nice if we could
25 invent two distinct words so that we could make clear when
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1 we're talking about evolution, namely the facts of natural
2 history, and evolution, the process. But in that respect it's
3 quite proper, as we do in our book, to speak of evolutionary
4 theory, talking about the mechanisms of change and the relative
5 importance of various elements of it, and also the fact of
6 evolutionary change.
7 THE COURT: So evolution is both, then, fact and
8 theory?
9 THE WITNESS: I think it is fair to say that
10 evolution is certainly a theory, but it is also a fact, in that
11 it is a fact of natural history that evolution took place.
12 THE COURT: Thank you.
13 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Does your text teach the chaos theory and
14 its effect on evolution -- let me ask this way. Is the chaos
15 theory and its effect on evolution evidence against evolution?
16 A. The chaos theory --
17 THE COURT: What is it, first of all.
18 THE WITNESS: Well, Your Honor, I'm not a
19 mathematician but I'll try to explain my layman's understanding
20 of it as best I can.
21 Chaos theory is essentially a branch of mathematics
22 that takes account of the fact that at the very fine level,
23 movements of individual molecules, atoms, individual events
24 that occur in nature, nature can be chaotic, which is to say
25 things can bounce around a little bit. And very small changes
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1 in initial conditions or initial events over time can have
2 enormous effects.
3 And also the idea that you have unstable conditions,
4 the analogy that's often used is where hurricanes come from.
5 And I've also heard people say, well, somewhere over the south
6 Atlantic a butterfly flaps its wings, starts a little current
7 of air, and just because everything else is right that
8 gradually becomes magnified in a hurricane. The idea of very
9 small events perturbing big events later on is an element or a
10 foundation of chaos theory.
11 And also the idea that conditions can sort of be
12 suspended between either going this way or that way, it can
13 suddenly snap in one way direction or another, is an element of
14 chaos theory as well.
15 People who are trying to study evolutionary change
16 over time have realized that chaos theory is probably quite
17 important in explaining why evolutionary history has taken this
18 pattern -- this path as opposed to this path or, perhaps, as
19 opposed to another one.
20 However, and this is the reason there isn't a word
21 about chaos theory in here: A, the mathematics of chaos theory
22 are really complicated, and they're a little bit too
23 complicated for the intended 14- and 15-year-old audience of
24 this book.
25 And then the second thing is evolutionary biologists
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1 themselves are enormously divided on how to apply chaos theory
2 to evolutionary theory, and since this particular area is
3 simply not settled enough to give a coherent explanation at the
4 level at which this book is used, we simply didn't include it.
5 Q. Is chaos theory evidence against evolution?
6 A. Oh no, of course not. Chaos theory is simply an example
7 of the way in which scientists continue to try to grapple with
8 the entire world of science and make it understandable in terms
9 of evolution. And the reason that chaos theory presents
10 problems for evolution is because it is, like a lot of things
11 in real life, it is complicated, it has a lot of implications
12 for which direction evolutionary theory will go.
13 But because science is nothing more than a free and
14 open marketplace of ideas, what I feel I have to do when I sit
15 down and write the textbook is to step back, wait for five or
16 ten years for the people in the field to fight it out and see
17 which idea emerges as the best explanation for the scientific
18 evidence. And maybe in the second or third revision of this
19 book, chaos theory will be settled enough in terms of its
20 relation to evolutionary theory to write into the book.
21 Q. Have you seen the disclaimer that the Cobb County Board of
22 Education added to your textbook?
23 A. Yes, I have.
24 Q. Did any of the Cobb County board members contact you about
25 the material in your text?
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1 A. Any of the board members, no.
2 Q. Did any of the Cobb County board members contact you about
3 their disclaimer?
4 A. No, they did not.
5 Q. I understand that your co-author has been to Cobb twice to
6 work with teachers?
7 A. That's right. When Cobb County favored us by adopting our
8 textbook we were delighted and we were flattered, and through
9 our publisher's representative we promised that one or another
10 of the authors -- Joe Levine was the lucky guy -- one or the
11 other of the authors would come down to Cobb County and conduct
12 an in-service training session with the teachers, acquaint them
13 with the book, get to know the author personally.
14 My co-author, Joe, and I have our own website, not
15 our publisher's site, but we have our own Internet website that
16 we have written to support teachers and students using our
17 book. Joe wanted to show them how that website works and how
18 they can gain access to it and also to spend the day and answer
19 any questions that the teachers had in terms of the
20 implementation of the book.
21 And I should add that Joe was very well received, he
22 was absolutely delighted, and he's envious of me in the fact
23 that I'm down here in Georgia today.
24 Q. Part of the in-service work for teachers in Cobb, did it
25 have to do with helping teachers through the religious
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1 objections raised by students against evolution?
2 A. That was not the primary purpose of the in-service. And I
3 was not there, so anything I say now I'm repeating from Joe.
4 Joe told me that it came up once or twice, and he did
5 his best. Concerns of teachers as to how to handle the
6 religious beliefs of their own students when they're studying
7 science in general, and evolutionary biology in particular,
8 these sort of concerns are voiced to myself and my co-author by
9 teachers all over the country all of the time, so we're quite
10 used to answering the questions and I know that Joe did his
11 best to try to help the teachers see how he would approach it
12 and sort of to exchange views with them.
13 THE COURT: So these kinds of questions in
14 in-services, whether there's a sticker similar to the one in
15 Cobb or not?
16 THE WITNESS: I think that might be a way to put it.
17 In many places throughout the country I've become aware of
18 situations where teachers voted by majority vote to adopt our
19 textbook and then people in the community objected because our
20 textbook has extensive coverage of evolution and the teachers
21 sometimes will contact me and say could you write a letter
22 explaining how your textbook is not threatening to religious
23 beliefs or how it respects religious neutrality and I have done
24 that whenever I've been asked.
25 THE COURT: And you've read the sticker, have you
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1 not?
2 THE WITNESS: Yes, I have, Your Honor.
3 THE COURT: Does it affect the teaching of evolution?
4 THE WITNESS: Oh, I think it does because --
5 THE COURT: How?
6 THE WITNESS: Well, the sticker, first of all, having
7 a sticker inside -- the only place that I see warning stickers
8 are on cigarette packages.
9 And when I open this, I know the sticker doesn't say
10 "warning" but it almost, you know, I say that it almost says:
11 Warning, this textbook contains information on evolution.
12 It doesn't say that. It says, "This textbook
13 contains material on evolution." And when I first read that I
14 thought, well, that's a very strange statement.
15 Is it true that the book contains material on
16 evolution? Yes, it is true. But it would be a lot like
17 looking at the way I'm attired this morning and saying Ken
18 Miller was wearing a belt. Well, I am, but thank God I'm
19 wearing more than a belt.
20 In this particular case, "This textbook contains
21 material on evolution." Well, sure it does. But it also
22 contains material on ecology, natural history, human
23 physiology, genetics, molecular biology. So why is it deemed
24 necessary to say, kids, this book contains material on
25 evolution, as if evolution is something special that must be
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1 brought to the attention of students.
2 THE COURT: Are you saying you think it brings undue
3 attention to evolution?
4 THE WITNESS: Well, whether the attention is undue,
5 Your Honor, or not, I'm not really sure I have an opinion on.
6 But as the author of a textbook that includes ten units on
7 broad subject areas, to see one of those units singled out and
8 say this textbook contains material -- it might as well this
9 textbook contains material on the human body, which it does.
10 And then I would ask that board of education, well, why are you
11 pointing out it contains material on the human body? Heck, in
12 the table of contents in the back it says the same thing. In
13 this case it says Unit 5, Evolution, so why have an extra
14 sticker on the front to say the same thing? So that struck me
15 as strange.
16 THE COURT: The sticker was unnecessary?
17 THE WITNESS: Pardon me?
18 THE COURT: The sticker was unnecessary? I mean in
19 your opinion.
20 THE WITNESS: Well, it certainly, you know, since the
21 back of the book says Unit 5, Evolution, putting a sticker on
22 the front that says this book contains material on evolution,
23 well, sure, that was just confirmatory, so that part is
24 unnecessary.
25 And then -- but I haven't memorized the disclaimer
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1 exactly but I believe the second --
2 THE COURT: Here.
3 THE WITNESS: Thank you very much. "Evolution is a
4 theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things."
5 Well, we have a heading in our book called
6 Evolutionary Theory. So, once again, we said evolution is a
7 theory, so why does this disclaimer point this out?
8 What bothers me is the way this thing reads, "a
9 theory, not a fact," because I think the wording of that second
10 sentence plays on the popular understanding of the proven
11 "theory" and not the scientific understanding.
12 The popular understanding is a theory is just a
13 hunch. As a diehard Red Sox fan I always had a theory as to
14 why the Red Sox would never win the World Series. Of course,
15 that theory has been proven false, whatever it was.
16 But in science you don't use the word "theory" for a
17 guess or a stupid hunch or something like that. Theories are
18 not facts of which we're not quite sure; rather, theories are
19 explanations that are really at a higher level than facts
20 because theories explain facts, they tie them together.
21 So if I was given a red pencil, in other words, if
22 Levine sent this to me and I edited it for him, I would say
23 evolution is a theory widely supported by millions of facts
24 from different areas of science regarding the origin of living
25 things.
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1 Theories are supported by facts, they're not
2 different from facts, and that's how they're tied together.
3 And then the curious part, and, Your Honor, with all
4 due respect, this is the most curious part of the disclaimer to
5 me, the last sentence: "This material," which I assume means
6 evolution, "should be approached with an open mind, studied
7 carefully, and critically considered."
8 Now, who can argue with that? No one. And I
9 certainly wouldn't argue with it, either. But what bothers me
10 about it is it tells students we are certain of everything in
11 this book except evolution, so the only things that you have to
12 keep an open mind about are the things about evolution. In
13 other words, we're certain of everything in genetics and
14 molecular biology and ecology.
15 Well, we aren't. And the greatest disservice I think
16 that any instructor or any textbook author or any board of
17 education could do to young students engaging in the study of
18 the science is to imply that we are dead certain of everything
19 else except for this one subject, which you should study
20 critically and approach with an open mind.
21 I would love to see a disclaimer that said: Since
22 this is a book about science, everything in this book should be
23 examined critically and studied with an open mind. That's a
24 disclaimer that I would heartily endorse and that's actually
25 pretty much what we said on page 6 of the textbook itself.
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1 MR. MANELY: Thank you, sir, I could ask you nothing
2 further.
3 THE COURT: Thank you.
4 Mr. Gunn, you may cross-examine the witness.
5 CROSS-EXAMINATION
6 BY MR. GUNN:
7 Q. Hi, Dr. Miller.
8 A. Hello.
9 Q. You've touched on it a couple of times, but what you just
10 said about the sticker, you'd like to see a sticker that says
11 everything in science should be approached with an open mind
12 and studied carefully.
13 Evolutionary theory is a little different than some
14 other scientific theories, isn't it?
15 A. I'm not sure what you mean. I think that evolution is --
16 it's a little different in that the subject matter is
17 different, but I think it's subject to the same rules of
18 scientific inquiry and examination as anything else in science.
19 Q. Okay. You mentioned that you had -- there were times
20 across the country when a faculty would look at your book and
21 you would -- some people would have objections to it, I assume
22 based upon the fact that it may interfere with their religious
23 faith or there may be some kind of conflict there, and you were
24 asked to write a letter about it, right?
25 A. Yes. And I think most recently, I may have the name of
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1 the town wrong, but I think that was in -- the most recent case
2 was in Rosewood, California, or one of the areas in southern
3 California.
4 Q. How often does that happen?
5 A. Oh, I'd say probably, with respect to our textbook,
6 probably four or five times a year. I'd say five years ago I
7 received a whole series of letters from people in the Armed
8 Forces who objected to an earlier textbook of ours, one with
9 elephants on the cover. We describe them by the animals that
10 are on the cover. And they regarded it as hostile to religion.
11 Those letters were forwarded to me by the publisher
12 and I took the time to personally write every one of those
13 parents and thanked them for serving our country, of course,
14 and also pointed out that both of the authors of this book are
15 religious people themselves, and there are certainly ways to
16 understand evolutionary science that are not at all in conflict
17 with religious values, and that's what we try to point out.
18 Q. So there have been a number of individuals with religious
19 objections, specifically to the portion about evolution. Have
20 people raised religious objections to other portions of the
21 book?
22 A. I don't think so. The --
23 Q. Isn't that a way that evolutionary theory is unique? In
24 essence, I'll -- well, go with this, you wrote a book and it's
25 called Finding Darwin's God, and I assume from the portions of
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1 it -- I apologize I haven't read it all yet but --
2 A. We can wait.
3 Q. But the reason, I mean, you found a reason to put Darwin
4 and God together in the title of your book. Why was that?
5 A. Well, first of all, the book to which you refer is a trade
6 book sold in bookstores. It's not used as a textbook. It's
7 used as a supplemental text by some colleges, but it certainly
8 is not intended for the public school classroom the way that
9 this book is.
10 So when I write a trade book I can try to explain to
11 other religious people how I personally balance these
12 particular ideas.
13 And the last three sections of that book deal
14 essentially with an understanding of how any person who follows
15 one of the Abrahamic religions, Islam, Judaism, or
16 Christianity, can sort of understand evolutionary biology in
17 terms of fitting in with the purpose in the world of the divine
18 creator. And then I devoted quite a few pages to dealing with
19 the specific Christian objections to it.
20 Now, I'll tell you one of the very good reasons we
21 don't see anything like this in the textbook, and that is when
22 I described my own understanding I very often got letters from
23 people, who belong to different Christian groups than I belong
24 to, saying my theology demands this or my theology demands
25 that, and that's fine and I understand that and I respect that.
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1 But I also pointed out to them that the last two or
2 three chapters of the book, that book, to be perfectly honest,
3 they dealt with philosophy and theology and not with science.
4 Now, when you say is evolution different from other
5 ideas, as a scientist I would say no, it's not different from
6 other areas of science. What I will agree with you on is that
7 in terms of the public reaction to evolution, that certainly is
8 not different.
9 One of the jokes I've made once with one of my
10 scientific friends is I wrote this book about the meaning of
11 evolution. I'm probably the two thousandth scientist to write
12 a book about the meaning of evolution. Nobody is writing books
13 about the meaning of the Krebs cycle.
14 Q. Or the theory of gravity or --
15 A. With all due respect, the theory of gravity, you're wrong.
16 And if you read many of the books by Stephen Hawking trying to
17 search for a grand unified theory, Hawking will tell you that
18 attaining a true theory of gravity, not a description of
19 gravity's laws, but a theory as to why gravity exists in the
20 first place, is a question that bristles with implications as
21 to how many universes there are and what our place in that
22 universe is.
23 Q. But Stephen Hawking's not writing you letters about the
24 content of the tenth grade biology text, right?
25 A. I haven't got anything yet from Steve. I'll let you know
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1 when I do.
2 Q. Okay. And that's what I was asking you. I mean,
3 evolutionary theory is unique in the sense, maybe not as a
4 scientist, it's unique in the sense that it has different
5 social, religious, philosophical implications than a lot of
6 other areas of science. Maybe there's other areas, like we
7 were talking earlier today about stem cell research and those
8 kinds of things, but this is -- I mean, the reason a lot of
9 people are here is because that's what the issue is, right? I
10 mean, when you're talking about evolutionary theory, the issue
11 of, well, how did that first -- what was the first creator, not
12 secondary causes, what's the first creator, that's an issue
13 that a reasonable person could think, right?
14 A. Your question was so long I find it difficult to give you
15 a yes or no answer to it.
16 I will agree with you that evolutionary theory is an
17 element of science to which many people in the public react
18 quite strongly, favorably and unfavorably, and that's a given.
19 But it is not unique in the sense that, as you
20 pointed out, when we talk about cell reproduction, cell
21 development, when we talk about embryonic and adult stem cells
22 this provokes a strong reaction. And in our biotechnology
23 section in this textbook we wrote about genetically modified
24 foods. And I have discovered that the issues that we put in
25 here about genetically modified foods also provoke very strong
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1 reactions. In fact, many people have spoken to me and have
2 basically said that they don't like the fact that they regard
3 our textbook as giving too favorable a treatment to genetically
4 modified foods.
5 Q. But the only issue you've been required or you felt the
6 need to respond to in the form of a letter has been the issue
7 about evolutionary theory?
8 A. I think that's correct. But I will say occasionally we
9 get scientific questions and I have responded to those.
10 Q. Right, and that's a different issue, right? I mean,
11 that's why Finding Darwin's God is the title of the book, it's
12 a different kind of issue?
13 A. Yes. It's a different kind of issue, fair enough.
14 Q. You agree, I'm assuming you think this is, your text, is a
15 good comprehensive text, it gives a full treatment of
16 evolutionary theory, right?
17 A. To the absolute best of our ability, yes.
18 Q. You can't do it because they're tenth graders that you're
19 writing for and you couldn't possibly put everything in there
20 that in any way relates to evolutionary theory; you chose what
21 you thought was appropriate and the best and a lot of the
22 school districts have agreed with that assessment?
23 A. I think that's correct. And our choosing what is
24 appropriate and what is best is guided, as I mentioned, by the
25 National Science Education Standards, by your standards in the
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1 state of Georgia, our scientific judgment, and the fact that
2 not a single student -- more than a million students use this
3 book -- not a single student has come to me and said please,
4 Professor Miller, could you make this just a little heavier?
5 Hasn't happened yet.
6 Q. Have you reviewed any of the texts that the school
7 district was considering in -- when they decided on your text?
8 A. You mean the other textbooks?
9 Q. Right.
10 A. I did not follow the deliberations of the Cobb County. I
11 am familiar with the books that compete with ours but I have no
12 idea how they narrowed down the list of other books.
13 Q. Have you ever reviewed the text -- let me see if I can
14 find the name -- Biology Principles and Exploration by George
15 Johnson and Peter Raven?
16 A. Yes. This is published by Holt, Rinehart, Winston?
17 Q. This doesn't say.
18 A. I'm pretty sure it's published by Holt, Rinehart, Winston.
19 And there are several editions of that for which I have written
20 up a competitive analysis.
21 Q. Okay. There's one section cited actually in a court case
22 where it talks about the relationship between science and
23 creation. And, for instance, in this passage it says, "Belief
24 in divine creation is common to many of the world's major
25 religions, though the accounts of religion vary from one
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1 religion to another." And it goes on to say, "It's important
2 to understand, however, that a belief is not the same thing as
3 a scientific hypothesis."
4 In other words, gives a little information about the
5 small sea creation that you alluded to earlier. And apparently
6 you said, I think, that wasn't an appropriate kind of statement
7 to make; you would make it in Finding Darwin's God but it was
8 not the kind of analysis that you felt was appropriate for this
9 textbook. Is that correct?
10 A. Well, yes, it is correct. It's difficult to comment on a
11 passage in a book that I have not -- not sure that I have seen
12 and I don't know the page number that you're reading from or
13 the context or anything else.
14 But one of the reasons why my co-author and I decided
15 we would not write a paragraph or two about scientific
16 creationism or include, let's say, divine creation as a
17 scientific theory along with other ones, is primarily because
18 we did not wish to set up religion and science as alternate
19 and, therefore, conflicting explanations. And we thought the
20 easiest way to avoid that conflict is to present the scientific
21 explanations for origins generally accepted by the scientific
22 community, and not say, oh, by the way, there are conflicting
23 religious interpretations, or provoke something that would ask
24 biology teachers to suddenly become experts in theology, to try
25 to understand, well, how do I help my Jewish kids deal with
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1 this and my Baptist kids deal with this and my Buddhist kids
2 deal with this and my Catholic kids deal with this, because all
3 of them have some different understanding of the relationship
4 to evolution.
5 Q. So it's your decision -- although you do not disagree with
6 the idea that there's some relationship between science and
7 religion, you talked about it -- your decision was an editorial
8 one that you did not believe that belonged in your textbook and
9 reasonable scientists, such as Johnson and Raven, could
10 conclude otherwise?
11 A. Well, I have a lot of respect for George Johnson, Peter
12 Raven. Peter Raven is one of the world's most distinguished
13 botanists, the director of the Missouri Botanical Gardens and a
14 great scientist. And he thought that belonged in there and I
15 would disagree with it for the reasons that I just said. I can
16 always respect people who disagree with me, and I respect the
17 judgment of the Cobb County Board of Education to put in a
18 disclaimer that I also disagree with. That's their business.
19 Q. Okay. You said, I believe, in your book that evolution is
20 actually the key to understanding the relationship with God.
21 A. Now let's be clear which book you're talking about.
22 Q. Not this book because this book doesn't include anything
23 like that, Finding Darwin's --
24 A. I cannot quote from Finding Darwin's God directly, but I
25 certainly probably wrote something along these lines, which is
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1 to say that to a Christian, understanding evolution can be a
2 key to God's relationship with us.
3 And in that, you know, I'm not sure if you want to
4 make this trial into a review of that particular book, but I
5 also talked about quantum indeterminacy and I talked about the
6 way in which an all-powerful creator could allow for moral
7 choice and free will in a universe by basing it on a quantum
8 indeterminate physics and I thought that was an essential way
9 to understand that.
10 Thomas Aquinas once wrote that having a creation
11 distinct from its creator, which is exactly what we see when we
12 talk about evolution on Earth, Aquinas didn't know about
13 evolution but he's talking about the independence of creation,
14 is an essential future of any world created by a gracious god.
15 And in agreeing with Aquinas, what I'm doing when I
16 wrote that book, is to agree basically with about eight
17 centuries of mainstream Christian thought and theology.
18 Q. Okay. And you don't know anything about the history of
19 evolution instruction in Cobb County before they made this text
20 adoption, do you?
21 A. I only, to paraphrase Will Rogers, I only know what I read
22 in the papers. And what I have read in the papers is that
23 evolution has been an issue in Cobb County previously. In an
24 effort to upgrade instruction and to make it compliant with the
25 Georgia State Education Standards, Cobb County wanted to adopt
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1 a new book that had a very strong treatment of modern biology,
2 including evolution. This was the book that they adopted. And
3 the other things I read in the papers, there was a lot of local
4 controversy, and perhaps in reaction to that controversy, your
5 board of education placed a disclaimer inside the book. I
6 don't know if I've got that right but that's what I read in the
7 papers.
8 THE COURT: Excuse me. Let me ask you this, does
9 this sticker, in your opinion, promote alternate theories
10 regarding the origin of the human species?
11 THE WITNESS: Alternate theories about God and the --
12 THE COURT: Yes.
13 THE WITNESS: It's hard for me to say, Your Honor.
14 As I say, mostly what I find when I read the sticker is
15 curiosity, which is why is evolution singled out, why is this
16 fact not -- theory, not a fact language in there. And, lastly,
17 why is it apparently that evolution is the only subject in this
18 book that you have to examine critically and consider with an
19 open mind.
20 You know, I would much prefer a sticker that says:
21 This is a book about science. Everything in science is
22 theoretical and subject to disproof, and everything in this
23 book should be critically examined and studied with an open
24 mind.
25 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) You alluded to the fact that you compared
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1 the sticker to a warning sticker.
2 A. Yeah, I mean --
3 Q. I thought that was a good comparison and I was going to
4 ask you --
5 A. It's an extraordinary thing because I assume your students
6 go through their education in Cobb County and many subjects
7 without seeing stickers and all of a sudden they pick up a
8 biology book, whoa, what's that?
9 Q. Let me ask you, sir, if Cobb County School District had a
10 policy at the time that said we will not force any student to
11 learn about evolution, would that in your mind be a reason --
12 and it didn't say that about any other theories -- would that
13 in your mind be a reason for putting a warning sticker, as you
14 call it, about evolutionary theory in particular?
15 A. Well, I'm not sure what you mean by forcing students to
16 learn about evolution. Are you telling me, because I need a
17 little more information, are you telling me, for example, that
18 in the past you'd had a policy that when you cover evolution
19 students can excuse themselves and that sort of stuff?
20 Q. Yes, sir.
21 A. Okay.
22 Q. Would that, in your mind, be a legitimate reason for that
23 language saying this book does have information on evolution?
24 A. I think that the past history of not teaching about
25 something that you really ought to teach about, that is
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1 required by your state curriculum, I think the proper remedy
2 for that is to start teaching about it, not to place a special
3 warning.
4 And let me add something about this, about forcing
5 students to learn things. Although I teach at a very selective
6 university, we have some of the best students in the country,
7 including some of the best high school graduates from Georgia,
8 happy to have them, I love my students, they keep me challenged
9 all the time, they're just fantastic. I have, in the spring I
10 teach a general biology class that enrolls about 400 students,
11 it's the largest single class in my university, and I usually
12 have, oh, five or six kids a year will come to me at the
13 beginning of the course and they will ask me how much am I
14 going to teach about evolution and do they have to believe it.
15 And this is similar to the challenges that I think
16 high school teachers face everywhere, including in Cobb County.
17 And the answer I give them is, look, the purpose of
18 education is not to compel belief; it is to promote
19 understanding. And I don't care if you believe in evolution, I
20 don't care if you believe in the Krebs cycle, I don't care if
21 you believe in the food pyramid. What I care about is that you
22 understand them.
23 And the test in my class is not do you believe in
24 evolution, or the Krebs cycle, for that matter, but, rather, do
25 you understand the scientific evidence for it. And if you
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1 understand why the scientific community finds evolution to be
2 such a compelling idea, I don't really care if you believe it.
3 And for my own students that depersonalizes it. It
4 takes the threat off. They know I'm not going to throw them up
5 against the wall and say do you really believe this. And I
6 think this general way of teaching of evolutionary theory,
7 which is simply to tell students belief is not at issue here;
8 understanding is. And no reasonable person, no Christian, no
9 Jew, no agnostic, can call themselves educated in science
10 unless they understand -- not believe -- but unless they
11 understand evolutionary theory. And I think that's really the
12 proper way to approach students and their parents about
13 evolution.
14 Q. But the students at Brown, sophisticated as they are, some
15 of them find a reason to inquire about evolution --
16 A. Oh, yes.
17 Q. -- in particular, and I think you mention in Finding
18 Darwin's God, that, not at the beginning but at the end of the
19 class, after presumably they have a full and complete
20 understanding of evolutionary theory, and you've gotten it into
21 these Ivy League students everything that they need to know
22 about that, they still come up to you and they ask you what
23 your religious faith is, right?
24 A. Yes, very often they do. And I can't remember if I use
25 this answer in my book or not, but as you might expect, I am an
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1 enthusiastic lecturer about evolution and I talk a lot about
2 Darwin and I talk about the evidence for it and so forth.
3 And I can't remember if this is in the book or not,
4 but one day -- my lecture goes from eleven to noon and I
5 finished my lecture and I had ten minutes to get across campus
6 to the chapel to attend services on Ash Wednesday. And I went
7 and there I was. And one of my students saw me on the way out
8 and she looked at me and she said, "What are you doing here?"
9 And I said, "Same thing you are." And she said, "But you were
10 just talking about evolution." I said, "Yeah, I was just
11 talking about evolution and I see no conflict and neither does
12 my church and neither do millions of other people." And tried
13 to explain that to her.
14 And what that should tell you, the fact that my
15 students often have those questions, is that I don't deal with
16 theology in a biology class. My book certainly did because I
17 wrote it for popular audiences. And, you know, I try to make
18 the religious neutrality of this idea clear, but many students
19 have bought the great misconception, and I think it is a great
20 misconception, that science and religion are inextricably in
21 conflict, and they are not.
22 Q. You don't see them as in inextricable conflict; you see
23 them as ideas that you can incorporate mutually in your
24 understanding of the world?
25 A. Absolutely. Not only incorporate mutually, but I see them
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1 as complementary.
2 Q. And you know from your debates and your experience that
3 there are some people, unfortunately, who don't, right?
4 A. I have learned that not everyone in the world agrees with
5 me on every point, absolutely. I think that's something we all
6 learn as we grow up.
7 Q. Fundamentally, that some people see that there -- no
8 matter how you explain this or no matter how you adapt your
9 theology, that there's going to be a conflict and it's going to
10 be irreconcilable?
11 THE COURT: Some people?
12 MR. GUNN: Some people, right.
13 THE WITNESS: Thank you. Irreconcilability, like
14 beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
15 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) And you'd agree, you talked a lot about --
16 well, you said something to the effect that there's a
17 legitimate scientific argument against everything in science or
18 something to --
19 A. I won't say against everything in science. But what I
20 mean is any area of science that is active, that people are
21 doing stuff, you're going to find conflicts and arguments.
22 One of the great misconceptions that anyone can have
23 of the scientific process is that the way to get ahead, for
24 example, by a young scientist is by just confirming existing
25 theories, being a nice guy and agreeing with everybody, that
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1 doesn't get you anywhere.
2 The only thing that gets you anywhere is upsetting
3 the applecart, by coming up with something genuinely new. And
4 this is true everywhere in science and it's true in evolution
5 as well.
6 Q. So there are legitimate controversies, not about the broad
7 theory, not about, I think you said the history, but the
8 process and nuances of the process, that the reason why it's a
9 scientific theory is you're constantly trying to use it to
10 apply in new areas and then use a hypothesis and maybe that
11 hypothesis is true and maybe it's not, right?
12 A. Indeed. On the day when every single question in
13 evolutionary biology has been answered, it will be time to
14 close every department of evolutionary biology in the world
15 because all questions will be answered. I don't expect to see
16 that day.
17 Q. Right. So if someone says to disparage or to question
18 evolutionary theory is religious; no, in fact, it's scientific?
19 THE COURT: Say that again, I'm sorry.
20 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) If someone makes a statement that to
21 question evolutionary theory is, by its very nature, religious,
22 you would have to say, no, it's scientific; it may be religious
23 for certain individuals but that's the nature of science, we
24 question these things?
25 A. I think it is in the nature, absolutely, I agree with you,
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1 that it is in the nature of science to question theories, all
2 theories, and evolutionary biology is no exception in that
3 regard.
4 It is possible to question theories in science for
5 reasons that are more religious than scientific. And I'll give
6 you an example of that that I hear all the time and has nothing
7 to do with evolution and therefore should be sort of neutral in
8 this context.
9 And that is I have read many opinion columns in the
10 newspapers and so forth saying that adult stem cells have far
11 greater scientific potential, in terms of therapeutic
12 potential, than embryonic stem cells.
13 Well, maybe they do. But it turns out in every
14 single case when I've read such opinion pieces, they have been
15 written by people who are opposed, for good, moral reasons, I
16 might add, but are opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells
17 in research. But they have allowed that moral opposition to
18 try to make a scientific point that may or may not be true.
19 As a cell biologist I would tell you we just can't be
20 sure whether we'll have greater therapeutic potential from
21 adult stem cells or embryonic, and the only way to answer that
22 question is to do a lot more research.
23 Q. Right. So you don't see science and religion as mutually
24 exclusive or in conflict, and you know people that view them as
25 in a conflict which can't be resolved; you also say that there
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1 are some scientific issues, like any other theory, that it's
2 legitimate to raise scientific issues about evolutionary
3 theory. So there's parts of evolutionary theory that are not
4 really subject to dispute, in your way of thinking, as accorded
5 by peer-reviewed scientific literature; there are areas that
6 are maybe on the edge or regarding certain processes that may
7 be hypothesis and we're testing them, so those are legitimate
8 scientific areas of inquiry; and there's also areas that you
9 think are, and you've seen over time in your experience, are
10 religiously motivated and they may be just purely religious
11 arguments and they may be scientific arguments that were based
12 in religion based on what you heard. Is that a fair analysis
13 of what you're saying?
14 A. I think your question makes this seem a lot muddier than
15 it really is.
16 The way I would put it is when I talk about the fact
17 of evolution, I'm simply talking about the facts of natural
18 history, the way that we know that life has changed over time
19 and what the pattern of that change has been.
20 When we talk about evolutionary theory, we're talking
21 about the processes that drove that change. To use a
22 historical analogy, it's a fact that Mead's army won the Battle
23 of Gettysburg. The theories are why they won it, what were the
24 relative importance of artillery and calvary and high positions
25 and all this other sort of stuff, and you can argue about that
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1 a great deal.
2 With respect to evolutionary biology, it's a fact
3 that evolution took place. Evolutionary theory is a series of
4 ideas that tries to explain the mechanism that drove that
5 change.
6 There are people who, for religious reasons, object
7 to both, who would argue that the facts ain't the facts and
8 would argue that the theory is a theory that's held in
9 disrepute by science. And I would argue simply, as a
10 scientist, that both of those sentiments are incorrect.
11 Q. But it's certainly not a valid syllogism to say anything
12 which conflicts with evolutionary theory is somehow religious
13 in nature because they're not in conflict, in your way of
14 thinking; they are for some people, but it's not necessarily
15 so?
16 A. Can we question an element of evolutionary theory without
17 being religiously motivated? Of course.
18 MR. GUNN: Thank you.
19 MR. MANELY: No redirect, Your Honor.
20 THE COURT: Thank you, you may step down.
21 We're going to take a 15-minute break. Court will be
22 in recess for 15 minutes.
23 THE COURT: Can we excuse the witness?
24 MR. MANELY: Yes, sir.
25 MR. GUNN: Yes, sir.
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1 THE COURT: Thank you. We will take a 15-minute
2 recess at this time.
3 (Recess.)
4 THE COURT: Thank you, please be seated. Call your
5 next witness.
6 MR. MANELY: Plaintiffs call Laura Searcy for cross.
7 THE COURT: Is he or she in the witness room, or do
8 you know? The name again, please?
9 MR. MANELY: Laura Searcy, S-e-a-r-c-y.
10 THE COURT: Thank you. You're calling her for the
11 purpose of cross-examination?
12 MR. MANELY: Yes, sir.
13 THE COURT: Please step up, face me and raise your
14 right hand.
15 LAURA SEARCY,
16 having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as
17 follows:
18 THE COURT: Thank you. You may lower your hand.
19 Please be seated. Make yourself comfortable. I want you to
20 speak into the microphones and talk loud enough so that we all
21 can hear your testimony.
22 Counsel, your witness.
23 MR. MANELY: Thank you.
24 CROSS-EXAMINATION
25 BY MR. MANELY:
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1 Q. Ms. Searcy, would you please state your name for the
2 record?
3 A. Laura Searcy.
4 Q. And what do you do presently?
5 A. I'm a pediatric nurse practitioner by profession and an
6 elected member of the Cobb County Board of Education since
7 1996.
8 Q. And how long have you been on the Cobb County Board of
9 Education?
10 A. Eight years.
11 Q. Since 1996, okay. And you were serving on the board of
12 education at the time of the consideration of adopting
13 textbooks?
14 A. Yes, sir.
15 Q. Do you remember when the issue of adopting the textbooks
16 first came up?
17 A. It was in 2002.
18 Q. Was it at a work session, a regular board meeting or what?
19 A. Any time we have -- oh, it's a process that goes on for a
20 while. There's a committee for textbook adoption. The board's
21 usually informed when that committee begins its work and then
22 there's always a work session presentation when the agenda item
23 is ready for approval and then it's actually voted on at one of
24 the evening board meetings following that.
25 Q. Do you recall whether or not the board was notified in
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1 this particular instance that a committee had been formed?
2 A. Uh-huh.
3 Q. Is that yes?
4 A. We are on a seven-year cycle for textbook adoption. So
5 one year we'll be readopting math textbooks, the next year it
6 will be reading, the next year it will be social studies, the
7 next year it will be science. Maybe not exactly in that order
8 but that's how it works.
9 Q. And you remember this particular year was science?
10 A. Uh-huh.
11 Q. Do you recall that the committee brought to you texts that
12 they recommended?
13 A. Uh-huh.
14 Q. If we could, she takes down words.
15 A. I'm sorry, yes.
16 Q. It's all right, it works a lot better if you say yes or
17 no.
18 Do you recall anything about the public response to
19 the texts that were being proposed?
20 A. There was a lot of public controversy about the text,
21 thousands of e-mails, phone calls, media contacts.
22 Q. What were some of the positions taken by some of the
23 folks, some of the public?
24 A. I now have an entire shelf on my bookshelf at home of
25 materials, books, pamphlets from various and sundry points of
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1 view that people sent me, literally, from around the world. I
2 mean that ran the entire gamut.
3 Q. Do you recall -- do you have a position on evolution, as
4 to whether or not it's a theory or a fact, you personally?
5 A. My personal opinions -- my personal opinion should be
6 obvious since I'm a health care professional, but my personal
7 opinions have no bearing on this matter.
8 Q. What is your personal opinion on evolution?
9 A. My personal opinion is evolution is the basis of
10 biological science in the 21st century.
11 Q. Do you recall that the Discovery Institute sent you
12 materials?
13 A. They may have. I mean, literally, I have a shelf at home.
14 Q. Do you recall being sent a book called Icons of
15 Evolution --
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. -- that was sent to you by Discovery Institute?
18 A. And a videotape.
19 Q. From that group as well?
20 A. (Witness nods head.)
21 Q. Okay. And those folks were arguing evidence against
22 evolution; is that right?
23 A. Yes, sir.
24 Q. And proponents of intelligent design, I believe?
25 A. Yes, sir.
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1 Q. Do you recall that you received a number of petitions?
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 Q. And a number of those petitions came from churches; is
4 that right?
5 A. At least one or two.
6 Q. I believe there was a petition that contained almost 2300
7 signatures?
8 A. There were petitions from a number of sources that
9 contained tons of signatures.
10 Q. And these were folks that wanted you to either teach
11 creationism in some instances, correct?
12 A. Uh-huh, as well as from the other perspective.
13 Q. And some folks -- I'm going to get to that, I do want to
14 get to that -- and some folks wanted you to teach intelligent
15 design; is that right?
16 A. Uh-huh.
17 Q. And some folks wanted you to at least to allow a
18 discussion of those issues in the classroom; is that right?
19 A. Uh-huh.
20 Q. Were there parents that didn't think that the text
21 presented a fair presentation of the theories of origin?
22 A. Parents, yes.
23 Q. Do you recall that some parents were unhappy that the text
24 taught only evolution and nothing else?
25 A. Uh-huh -- yes. I'm sorry, yes.
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1 Q. And there were parents who were complaining that the text
2 didn't talk about alternate versions of how life begins; is
3 that right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Now, the texts that were presented to you by the committee
6 recommended for adoption did not have the sticker in them at
7 the time, did they?
8 A. No, sir.
9 Q. And the committee said these are great texts, we recommend
10 you adopt them as is, correct, essentially?
11 A. Uh-huh, yes.
12 Q. Okay. Did the board discuss whether there was anything
13 the board could do to address the parents' issues that were
14 unhappy about the teaching of evolution?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Did the board ask your law firm if there was any language
17 that could be drafted that would address the parents' issues?
18 A. Members of the board did.
19 Q. And you were not among those?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Who were the members of the board who did?
22 A. I'm not 100 percent sure I could tell you with 100 percent
23 accuracy.
24 Q. What's your best recollection?
25 A. My best recollection is our attorney said that they've
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1 been requested to prepare language. So anything, you know, it
2 wasn't by me, so anything --
3 Q. I understand.
4 A. Speculation on my part would be hearsay of which one or
5 more.
6 Q. If I understand you correctly, it wasn't in your presence
7 that other board members requested this?
8 A. Not that I recall.
9 Q. Is it fair to say that the board did not discuss this
10 issue beyond the board meetings?
11 A. I did not.
12 Q. Are you aware of any other board members that did?
13 A. No. I can't speak to that one way or the other.
14 Q. My question really means to be tailored more as a board.
15 I presume Mr. Tippins went out and talked to folks and Mr. --
16 A. Yeah, as a board what we did we did at the table together.
17 Q. Is it true that there were never any scientists that gave
18 presentation to the board on evolution prior to the textbook
19 adoption and the sticker imposition?
20 A. I would say that's not true. There were many scientists
21 that came to public comment.
22 Q. Okay. Were there scientists who gave presentation to the
23 board, though, about this is evolution, this is how evolution
24 works, this is what's good about evolution; or people who came
25 to the board and gave presentations to the board in work
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1 session or during the board's meeting that said, Here are the
2 specific problems with evolution?
3 A. Most of the comment that we got from experts on either
4 side were either at public comment, or, like I said, I have a
5 bookshelf and that bookshelf is full of people that were bound
6 and determined to educate me to their point of view on every
7 side of the spectrum.
8 Q. I understand that --
9 THE COURT: Was that due to publicity generated by
10 the media as relates to this issue?
11 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir, tremendous amount of
12 publicity.
13 THE COURT: Then you started hearing from everybody?
14 THE WITNESS: Well, the extent of the publicity is I
15 was on the way to one of my children's events when I got a
16 phone call from BBC in London. So, yes, to say that there was
17 a bit of publicity is quite accurate.
18 THE COURT: Let me make sure. You say you heard from
19 a lot of people on both sides of the issue across the spectrum.
20 Do you think that was generated from the publicity that was
21 worldwide?
22 THE WITNESS: Yeah. There was --
23 THE COURT: Okay.
24 THE WITNESS: Yeah. Once there was publicity about
25 this issue it was like opening Pandora's box.
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1 THE COURT: I was wondering whether or not the school
2 board itself had solicited opinions.
3 THE WITNESS: No. The school board didn't solicit;
4 we had plenty of unsolicited.
5 THE COURT: Okay.
6 Q. (By Mr. Manely) There were other stickers recommended or
7 offered to the board, weren't there? Do you recall?
8 A. Not that I recall. Like I said, I mean, I have literally
9 thousands of e-mails, phone calls, letters from people
10 suggesting every -- portraying themselves as experts and
11 offering every solution in the world.
12 Q. Specifically -- maybe my question wasn't well formed. Do
13 you recall any stickers being presented to the board which the
14 board took action on specifically rejecting the other stickers?
15 It's okay, I don't mean it to be a memory test.
16 A. I'm just trying to think. I think any recollection I have
17 of any discussions was based on making sure that there was --
18 left it up to legal opinion to vet any suggestion for anything
19 to make sure that it would be legal, constitutional, et cetera.
20 Q. Let me hand you what's been admitted as Plaintiffs'
21 Exhibit 2 and ask if you recall that sticker being proposed to
22 the board?
23 A. I remember it, but I don't -- yeah, I mean I remember
24 seeing it.
25 Q. Do you recall that the board rejected that sticker?
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1 A. Yeah, obviously.
2 Q. Do you recall any discussion with the board about this
3 sticker?
4 A. Specifically the sticker, I really don't.
5 Q. For example, where it says, "All scientific theories
6 should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and
7 critically considered," given that this was rejected by the
8 board, did any of the board have a problem with saying, "All
9 scientific theories should be approached with an open mind"?
10 A. Actually, I had more of an objection to the second
11 sentence.
12 Q. "Evolution is accepted by a majority of the scientists but
13 questioned by some"?
14 A. Uh-huh.
15 Q. What is your objection there?
16 A. It just -- it's a nonspecific, challengeable from a point
17 of -- I mean, it's irrelevant whether some scientists like
18 something or some scientist doesn't like it. It's just an
19 irrelevant statement.
20 Q. Okay. But you don't recall any specific discussion
21 pertaining to that sticker?
22 A. Not particular -- I mean not particularly, other than, you
23 know, not -- I don't think -- I can't remember that there was
24 much time spent on that at all because I didn't even recall it
25 until you put it in front of me.
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1 Q. Okay. You all did vote on a sticker; is that right?
2 A. Uh-huh.
3 Q. And had the general fund pay to put -- to, first of all,
4 produce the sticker and then send it to the schools and then
5 had the personnel at the schools physically affix the stickers
6 into each of the textbooks --
7 A. Uh-huh.
8 Q. -- is that right? And I understand that there were some
9 nine to eleven textbooks that the board decided should have the
10 stickers in them; is that correct?
11 A. It was textbooks that had content in them relevant to
12 origin of life, evolution.
13 Q. Do you remember, roughly, how many textbooks you're
14 talking about?
15 A. In the neighborhood of under ten, but more than one or
16 two.
17 Q. What do you recall about the discussion pertaining to the
18 sticker that you did adopt?
19 A. The discussion pertaining to the sticker we did adopt --
20 well, there was obviously a lot of discussion. From my
21 perspective, obviously it's important to me that science,
22 scientific method, scientific theory and the most up-to-date
23 scientific knowledge needs to be taught to kids.
24 But when there's a large segment of a community of
25 public school students that have an obviously deep objection,
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1 and obviously we're not interested in teaching intelligent
2 design or alternate theories because it's not science, if you
3 can -- just a discussion, if you can just let people who have
4 that belief system be aware that these books contain that
5 material, and then they can deal with the religious issues at
6 home, with their pastors or whatever.
7 That was the only area, and that any sticker that was
8 placed in the books, if that was the way the majority of the
9 board was heading, let's make sure that the language itself can
10 withstand scrutiny.
11 Q. So you would agree with me that that statement singles out
12 evolution for scrutiny; is that right?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And you would agree with me that it says that evolution
15 should be carefully considered but it doesn't reference any
16 other theories, does it?
17 A. No.
18 Q. And that is an assertion, isn't it, that evolution should
19 be carefully considered, and not to reference any other
20 theories is an assertion; you should carefully consider,
21 closely scrutinize evolution is an assertion, is it not?
22 A. See, I looked at it as -- I'm a medical health
23 professional. I looked at it like you would an informed
24 consent before a procedure. It's not an assertion one way or
25 the other. It's simply when you have a large population in
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1 your public school system that feels very strongly about
2 something, that obviously what they're asking, i.e. teach
3 intelligent design, is not appropriate to do in a public school
4 system, can you be sensitive to and tolerant of their very
5 deep-seated moral and ethical feelings and let them know that,
6 here, this book, your kid goes to school, there's not biology
7 and life sciences every year, you know, if you open the book
8 and you see that sticker, then you're aware that your child is
9 being taught science that includes evolution there, and then
10 you as a parent can deal with that in whatever manner you want.
11 Q. Okay, so you don't see the statement that this material
12 pertaining to evolution "should be approached with an open
13 mind, studied carefully, and critically considered," as an
14 assertion?
15 A. I think that's true to anything you teach.
16 Q. Okay. But --
17 A. But I don't understand, I guess I'm having trouble with
18 your definition of an assertion.
19 Q. But in the text you don't say for everything we teach, for
20 everything in this textbook. You say specifically with regard
21 to this material on evolution, "should be approached with an
22 open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." Is
23 that something that you are saying to the school kids and their
24 parents?
25 A. Yeah, sure.
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1 Q. And that expresses a particular point of view, doesn't it,
2 that evolution should be approached with an open mind, studied
3 carefully and critically considered? That is a single point of
4 view, is it not?
5 A. No, you know, I disagree with that interpretation.
6 Q. Now again, taking a look at the other proposed sticker,
7 "All scientific theory should be approached with an open mind,
8 studied carefully, and critically considered," that's one
9 rather all-encompassing view, sort of like what you were saying
10 earlier?
11 A. Right. See, that's the -- that would be the assertion.
12 Q. Okay. All right, so it is --
13 A. That scientific theory.
14 Q. I'm sorry?
15 A. That scientific theory. We're trying to encourage kids --
16 we're trying to encourage critical thinking in our children in
17 any venue.
18 Q. And what the Cobb school board is telling the children is
19 you're trying to encourage critical thinking about evolution,
20 and about evolution only, according to this disclaimer?
21 A. Well, that's certainly not the intent. I don't know
22 what -- the "All scientific theory should be approached with an
23 open mind," that would be the assertion and I know this
24 language wasn't the final one adopted, but the sense of the
25 board would have been the same thing, it wasn't that that there
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1 was any objection to.
2 Q. The statement that, "Evolution is a theory, not a fact" is
3 in the statement that the Cobb school board adopted and imposed
4 on every child in the front of the textbook; is that right?
5 A. Uh-huh.
6 Q. Yes?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. It's a hard habit to break. "Evolution is a theory, not a
9 fact." Now, that is an assertion, isn't it?
10 A. It's a statement; no more, no less.
11 Q. It's a statement of a single point of view, isn't it, that
12 evolution is a theory, yeah, but it's not a fact? Isn't it?
13 A. Evolution is an all-encompassing, with many, many subparts
14 and sections to it. You know, we're still trying to prove
15 parts of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It's still called a
16 theory, it's not called a law like Boyle's Law. I just, you
17 know, I don't know where you're trying to go with it but
18 it's just not --
19 Q. Are you agreeing with me, then, that evolution does occur,
20 not only is it a scientific theory but --
21 A. Certainly.
22 Q. -- it is also a fact?
23 A. Why did your flu shot not work last year?
24 Q. Bingo. So evolution does occur, it is a fact?
25 A. From my point of view.
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1 Q. So when the Cobb board is telling the students that
2 evolution is a theory but not a fact, that is an incorrect
3 statement, isn't it?
4 A. It depends on what portion of -- you can open this month's
5 National Geographic and find the places where it says what
6 Darwin was wrong about.
7 You know, like I said, evolution by itself is such an
8 encompassing term. I mean, I'm just not wanting -- I'm not
9 interested in a debate about fine points of semantics about a
10 piece or a portion of a theory.
11 Again, it's not imposing on schoolchildren. The
12 intent, from my point of view, was notifying parents that the
13 book contained content that we knew there was community concern
14 about. So if you were among that community that had concern
15 about that subject, that you would be aware that the book
16 contained that information.
17 Q. Okay. So the portion of the sticker that you're okay with
18 is the warning portion that says this material -- "This
19 textbook contains material on evolution."
20 A. Uh-huh.
21 Q. You're okay with that. But you would agree with me that
22 "Evolution is a theory, not a fact," is not an accurate
23 scientific statement, correct?
24 A. I think that's argument -- I think it's arguable.
25 Q. So you don't --
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1 A. It wouldn't be my preferred wording but I think that's
2 arguable and I'm not an expert that's prepared to argue that
3 with you.
4 Q. So what the Cobb school board -- let me ask you about
5 this. Is there any way for the kids to avoid that sticker,
6 that disclaimer right there?
7 A. For the kids?
8 Q. Yeah.
9 A. If they open the book, they're going to see it if they
10 look at the cover page.
11 Q. There's no way for them to avoid it, right? I mean, this
12 whole book here is written by some guys named Miller and
13 Levine. You don't know them, do you?
14 A. No.
15 Q. And you don't see them in the paper on a weekly basis, do
16 you?
17 A. No.
18 Q. They don't speak with authority about your life, do they?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Juxtapose that with Cobb school board, who's got this
21 nice -- what did you say, 33 words? -- 33-word statement right
22 here, approved by Cobb County School Board of Education. The
23 Cobb County school board has tremendous power over the
24 students' lives, doesn't it?
25 A. Uh-huh.
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1 Q. And we're aware the Cobb County school board right now is
2 talking about how long kids are going to go to school, when
3 they're going to start, when they're going to end, something
4 very precious to children, isn't that?
5 A. Uh-huh.
6 Q. Cobb County school board is talking about whether or not
7 it's going to put laptop computers in the hands of every high
8 schooler and middle schooler, something very significant to the
9 children, isn't it?
10 A. Uh-huh.
11 Q. Very much control over their lives. Cobb County school
12 board can fire their coaches or keep them on. Very important,
13 to the high schoolers, at least, correct?
14 A. The superintendent of Cobb County schools can fire
15 personnel.
16 Q. So compared to Miller and Levine, who these kids don't
17 know, they've got the Cobb County school board here warning
18 them about evolution and telling them evolution is a theory,
19 not a fact. You would agree with that assessment, wouldn't
20 you?
21 A. No, obviously not, or we wouldn't be here.
22 Q. Do you recall in your discussions about the sticker that
23 the vote on the textbook adoption was conditioned upon putting
24 the disclaimer in the textbook?
25 A. Uh-huh.
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1 Q. That is true?
2 A. That is true.
3 Q. And you wound up voting, not only for the textbook
4 adoption, but also for the imposition of this disclaimer in the
5 front of the textbook; is that right?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Do you recall during the discussion about the disclaimer
8 the subject of intelligent design coming up?
9 A. During which discussion, at what time and where?
10 Q. How about any of the discussions pertaining to the
11 disclaimer?
12 A. The subject of intelligent -- again, like I said, we
13 generated an incredible amount of comment from a variety of
14 subjects, but the subject of intelligent design came up but it
15 was quite clear from everybody's mind sitting at that board
16 table that not only did -- well, I can speak for myself, but
17 not only did I personally not approve of teaching alternative
18 theories of evolution in science classrooms, I think I said so
19 quite clearly, and you probably have some of my e-mails, but,
20 you know, science should be taught in schools and religion
21 should be taught at home. And intelligent design didn't have a
22 place in a public school classroom and there was no intent of
23 myself or the other members of the board to bring teaching of
24 alternative theories into the classrooms. That's a subject for
25 kids to have with their parents at the dinner table or with
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1 their pastors at their youth --
2 Q. I think my question was do you recall amongst the school
3 board when you were discussing the disclaimer the subject of
4 intelligent design coming up?
5 A. The word -- yeah, the word came up.
6 Q. And creationism came up?
7 A. Uh-huh, sure.
8 Q. And creation science?
9 A. Sure.
10 Q. And the board discussed amongst itself whether or not
11 intelligent design and creationism could be taught; is that
12 right?
13 A. Well, I mean, to me it was a moot discussion because it's
14 obvious that it can't be.
15 Q. But my question was the discussion was whether or not it
16 could be taught; is that correct?
17 A. I think the question was asked is it something that can be
18 done and the answer is obviously no.
19 Q. So the subject then went to discussion of, well, can you
20 discuss it?
21 A. In the classroom?
22 Q. Yes, was that not what the Cobb school board talked about
23 next? All right, if you can't teach intelligent design and
24 creation, can we discuss it?
25 A. No.
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1 Q. You don't remember it that way?
2 A. No, no, I don't remember it that way at all. If you can't
3 teach creation and intelligent design, and you know that you
4 have a significant population of your schoolchildren that
5 have -- that grow up in homes that have a different viewpoint,
6 what is a teacher to do in the classroom when that inevitably
7 comes up, when that student raises his hand and says, well, you
8 know, my parents taught me not to believe this, that I can't
9 believe in evolution, how is a teacher supposed to handle that?
10 And, you know, the curriculum folks and the teachers
11 need some guidance as to how they're supposed to handle
12 situations like that. When inevitably, when you're talking,
13 especially of high school and middle age children, these kids
14 don't grow up in a vacuum and, you know, it is inevitable that
15 that conversation is going to be raised in a classroom, and how
16 are you going to handle that.
17 That's a whole different definition of discussion
18 than whether you can find a way to discuss other alternative
19 theories, even though you can't officially teach them.
20 Q. So are you saying you do recall that after it was fairly
21 well resolved by the Cobb school board that you could not teach
22 intelligent design and creationism, there was a discussion
23 about whether or not it could be discussed in the classroom?
24 A. Whether -- how discussion would handle if the subject came
25 up, not of anything, not of specifically intelligent design or
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1 creationism, if any dissenting opinions about evolution were
2 raised in the classroom, how was a teacher supposed to handle
3 that.
4 Q. So you don't remember any specific discussion about
5 intelligent design or creationism being discussed in the
6 classroom?
7 A. No. It was obvious that that was not appropriate to do so
8 and there was no intention of the board to try to do anything
9 appropriate. It was an intention on the board to try to have
10 some sensitivity to a large subpopulation of the county that
11 had very strong viewpoints about a subject.
12 Q. And part of the reason why it's inappropriate is -- are
13 you familiar with intelligent design at all?
14 A. Vaguely.
15 Q. Okay, that it posits the existence of a designer, a
16 creator; is that right?
17 A. Yeah.
18 Q. And that's part of the reason why it's inappropriate?
19 A. Yeah.
20 Q. Okay. And part of the reason why discussion of
21 creationism in a science class is inappropriate is because it
22 posits the existence of a creator?
23 A. And I think I said many times during the discussion those
24 types of discussions belong in a comparative religions class,
25 not in a science classroom.
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1 Q. You're aware that the state curriculum mandates that
2 evolution be taught; is that right?
3 A. Yes.
4 MR. MANELY: Thank you.
5 THE COURT: Thank you. Mr. Gunn?
6 DIRECT EXAMINATION
7 BY MR. GUNN:
8 Q. Hi, Ms. Searcy. How many kids, approximately, are in the
9 area that you represent in Cobb County schools?
10 A. Oh, I'd say I've got 80,000 households, so probably
11 25-, 30,000 kids.
12 Q. And were you -- do you have children that attended Cobb
13 County schools?
14 A. Three.
15 Q. Did you have -- are you familiar with the evolution
16 instruction that they received in Cobb County schools?
17 A. Very.
18 Q. Can you tell the Court about that?
19 A. Well, my children are 22, 19 and 17 now. When my sons
20 were in fourth and sixth grades, respectively, was the previous
21 science adoption, and I remember being quite taken aback and
22 quite horrified, as a matter of fact, because when their
23 science textbooks came home that year the pages containing
24 information about evolution had been removed from the books.
25 Q. That was two of your children?
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1 A. Two of my children. They were in fourth and sixth grades
2 at the time.
3 Q. And did you approve of that?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Why not?
6 A. Because I want my kids to learn science.
7 Q. And you think that evolutionary theory is science?
8 A. It's a very important science.
9 Q. Okay.
10 A. I want my children to be prepared to compete in the world
11 that they are going to be living in, go on to compete in
12 college and be prepared for further studies.
13 THE COURT: You were never forewarned that this would
14 happen?
15 THE WITNESS: As a parent?
16 THE COURT: Yes.
17 THE WITNESS: No. The books came home and the pages
18 were taken out.
19 THE COURT: Were you on the school board at that
20 time?
21 THE WITNESS: No, sir. Maybe one of the reasons I am
22 now. Rather ironic, isn't it?
23 THE COURT: What action did you take when you
24 discovered that this material had been removed?
25 THE WITNESS: I asked the principal of my son's
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1 middle school -- I was more concerned about the middle
2 school -- and I was told that it was just the policy of the
3 board of education. And I looked it up.
4 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) I'm showing you what's been marked as
5 Defendants' Exhibit No. 1. Can you identify that?
6 A. That is a theory of origin policy of the Cobb County
7 school board dating from August 9th of 1995.
8 Q. Is that something that you looked up?
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. What do you think of that policy?
11 A. I think it's unsupportable.
12 Q. In what respect?
13 A. Curriculum of the school system -- the counts of origin of
14 the human species as taught in public schools are inconsistent
15 with family teachings and the curriculum of the school district
16 should be planned and organized accordingly. And it says the
17 constitutional principles of separation of church and state
18 shall be preserved, but that is so contradictory and, you know,
19 if I'm a teacher in a classroom and I'm having to teach
20 governed by a policy like this, the thing I would do is, gee, I
21 can't win either way, so what I'm going to do is do nothing,
22 I'll avoid the subject. And, in fact, my kids' teachers were
23 very uncomfortable even with my questions about it.
24 MR. GUNN: I would move to admit Defendants' Exhibit
25 1.
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1 MR. MANELY: No objection.
2 THE COURT: Admitted without objection. Go ahead,
3 Counsel.
4 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) I'll show you what's been marked as
5 Defendants' Exhibit 2, ask if you could identify that?
6 A. That's the regulation that accompanies the policy that we
7 were just discussing.
8 Q. That has been in force since 1995?
9 A. 8-9-95.
10 Q. What's your reaction to that regulation?
11 A. Horror. It's completely inappropriate. I mean, and this
12 was the status of teaching of science that occurred, you know,
13 when my children were in elementary and middle school and it's
14 not acceptable.
15 Q. And I don't know if I asked you, what was the year when
16 you noticed the pages torn out, do you remember?
17 A. Well, let's see, my daughter was in second grade, she's a
18 senior now, so second to twelfth, so it's about ten years ago.
19 Q. Okay.
20 A. I have three children, I had a second, a fourth and a
21 sixth-grader that year.
22 MR. GUNN: I would move to admit Defendants' Exhibit
23 2.
24 MR. MANELY: No objection, Your Honor.
25 THE COURT: Admitted without objection.
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1 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) Mr. Manely asked you about the process of
2 the science text adoption and you talked a little bit about the
3 community response to that. Do you remember any of the
4 remedies that the members of the community asked of the school
5 board, as opposed to just adopting the texts that were
6 proposed?
7 A. There were remedies suggested anywhere from offering
8 alternative texts to the ones that we were considering, and, if
9 not adopting an alternative text that actually specifically
10 taught intelligent design, that if we would approve
11 supplemental materials that would teach intelligent design,
12 creationism or various other names for the same basic thing
13 alongside of evolutionary theory and give them equal value.
14 Q. Do you recall whether any parents threatened to sue the
15 school district if --
16 A. Oh, yeah, sure, from both, from everywhere.
17 Q. I'd like to show you what's been marked as Defendants'
18 Exhibit 8, ask you to identify that.
19 A. Okay.
20 Q. Do you remember seeing that?
21 A. Yeah.
22 Q. What was the nature of that petition?
23 A. We are opposed to the allowance of any nonscience-based
24 theories, beliefs, or practices into the public science
25 education of students enrolled in the Cobb County schools.
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1 Q. Did you have petitions that supported alternatives?
2 A. Oh, yeah.
3 Q. And did you have input on whether alternatives should be
4 taught?
5 A. Whether I had input?
6 Q. Well, did anyone approach the school board and offer any
7 opinions on the --
8 A. Oh, yeah. Like I said, I have an entire shelf on my
9 bookshelf now of people offering me solutions, opinions,
10 educational material.
11 Q. Okay, it wasn't all on one side of the issue; it was
12 across the spectrum?
13 A. Yes.
14 MR. GUNN: I move to admit Defendants' 8.
15 MR. MANELY: No objection.
16 THE COURT: Admitted without objection.
17 Q. (By Mr. Gunn) When did you become aware that the
18 administration was considering revising the policy and the
19 regulation that you found a problem with?
20 A. When we had the discussion about the textbooks, the
21 sticker and everything else, I was actually surprised that this
22 regulation, you know, from years before was actually still --
23 had never been revised because I thought administration did all
24 our policies like on a three-year rotating basis and it was
25 obvious that that policy and regulation had to be changed.
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1 Q. And was that before you voted on the sticker or do you
2 remember?
3 A. Probably around the same time. The main point being that
4 the curriculum that we were teaching and needing to teach in
5 Cobb County and the language of the policy and regulation were
6 in conflict and that conflict needed to be resolved.
7 Q. Okay. Why did you vote for the sticker?
8 A. I think I summarized it a bit for counsel there, mainly as
9 when you have an extremely controversial issue with a large
10 number of people who have deep values and principle-based
11 objections to it, you try to find a way to respect that
12 community without compromising the science education of the
13 students.
14 And like I said, I looked at that sticker as being
15 kind of along that compromise of your kids are going to be
16 taught evolutionary science in Cobb County school classrooms,
17 it's important that they learn it and it's not appropriate to
18 do anything else, but at least we can give you information, you
19 know, we can be respectful enough of your opinions and your
20 beliefs and sensitive enough to your concerns that we can
21 inform you that your child is studying material that we know
22 now -- that we know you are going to find objectionable, so you
23 can handle that on your own turf.
24 Q. Did you personally consider the option of adopting a
25 different text?
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1 A. No.
2 Q. No?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Why not?
5 A. The textbook is sound.
6 Q. Did you intend for the sticker to promote religious
7 beliefs?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Does the sticker conflict with your religious beliefs?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Does evolution instruction conflict with your religious
12 beliefs?
13 A. No. But my religious beliefs are -- that's the thing, my
14 religious beliefs are irrelevant. It doesn't, but at the time
15 of the discussion the subject of my -- the subject of my -- I
16 was never -- I never made it a point to express my religious
17 beliefs because I didn't think that was the issue.
18 The issue was there are obviously a group of people
19 out there who have beliefs that make them very uncomfortable
20 with what their children are taught in school. Without
21 compromising the instruction and without teaching religion in
22 science class, is there a way to be sensitive of those folks
23 and at least inform them of what's going on.
24 Q. You didn't draft the sticker?
25 A. No.
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1 Q. If you had drafted it would you have said it in a
2 different way?
3 A. Yes. But picking apart that language at the table after a
4 legal opinion that it was appropriate from a legal point of
5 view would have just prolonged controversy and --
6 Q. You'd still be there, right?
7 A. Yeah.
8 Q. I'm showing you what's been marked as Defendants' Exhibit
9 5. Can you identify that?
10 A. That is the regulation of the -- that's actually the
11 revised policy on theories of origin.
12 Q. The policy says that the purpose is to foster critical
13 thinking among students, allow academic freedom consistent with
14 legal requirements, promote tolerance and acceptance of
15 diversity of opinion, and to ensure a posture of neutrality
16 toward religion.
17 Is it fair to say that different board members had
18 different purposes in voting for it?
19 A. Probably.
20 Q. Is that a fair general statement of what the purposes were
21 as you understood?
22 A. Of the policy?
23 Q. Yeah.
24 A. Yeah. I mean to me -- well --
25 Q. Well, let me ask you, is that a fair statement of the
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1 purposes in voting for the sticker?
2 A. Yeah. You want to -- again, I think -- I know I'm
3 repeating myself, but the tolerance and the respect of varying
4 points of view about a controversial topic without watering
5 down or affecting the instruction of very important scientific
6 principles.
7 Q. Okay.
8 A. In fact, you know, the whole thing, when you're talking
9 about, you know, the scientific method, you have a great
10 example of evolution having been derived through the
11 application of scientific method, and, you know, instead of
12 starting out with an opinion and looking for a fact to back it
13 up.
14 Q. In other words, the process of scientifically challenging
15 the known set of knowledge was how we came to understand
16 evolutionary theory's a broad, a broad theory that you
17 described it as?
18 A. Uh-huh.
19 Q. I'm showing you now what's been marked as Defendants'
20 Exhibit 6. Can you identify that?
21 A. That is the regulation that goes along with the revised
22 theories of origin policy.
23 Q. And do you agree with what's in there?
24 A. Theories of origin shall be taught as defined within the
25 quality core curriculum.
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1 Q. You don't have a problem with that?
2 A. No. That needed to be. That was the requirement on my
3 part.
4 Q. Okay. And the same way with the regulation as the
5 sticker, you didn't draft it but you voted for it?
6 A. Yeah.
7 Q. Okay.
8 A. But the difference being, I mean, starting from where we
9 came from, that '95 policy that just specifically says that
10 you're going to exclude the origin of human species as a topic
11 of curriculum for elementary and middle school students, I mean
12 that's where it came from. And, you know, that first statement
13 about theories of origin shall be taught as defined within the
14 quality core curriculum was a very important statement to make
15 so teachers knew what was being expected and they were on firm
16 ground.
17 Q. Could you explain briefly to the Court what's the
18 difference between a policy and a regulation and how they're
19 enacted?
20 A. Policy is a statement of the principle, just very similar
21 to the legislative process where, you know, a law is written
22 and then the regulatory agencies write the regulations that
23 actually implement it.
24 And it's very similar in the education system, the
25 policy is the broad statement. The regulation is actually the
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1 specific guidelines to, in this case, the teachers on what
2 they, you know, what they were actually supposed to do in the
3 classroom relative to instruction in the context of the
4 regulation.
5 Q. So you affirmatively voted for the policy, correct?
6 A. Uh-huh, yes.
7 Q. And the regulation you didn't vote for but had a chance to
8 veto it, right?
9 A. Yeah. Once we vote on the policy the administration
10 prepares regulations to implement the policy with the board and
11 we get a chance to review them and raise any objections we have
12 to them from the sense of does that regulation fairly put into
13 action the intent of the board.
14 Q. Do you get input from your constituents on a regular
15 basis?
16 A. Oh, yes.
17 Q. They call you about problems they have?
18 A. Call, e-mail, write.
19 Q. How many -- you said there's 25,000, 30,000 --
20 A. Plus, yeah.
21 Q. -- kids in your area. How many complaints have you gotten
22 about religion being taught in the classroom, in a science
23 class?
24 A. None.
25 Q. How many complaints have you gotten about creationism
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1 being taught under the guise of science in science class?
2 A. None.
3 Q. How many complaints have you gotten about intelligent
4 design being taught under the guise of science in science
5 class?
6 A. None.
7 MR. GUNN: Thank you.
8 THE COURT: Thank you.
9 MR. MANELY: I'll try to be very brief.
10 MR. GUNN: Your Honor, excuse me, I move to admit 5
11 and 6.
12 MR. MANELY: No objection.
13 THE COURT: Let the record reflect those exhibits are
14 being admitted without objection. Mr. Manely?
15 MR. MANELY: Yes, sir.
16 RECROSS-EXAMINATION
17 BY MR. MANELY:
18 Q. When were you elected to the board?
19 A. August of 1996.
20 Q. 1996?
21 A. Uh-huh.
22 Q. Do you have Plaintiffs' 5 in front of you?
23 A. I'm sorry?
24 Q. Do you have Plaintiffs' 5 in front of you?
25 MR. GUNN: Defendants' 5?
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1 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Sorry, Defendants' 5.
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 Q. You were elected to the board in August of '96, correct?
4 A. Uh-huh.
5 Q. But this policy which changed the evolution instruction
6 which you so vehemently opposed wasn't passed until 12 years
7 later, was it -- excuse me, six years later, was it?
8 A. At the time of the next textbook adoption.
9 Q. Six years later?
10 A. Uh-huh.
11 THE COURT: Say yes or no for the record.
12 THE WITNESS: Yes. I'm sorry, bad habit.
13 THE COURT: Thank you.
14 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Your counsel asked you why you voted for
15 the sticker and you gave a very eloquent reason for why you
16 voted for the sticker. Do you recall that? Just a few moments
17 ago.
18 A. Yeah. I look at it as --
19 Q. I'm just asking you if you remember what you said.
20 A. Yeah.
21 Q. That language is not contained within this disclaimer, is
22 it?
23 A. No.
24 Q. That language is probably better served in a letter, isn't
25 it? You don't have an opinion one way or the other about it?
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1 A. Better served in a letter from whom to whom? That's my
2 personal opinion.
3 Q. I would presume that the schools would know which students
4 are taking the specific classes which deal with evolution,
5 correct?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Johnny, Sally, Mary are all taking evolution, Johnny's
8 address is X, Sally's address is Y, Mary's address is C -- Z.
9 I presume the school would know that; is that correct?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And as a matter of informed consent, wouldn't it be
12 possible to write a letter to these parents and to these
13 students saying the things that you just said?
14 A. That would -- that's administratively difficult every
15 year. It's not even every grade of students. The children in
16 high school that are taking the classes that may -- from
17 biology to anatomy and physiology, I mean, you know, to pick
18 out those students and try to mail every one of those students
19 every semester.
20 Q. You manage to get them report cards?
21 A. We send all our kids report cards.
22 Q. You manage to -- so it's better to put a disclaimer in the
23 front of the textbooks that warn the parents and students about
24 this textbook having material on evolution; is that correct?
25 A. It's an effective way to communicate.
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1 Q. Do you remember when you did your affidavit, signed an
2 affidavit? Let me hand you what's been marked Plaintiffs'
3 Exhibit 6. Can you identify this document?
4 A. Uh-huh. I'm sorry? I didn't hear.
5 Q. You can identify the document?
6 A. Yeah.
7 Q. That is your affidavit, that is your signature on the
8 back?
9 A. Yes, sir.
10 Q. Now in paragraph 3, I believe that you provided to the
11 Court two reasons why you wanted to -- why you voted for the
12 sticker; is that right?
13 A. Uh-huh.
14 Q. One was the implied consent argument, so the notice could
15 be given to the parents and students?
16 A. Uh-huh.
17 Q. So they could deal with any conflicts, okay, right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Okay. Now that explains, "This textbook contains material
20 on evolution." Correct?
21 A. Uh-huh.
22 Q. You accomplished that with that statement?
23 A. Yeah, the -- yeah.
24 Q. You go on, "I also intended the statement to encourage
25 students and parents to be tolerant of other beliefs and
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1 opinions." Is that right?
2 A. Uh-huh.
3 Q. I don't see the word "tolerant" anywhere in this
4 disclaimer.
5 A. Like I said, I didn't write the disclaimer. This is an
6 affidavit of my intentions and my personal opinion.
7 Q. In fact, the argument about the disclaimer was so intense
8 that if you had continued working on the language of the
9 disclaimer, you would still be in that board meeting to this
10 day, some two and a half years later; is that correct?
11 A. Well, that's maybe an overstatement.
12 Q. But the sense of it is correct, is it not?
13 A. The sense is -- I think it's important, what you have
14 to -- what people don't understand a lot is a board functions,
15 a board of education functions as a board. And we are seven
16 individuals with individual opinions or shades of opinion about
17 different things and we have to forge something that the board
18 as a whole can take action on.
19 And, you know, the art of compromise oftentimes means
20 the final product isn't anything that any seven -- any of the
21 seven of us are 110 percent happy with, but, you know, does it
22 reflect the spirit of what you can live with and what you're
23 trying to accomplish.
24 Q. Okay. So your statement in your affidavit you intended
25 the statement to encourage students and parents to be tolerant,
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1 that message actually doesn't exist anywhere in the disclaimer,
2 does it?
3 A. Well, to promote critical thinking --
4 Q. No, that's your third reason. Am I correct?
5 A. Is it specific in the sticker? Obviously not.
6 Q. Is it implied in the sticker, encourage --
7 A. I think it is.
8 Q. -- students and parents to be tolerant?
9 A. I think it is.
10 THE COURT: Where?
11 THE WITNESS: You know, when you have --
12 MR. GUNN: Can you show her the sticker?
13 THE WITNESS: When you have --
14 THE COURT: Excuse me one moment.
15 THE WITNESS: -- open mind --
16 THE COURT: Thank you.
17 THE WITNESS: You know, open mind, tolerant opinions.
18 Q. (By Mr. Manely) Okay, so that doesn't have to do with
19 your third reasoning here, and to promote critical thinking by
20 students, right?
21 A. What?
22 THE COURT: What was your question again?
23 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, I don't understand.
24 Q. (By Mr. Manely) The third reason basis that you give
25 here -- your first is notice, second is encourage tolerance,
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1 and third is promote critical thinking.
2 A. Okay.
3 Q. Okay. So open mind doesn't have to do with an open mind
4 study carefully and critically considered, that doesn't have to
5 do with your promoting critical thinking?
6 A. Critically considered?
7 Q. Yes.
8 A. Yeah. Critically considered is promoting critical
9 thinking.
10 Q. Okay, about evolution specifically?
11 A. In this case. But, you know, critical thinking is one of
12 the guiding principles of all our curriculum. I mean, if you
13 go through our curriculum guidelines in our policy manual
14 you'll see critical thinking.
15 Q. But, ma'am, the Cobb school board has chosen to only tell
16 its students, only tell its students that it must critically
17 consider evolution.
18 A. Because that's the only subject we teach that has had that
19 level of community controversy.
20 Q. You adopted a policy; is that right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And the policy wants to promote a discussion of disputed
23 views of academic subjects; is that right?
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. In fact, you even think it's necessary to discuss disputed
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1 views in the classroom; is that right?
2 A. Sure.
3 Q. And, specifically, the origin of the species; is that
4 right?
5 A. Including.
6 Q. The only disputed academic subject that's mentioned in the
7 entire policy is origin of the species, isn't it? In fact, it
8 is the title of the policy, is it not?
9 A. As well as the other policy. We have that policy manual
10 that talks about controversial subjects.
11 Q. I'm talking about this policy. You want to promote the
12 discussion of disputed views about the origin of the species;
13 is that right?
14 A. No, no, that is not right.
15 Q. Not only do you want to promote it, you think it's
16 necessary?
17 A. I think it's necessary that when a student raises their
18 hand in a classroom, as is inevitable, and says, I was taught
19 at home that that's wrong and I can't subscribe to that, I
20 can't believe in that, I can't agree with that, that a teacher
21 isn't standing there hand-tied not being able to say a word.
22 It doesn't mean you teach the alternate opinion. But
23 you have to, in a 21st century classroom with very -- this is
24 the information age. These kids don't grow up in a vacuum.
25 Lord, I mean, you know, I mean the content of the
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1 article is irrelevant to this discussion, but the National
2 Geographic this month, the cover story is about evolution and
3 controversy surrounding evolution.
4 Kids are aware of those things. And you have to
5 be -- you have a framework in a classroom to be able to handle
6 those questions and objections when they come up. But you
7 don't teach intelligent design. You don't teach. You say,
8 now, you know, this is a discussion for you to take home to
9 your parents or to your pastor, or if you want to take our
10 comparative religion course, we offer it second semester, fifth
11 period, but in science classroom we are teaching the theory of
12 evolution. But you have to have the ability to discuss the
13 obvious fact that it is a controversial subject and some people
14 hold very deeply-held beliefs that are in opposition to what's
15 being taught.
16 Q. Now, you've got how much time with a science student? How
17 much time does that teacher have?
18 A. It varies.
19 Q. Would you say an hour?
20 A. Well, it depends on whether I'm block scheduled or not,
21 they may have 45, 50 minutes, they may have 90 minutes.
22 Q. Either way it's a finite period of time, right?
23 A. It's a finite period of time.
24 Q. And either way the teacher has got more on his plate than
25 he can possibly manage to get these students filled with all
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1 the information he is charged by the state-mandated curriculum
2 to teach these students, is he not?
3 A. Sure.
4 Q. And yet your policy wants to derail the instruction to
5 enter into a discussion about disputed views of academics; is
6 that right, or academic subjects?
7 A. No. That's your opinion. That is not fact in the
8 classroom, nor is it the policy of the school board.
9 Q. You spoke of deep values, moral and ethical views about
10 evolution. That's not science, is it?
11 A. No.
12 Q. That's religion?
13 A. People bring that into the science classroom with them.
14 Q. Furthermore, aren't you permitting the discussion and the
15 teaching even --
16 A. No.
17 Q. -- of creationism by your policy?
18 A. Absolutely not.
19 Q. Let me refer you to your policy. Your policy is not to be
20 interpreted as promoting or requiring the teaching of
21 creationism. Do you see anywhere in there where it says this
22 policy is to be interpreted as prohibiting the teaching of
23 creationism?
24 A. Go to the regulation and you'll see it described.
25 Q. In fact, the regulation says: "Discussion should be
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1 moderated." I presume it's the teachers that are moderating?
2 A. To specifically respect --
3 Q. To three things --
4 A. To respectfully focus discussion on scientific subject
5 matter.
6 Q. And --
7 A. No, no, do you understand what that means by refocus the
8 discussion? So if the subject comes up, you are not going to
9 shut students down, you're not going to belittle them, you're
10 not going to allow the other kids in the classroom to laugh at
11 them. But you're going to refocus, you're going to acknowledge
12 and refocus on the subject matter. I just don't see where you
13 could put it any more clearly than that.
14 Q. "And to distinguish between scientific and philosophical
15 or religious issues." Do you see that?
16 A. "To distinguish."
17 Q. Yes.
18 A. We are teaching science in this classroom. Sam here is
19 bringing up a religious discussion and, you know, that
20 discussion is not what we are about here. And, you know, if
21 John has a problem or Sam has a problem with what we teach in
22 the classroom, that's his right, it's his right to express
23 that. But here's what we teach and, you know, then, you know,
24 you send kids that are in conflict about it back to their
25 parents or their pastors to talk about it.
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1 Q. And that is how you interpret the policy and the
2 regulation?
3 A. That is not only how I interpret it, that was the intent
4 of writing it.
5 MR. MANELY: Thank you.
6 THE COURT: Thank you. We've heard from all the
7 witnesses we are going to hear from today.
8 I failed to inform counsel that during the trial of
9 this case we are going to start every day at 9:30 and recess at
10 4:00. So please make sure your witnesses are here. There's
11 been too much lag time between witnesses coming in the
12 courtroom. I don't know why that lag time is taking place but
13 we want to address that tomorrow morning because we want to get
14 the witnesses in court as quickly as possible so they can
15 testify and leave.
16 With that, we'll be in recess. I'll see you tomorrow
17 morning at 9:30. Thank you.
18 (Proceedings adjourned at 4:30 p.m.)
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Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter
232
1 C E R T I F I C A T E
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3 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT:
4 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA:
5
6 I hereby certify that the foregoing pages, 1 through
7 231, are a true and correct copy of the proceedings in the case
8 aforesaid.
9 This the 4th day of February, 2005.
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14 Amanda Lohnaas, CCR-B-580, RMR, CRR
Official Court Reporter
15 United States District Court
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Amanda Lohnaas, Official Court Reporter