Science and Democracy

The recent concerns voiced here and elsewhere about respect for science and science education are at their foundation about more than science. There is a connection between science and democracy that is only dimly recognized and rarely discussed.

The best articulation of that connection that I’ve encountered was in a 2010 book by Timothy Ferris, titled The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason and the Laws of Nature.

As Ferris notes, the nation’s founders were creatures of the Enlightenment, and well acquainted with the experimental nature of science–part of what they called “The New Learning.”  They applied the scientific method to their new political enterprise.

“What isn’t widely understood is that the way that democracies work is by constant experiment. Each election, each new law is, after all, a procedure designed to test a hypothesis about how to make constant improvements to a government.”

Ferris argues convincingly that the democratic revolution was sparked by the scientific one. The new approach to governing wasn’t merely a function of the embrace of reason, because–as current events keep reminding us–people can reason themselves into all sorts of conclusions that have a tenuous connection to reality. Science was the new ingredient, and while science requires reason, it isn’t just reason. It’s empiricism, experimentation…the same sort of experimentation that is the basis for democratic governance.

It was the advent of science and the scientific method that underscored the importance of decisions based on evidence.  As Ferris notes, dogma ruled the world before science came along, and dogma remains the preference of the majority of people today. (If you doubt the accuracy of that observation, look at Congress. Or Texas. Or, unfortunately, the Indiana Statehouse.) But democracy is not a dogma–it’s a method, a process not unlike the scientific method.

It is well to recognize that when strident anti-intellectual political figures attack scholarship as “elitism,”  when they dismiss scientific consensus on everything from evolution to climate change, when they call for “repealing” the Enlightenment, it isn’t only science they are attacking.

It’s democracy as we understand it.

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A Welcome Statement

A couple of weeks ago, I criticized Ball State University for hiring a prominent creationist to teach science courses. Coming after complaints alleging that another science faculty member had taught a course from an “intelligent design” perspective, the hire raised troubling questions about the quality of scholarship at the University.

Yesterday, a friend on the BSU faculty shared with me a strong statement on the controversy just issued by President JoAnn Gora.

The money quote:

As this coverage has unfolded, some have asked if teaching intelligent design in a science course is a matter of academic freedom. On this point, I want to be very clear. Teaching intelligent design as a scientific theory is not a matter of academic freedom – it is an issue of academic integrity. As I noted, the scientific community has overwhelmingly rejected intelligent design as a scientific theory. Therefore, it does not represent the best standards of the discipline as determined by the scholars of those disciplines. Said simply, to allow intelligent design to be presented to science students as a valid scientific theory would violate the academic integrity of the course as it would fail to accurately represent the consensus of science scholars.

Precisely.

The statement made no reference to the prominent creationist who was hired, but it was unambiguous in recognizing that “intelligent design” is neither academically appropriate nor scientifically accepted, and assuring the faculty and alumni that religious doctrine will not be taught in science classes at Ball State.

A failure to clarify its continued commitment to intellectual integrity would have significantly diminished BSU’s academic reputation, so the issuance of this statement was a welcome relief (if unaccountably tardy).

But better late than never.

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Trading the First Amendment for a Law License?

Yesterday’s Indianapolis Star carried a story about Paul Ogden and the Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Commission. It’s a story that should trouble anyone who really cares about the First Amendment, but especially lawyers.

The facts are fairly simple: Ogden represented a client before Hendricks Superior Court Judge David H. Coleman. In a private email,  he criticized the Judge, opining that he had a conflict of interest. At the time he wrote the email–and again, I note that this was a private communication–the judge had already been removed from the case for failing to act within an appropriate period of time.

It is unclear how the judge even found out about the email, but he did, and demanded an apology. Ogden refused. ( Paul is one of those people who will stand on principle even when doing so will clearly cost him.) Had he apologized, that would have been the end of it. Since he didn’t–he faces loss of his license to practice law.

Think about that for a minute. A “transgression” that could be cured by a simple apology is nevertheless so serious that the Disciplinary Commission can respond by destroying a lawyer’s ability to make a living. And what is that transgression? “Defaming” a judge by criticizing him in a private email.

As a recovering lawyer, I find this seeming vendetta very troubling. As a lifelong civil libertarian, I find it dangerous.

The Disciplinary Rule prohibiting certain criticisms of courts and the justice system is there for a reason–it is meant to avoid statements that might prejudice a case, or demean the legal process and thus respect for the rule of law. Imposing that rule in a case where a lawyer has publicly cast aspersions on a judge or court can be justified–although even then, there are limits imposed by the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. (I recall another Indiana case where a lawyer included a snide remark in a footnote in a brief he filed. The brief was a public document. The Indiana Supreme Court sanctioned the attorney; the U.S. Supreme Court overruled that decision, citing the First Amendment.)

In this case, the argument that criticisms of the court undermine public confidence in the justice system is simply not tenable, because the criticism was not public. And a comment in a private communication, made after the judge no longer sat on the case, could hardly prejudice the outcome.

Most of us, caught in a similar situation, would have simply given the Judge the apology he demanded, thus making the problem disappear. It is a rare lawyer who will risk his license to defend a principle, even a principle as important as our First Amendment right to speak our minds.

Perhaps there is more to this story, but from what has been reported it seems to me that the person “demeaning” the justice system is the Judge who pursued this complaint. As a practical matter, no one would ever have known about the allegation of a conflict had the complaint not been lodged.

The larger question, of course, is whether the receipt of a license to practice law comes with a condition that the recipient relinquish the future exercise of his or her First Amendment free speech rights. If so, those considering the practice of law might be well advised to rethink that choice.

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Drip, drip……

The Daniels Administration may now be in the rear-view mirror, but sometimes, a rear-view image allows us to see things we missed when the view was head-on.

Yesterday, more embarrassing emails emerged--this time, from the Superintendent of Public Education’s office. It seems that Mr. Bennett was perfectly willing to play games with his beloved “A-F” grading system for schools when a GOP donor’s charter school failed to make the grade. The emails disclose that the system was manipulated so that Christel Academy–a charter established by major donor Christel DeHaan–would not get the “C” grade it deserved, but would instead be awarded an A.

Bennett is frantically trying to spin the emails, but–like those issued by Daniels in the Zinn controversy–they are hard to re-interpret.  Superintendent Bennett blew plenty of smoke during his tenure in office, but these messages are anything but ambiguous.

There are a number of observations one might make over these latest disclosures. At the very least, the emails indicate a willingness to overlook deficiencies of favored charter operators that the administration was unwilling to extend to public schools. They confirm a widespread belief that Bennett was a political operative charged with furthering Daniels’ ideological agenda, not an educator. (Sue Ellen Reed, Bennett’s Republican predecessor, was an educator, and Daniels forced her out of that office.)

It’s also hard to understand why either Daniels or Bennett felt they could express themselves so clearly when using official email. Did they not realize that these messages would be maintained and discoverable?

Of course, the sixty-four thousand dollar question, as we used to say, is: who is leaking these delectable morsels? How has the AP known to ask for them?

And what other disclosures await?

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Pissing on Democracy

Democratic theory is actually pretty simple; voting is a substitute for physical struggles for power, but it only works when the fight is fair. The loser in any election abides by the decision because the winner abides by the rules.

What we are seeing now is a situation where the losers refuse to play by the rules.

In Washington, the GOP’s antics have been the equivalent of a big “screw you.” The party has said, in effect, “we don’t care that the people voted for this President, despite our best efforts to keep his supporters from the polls. We are taking our ball and bat and going home–we are refusing to play the game.” In this case, of course, the “game” is governing the nation, and their childish behavior has made that nearly impossible.

In Indiana, where the Republicans won almost every office, they are determined to strip the one Democrat who did manage to win office of the authority to do her job.

Most recently, in yet another in a series of power grabs, the State Board of Education voted (8 to 1, with Glenda Ritz being the 1) to authorize Dan Elsener to spend money from the Board’s budget and work with the Governor’s office to hire the Board’s staff. According to several people, despite the fact that the Superintendent has often come from a different political party than the Governor, this is the first time in Indiana history that money budgeted for the State Board will not be controlled by the Department of Education.

As one observer wrote, “Obviously, a State Board with its own staff using a budget of $3,010,716 each year could become a power center independent of the State Superintendent and the Department of Education. Apparently, the Governor has quietly put this seismic shift into motion.”
Ever since the voters elected Glenda Ritz (by a margin exceeding that of Governor Pence, it might be noted), the administration and the Republicans have worked to overturn the results by reducing the powers of the office.

Like the current Superintendent or not, this is most definitely not the way the system is supposed to work. The message being sent is clear: we’ll respect election results and the democratic process when we win.

When we lose, we’ll play dirty.

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