Deposition of Dr. W. Scott Morrow - Page 4
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Could I look at that document?
Q Which one?
A That affidavit that was circulating around
here someplace.
Q Certainly.
A Thank you.
(Pause.)
Now, what I said before was something like
this: A teacher should be able to present a scientific
topic that's under investigation in such a way the
teacher should not feel reservations about the accuracy
or the completeness of the material that was being
presented. Okay. Now, I think that -- that's a
pretty good idea there. I think it pretty much reflects
my feeling.
Q How does mandating that a teacher teach the
scientific evidences for Creation Science foster aca-
demic freedom as you have just defined it?
A Well, I would say that you are assuming that
the teacher has great reservations about the accuracy
and completeness of Creation Science, and I don't think
that evidence is available.
Q Would it surprise you if a lot of teachers
had reservations about the accuracy?
A No; it wouldn't surprise me.
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Q If teachers had serious reservations about
the accuracy of the evidences they were required to
teach, in fact, serious Creation Science was, in fact,
science, wouldn't it violate their academic freedom
rights to require them to teach it?
A Academic freedom is not a Constitutional
right. It's an academic privilege. And such teachers
would be advised to seek alternative employment in an
alternative school system.
Q So if a teacher is true to their own belief
in academic freedom, a teacher who did not believe
that Creation Science was science, ought to seek
alternative employment that teaches science as a
science?
A Well, teachers should not attempt to teach
things that they are uncomfortable in teaching. If
they have severe intellectual reservations, they ought
to do something else.
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Q Are you suggesting that in the face of
the Statute that a teacher who doesn't believe in
creationist science ought to find alternative employment?
A What I am suggesting is that if a teacher
cannot obey the law, they may very well find himself
looking for alternative employment, yes. That's a
common thing, school boards mandate all sorts of
teaching.
Q Do you know of any other subject area
where a Legislator has mandated specific contents
of courses?
A I don't know about direct legislative
mandating, but I would say in an indirect way, the
requirement for specific goal levels of achievement
in precollege work is the equivalent.
Q But what I asked is were there any other
indications where they mandate the specific subject
matter, content of a subject?
A Well, I guess I would have to say no.
Q I was just making sure I didn't miss any
laws.
A Okay.
Q do you believe that there is a concept of
academic freedom which attaches to students that
students have any academic freedom rights?
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A To a certain extent.
Q Would you describe those?
A Well, fundamentally, I would reason from
the standpoint of who is paying for the endeavor.
Q Would it be easier if we started with
the question of whether parents have academic freedom
rights?
A I think parents have a very definite right
to govern the education of their children in a govern-
ment educational system.
Q How do they endorse that right?
A Ultimately, I guess, by the power of the
ballot.
Q All right. As a scientist or as a science
educator, do you have a definition of religion?
A Do you want me to give you a definition of
religion?
Q Yes.
A I thought I did that earlier. Now you
are asking me to come up with the same definition,
perhaps?
Q I'm sorry. What I am trying to know is
if religion is forbidden to be taught in the public
schools, how does a teacher know religion when they
see it?
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A That's a good question.
Q Thank you.
A I guess I would say that something is
religious if there are no ways that we can deal
with it scientifically.
Q But it is okay if the only way we can
deal with it scientifically is to reject another
theory; that's scientific?
A I don't know if I understand what you mean
there. My concept of what could be called the
scientific fields are those things that can be studied
by the scientific method. It requires interest,
objective testability, and the doing of experiments.
Now, things that aren't able to be treated
that way may very well be religious. Certainly,
religious things fall to that category of things.
Q Is the reason that you believe Creation
Science is science -- if you believe that -- is that
because it's no less science than it is evolution?
A In many respects, I think that's correct.
Q It's no more religious than evolution
is religious?
A I think either of those models of origins
can be a religious or a scientific as the ability of
the person doing the talking to make it.
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Q If a student asked you: Who is the
Creator, how would you respond?
A Who is the Creator?
Q Yes.
A I would simply say that I, of course,
don't know. I don't know how to find the answer.
But I don't mean by that to imply that there is one.
Let's include that.
Q I do not want to mischaracterize your
testimony, but I think you said earlier that Creation
Science can be taught without explicit discussion of
a Creator.
A In my opinion, yes.
Q I am trying to understand the differences
in the way you could teach on a college level and the
way that high school science is taught, and, therefore,
to understand how a teacher would implement the
actual requirement --
A Teach the corresponding evidences for
Creation Science without reference to a Creator.
How did we get to the college level? Unless they
are a publicly financed institution --
Q The bill applies only to the elementary
and secondary level which does not mean to imply
otherwise.
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A How would you --
Q You indicated that you could teach it
without reference to a Creator. But you teach on a
college level, not on a high school level.
A I do, yes.
Q And I understand that your testimony
will center on an approach to teaching the two mouths
of origins in a nonreligious manner?
A Yes.
Q So what I am trying to --
A As far as the scientific aspect and the
teaching aspect, that's separate from me speaking as
a citizen and as a parent.
Q I understand that. What I am trying to
understand is whether your ability to teach two
mouths of origins in nonreligious manner can be
generalized to a high school teacher's ability to do
the same.
A I would certainly hope so.
Q Then I have to go back to what scientific
evidences for Creation Science a high school teacher
is going to present that are within the understandings
of a high school student?
A Well, I suppose we would have to do
something like this: It has been decided presumably
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to teach topic X and presumably in the very beginning
of such an effort there's not a body of coherent
knowledge about topic X that allows us to pick up a
book, open it up, and there it is.
So you go to the learned individual in
the field that is related to topic X, you put together
-- if topic X is indeed controversial at all, you
go to the learned individuals on each side of the
question and ask them to accumulate or formulate the
evidence that can be used for and against their
specific feelings about the matter. And then you use
that.
Q How does a teacher know who are the
learned individuals to look to?
A I don't think there is any difficulty
in finding those people in the areas that we are
talking about. There is a significant number of
well-qualified scientific people who are studying
creation research as they see fit. And it is
certainly an equivalent number of people.
Q An equivalent number of qualified
scientists?
A Let me back up. There is enough people
available on both sides of this controversy with good
credentials to make those materials available.
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Q Who are the scientists with good solid
credentials who are writing about or presenting
evidence in support of Creation Science?
A I think Dr. Gish, Dr. Morris, probably
Dr. Parker.
Q What are Dr. Gish's credentials?
A He has a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Cal
Tech.
Q Dr. Morris?
A I don't know where Morris got his degree,
but I heard him lecture on evolution and creation.
Q Do you know what his field of specialization
is?
A Thermodynamics.
Q What about Dr. Parker?
A Parker, I don't know. I think he may be
a biologist.
Q If this bill had not been passed, do you
think Creation Science should be taught?
A I think so, yes.
Q Why?
A Well, we go back to this business of
teaching science as a way to find out about the
world and things and not just as a dogmatic endeavor
to present accepted theories and accepted facts and
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also from the standpoint of basic American fairness.
Q But why Creation Science?
A Why not? That's the apparent antithesis
of noncreation science.
Q Creation Science to the exclusion of other
theories of origins?
A If theories of origin have a significant
body of scholarly opinions behind them, fine, bring
them in.
Q Are there other theories of origins
besides evolution which have an equivalent amount of
scholarly endeavors behind them?
A Not to my knowledge. However, you just
stated evolution.
Q Evolution and Creation Science.
A In other words, there is a theory of
the origin of the world, universe, and mankind that
the American Indians and Hindus have had and so on.
If, indeed, there is enough of an interest for all
of the Hindus to present, they ought to get their act
together and bring the scholarly material together
and bring it in.
Q Specifically, what writings of Dr. Gish
and Morris do you think are scientifically valuable?
A Well, I was impressed with two public
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lectures and debates that I heard Morris involved in.
Q Can you identify those?
A Huh?
Q Can you identify those more specifically?
A When I was teaching up at Concord College,
Morris came twice.
Q When was this?
A Let's see. Between 1968 and 1970. And I
was unfamiliar with Morris in every way, shape, or
form up to that time. And on one occasion, if I
remember correctly, he debated on evolutionists --
wait a minute. I believe he debated the chairman of
my biology department. I was very much impressed
with the way Morris handled his topic and also evolution.
Q Is he a good debator?
A I think he is excellent.
Q And do you remember what kind of scientific
evidences he presented that impressed you?
A Again it has to do with resulting what
he thought were the insufficiencies of the fossil
record and the interpretations by the evolutionists.
Q Why were you impressed by what he said
that day?
A Well, I would have to say that he gave
a cogent argument that led me to conclude that he knew
162
what he was talking about, although I didn't neces-
sarily agree with it.
You can be impressed with someone's
ability to discuss and explain their point without
agreeing with them. And I came to the conclusion
that if I had to debate somebody, I would hate to
run into Morris.
Q Do you believe that all minority viewpoints
should be taught?
A If they are significant in the culture
and terms of the expression of public opinion, yes,
in a publicly-financed endeavor.
Q Are there any written works of Dr. Morris
that you find scientifically persuasive?
A There is some stuff that I got from Acts
and Facts that were pretty good where he sort of
summarized his criticisms of evolution and summarized
what he thought were the evidences for Creation
Science.
Q Any published works of Dr. Gish?
A I don't know that I can recall those
things by Gish. I have read extracts from debates
that Gish had. And it sounded, let's say, scholarly,
let's put it that way. It was good stuff, scholarly,
worth dealing with. If I am an evolutionist, okay.
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It was worth dealing with.
Q Morris also had one book that I read when
I was at Concord College -- I forget the name of it.
But it had a good bit of scientific reasoning in it.
I forget the name of the book.
Q Could it have been the Genesis Flood?
A I think I read that, too, but I don't
know if that was the only thing that I looked at.
We taught evolution there from a controversial
standpoint.
Q What do you mean by that?
A Well, the fellow that I worked for was
the chairman of the department and he liked to teach
from the standpoint of a method of inquiry with respect
to science. You state a problem and then in a
discussion group, you separate -- the students would
sort of wrestle with how we would go about trying to
prove this pro or con. And the guy was more or less
fair with it.
The evolution argument was given in the
biology textbook that we used. And then he would
allow any discussion groups, anything else he wanted
to be brought in as sort of an antidote, if you want
to put it that way.
Q Who controls what you teach in a classroom?
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A At Wofford College?
Q Yes.
A Well, Wofford is quite laissez faire about
it.
Q So you control what you teach in your
classroom?
A At Wofford College. If I really got out
of hand or did something that the kids were very much
opposed to, you can bet your sweet life that the dean
would hear about it.
Q Is there a process whereby scientific
theories gain acceptance in the scientific community?
A I think so.
Q And can you describe that process for me?
A I would say that in any given time, there
is probably a working general concensus of what is
acceptable in terms of scientific hypotheses or
principles in the whole body of scientific practitioner
Okay. It is sort of a concensus state of affairs.
Q Do scientists publish articles?
A Yes.
Q Is that part of the process whereby
theories get acceptance?
A That's right. And if you are very
persuasive and it looks pretty good, you achieve a
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certain amount of popularity.
Q Do textbooks have significant influence
on what's taught in the classroom?
A They certainly can.
Q Is there a process whereby materials must
gain acceptance in the scientific community before
it is included in science textbooks?
A I have been told there was such a process.
As far as the actual mechanisms of it, I don't know.
Q Do you know of any textbooks that give
balance treatment to Creation Science?
A There is one that I had in my possession
for a short period of time, but I forgot who published
it.
Q Could it have been Biology, a Search for
Order and Complexity?
A It could have been, I don't remember the
name. This was quite a few years ago, and I remember
looking through some and it looked pretty balanced.
Q Why has Creation Science gained significant
acceptance in the scientific community?
A I will have to answer this in a couple of
different parts. First, I am not so certain that
there is that much opposition to it. I am unaware
that there has been really valid polls taken among
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scientists with respect to the specific problem.
Okay. That's the first thing.
The second thing would be that there
has been a general development of evolutionary
explanation for things over about the last 50 years
or more. And people and scientists are included in
here, of course, and I think they tend to pretty
much believe what they have been taught. And I think
that, say, following the turn of the century an
increasing number of scientists -- shall we say --
believed in or felt that the evidences for evolution
were superior to the creationism that was more popular
than before.
And they taught people who taught other
people. There's been a gradual acquiescence or
acceptance of these revolutionary ideas.
Q Do you receive scientific journals?
A Do I receive them?
Q Yes, regularly.
A I subscribe to a couple of them.
Q Which ones do you subscribe to?
A To the Scientific American and Science
and also Chemical Engineering News.
Q Are there any other ones which you, in
the course of your employment, would review?
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A When I read Biochemistry -- that's the
name of the journal. On sort of an irregular basis,
as I have time, as part of my research work, my
students and I do a continual literature search through
chemical abstracts. When we find abstracts of articles
that are of interest, we get photocopies sent to us
of the original documents and I read those.
Q Are these journals that you have just
identified scientific journals that you respect?
A Yes, very much so.
Q Have you found articles by creation
scientists?
A No, typically not, no.
Q Do you have an opinion as to why not?
A Well, to get something published, it is
necessary to get it past some type of review committee.
And generally speaking, if the ideas or topics or the
evidences that you have written about are unacceptable
to the review committee, you don't get published.
Q Are there criteria that those review
committees use?
A I have been led to believe that that's
the case.
Q Do you know what those criteria are?
A Not really. I would say in the last
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analysis, the review committee would have to have a
sense of validity and appropriateness, you might say,
of the material.
Q Do you teach Creation Science?
A I do not now.
Q Have you ever?
A No.
Q Do you teach anything of the origins
of life, man, earth, or the universe?
A I touch on it peripherally in my biochemistry
course.
Q Do you teach any scientific evidences in
support of any creationists' explanation of the
origins of life or universe?
A That's not my mission at Wofford College.
I mean, that doesn't very well fit into teaching
general chemistry or something like that.
Q Do you teach about the origin of first
life?
A I touch on it as part of teaching a
course in science for nonscience students. But I
don't reach evolution, that's not in my job
classification, so to speak. That's in the biology
department. It would be fun to teach it there, I
would enjoy it.
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Q What competing theories do you teach in
your own classes?
A What competing theories? Well, of course,
I have three different classes plus research. Now,
in my general science class, what I try to foster
is objective analysis. And essentially what would
qualify as competing theories would be alternative
ways to explain certain natural phenomenon or to
explain or predict the consequences of certain ways
of thinking.
Q Can you give me an example?
A To be specific, I take my general science
people out -- and none of these are science majors.
They would be poets and actors, most likely.
I take them out and we look at a proposed
extension to a highway. And we study the environmental
impact at the same time. So we trot them over the
area of the proposed highway and I try to point out
to them certain salient features of how the environment
will be changed if the highway is extended.
And then I ask them to think of consequences
beneficial and detrimental as a consequence of having
this highway.
Q Okay.
A For example, if they say -- well, students
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have a tendency to say it would be a good idea to have
these highways because it facilitates transportation
from here to there. I try to have them also reason
to the fact that transportation may be hindered
because more traffic will be enticed to come into
this area since the extension of the highway is
available. You might still have the problems that
you thought you were going to cure by building the
highway.
Q I understand that. That's a kind of
controversy.
A Yes.
Q But that is a different kind of controversy
than the creation of evolution controversy.
A All right.
Q Are there any controversies of the
creation evolution type that you teach in your course?
A If I have an opportunity, if things
develop properly in the course, I get to the biological
kinds of things. And we discuss current models --
how life originated on the planet. And then I try to
take off the evidences for and against or the
insufficiencies or the advantages of specific
explanations of how life got here on this planet.
Q So you have taught Creation Science?
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A To a certain extent, not as a topic.
But insofar as how it might come into the subject of
teaching kids about science because I like to teach
from an argumentative standpoint, let's put it that
way. If you read my resume, I think I said that.
Q Why not be satisfied with just teaching
the evidence for and against evolution?
A I don't think that gives a complete
picture. I don't think it gives it a complete
intellectual experience of the kind we ought to foster.
Q If you tell me that you are doing more
than just teaching the evidence for and against
evolution when you teach Creation Science, what
additional evidence are you teaching?
A What I do in my class?
Q Uh-huh.
A Essentially, I try to turn it back and
hand it to the students and say: Okay. What do you
think we would have to do to support this hypothesis?
Q What kind of scientific evidences do you
come up with to support --
A We try to envision by sitting down and
thinking about it, the kinds of experiments or studies
or observations that would be needed.
Q So you are not teaching actual scientific
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evidences but rather determining what kind of
proof, if discovered by scientists, would support
a Creation Science model?
A That's part of it. I try to teach the
closest proximation of the scientific method whenever
controversial-type things could be imagined.
Q Were any additional scientific evidences
that you teach in support of Creation Science that
you wouldn't teach merely by teaching the evidences
more for and against evolution?
A It seems to me they fall in the same
category. Some set of facts that stands in opposition
to evolutionary theory may or may not fit into
creationists theory. Okay.
Q Do you hold a personal belief as to
the scientific validity of Creation Science?
A The scientific validity of it, I think,
it is weaker than evolutionary science which means
to say that I find more acceptable or stronger the
evolutionary model.
Q When you teach, to you express an
opinion as to the scientific validity of evolution?
A When I teach anything for which there is
a controversial component, I always tell the students
where I stand; I always try to present more than one
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explanation. I do this as a principle of teaching.
Even, for example, in my biochemistry,
there is a controversy about the origin of the
mitochondria, and I have a personal opinion. However,
there are at least two schools of thought on this.
Q Have you expressed to your students the
environmental validity of Creation Science?
A Yes, I told them substantially what I
told you. I think that the arguments are interesting,
they have a certain amount of consistency. But they
do not persuade me that that is the preferable model.
Q I believe that you told me that you have
read Act 590.
A If that's the thing in front of me.
Q It is, that thing.
A Okay.
Q And you understand that Act 590 requires
balanced treatment of Creation Science and Evolution
Science?
A Uh-huh.
Q Is a teacher under Act 590 frre to express
an opinion as to the scientific validity of Creation
Science?
A I would imagine so. I don't see anything
specifically in here that makes a teacher teach
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something or not -- at least say what the teacher
believes in.
Q So the teacher who doesn't think that
Creation Science is science could give some token
balance treatment, teach some scientific evidence
of scientificness and say; Oh, I think that's all
hog wash?
A I think expressing it that way would
be inappropriate.
MR. CHILDS: It certainly wouldn't
be professional.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
MS. FERBER: Thank you.
MR. KLASFELD: I think it would be
less than professional to do anything else
but.
MR. CHILDS: I agree with you fully,
David.
Q (By Ms. Ferber) Could a teacher say:
Some author has presented these scientific evidences
for Creation Science, but I am unpersuaded or I don't
think that they are, in fact, scientific evidences
in support of Creation Science?
A I don't see any problem with that -- I
think a teacher should essentially tell the students
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where he is coming from. I think of myself as a
can of beans and you tell them what's on the label.
Q What does it do to a student who has a
teacher all year long and who respects that teacher --
this is a teacher who teaches them what science is --
and then this teacher stands up there and says: This
is what some people think are scientific evidences
and I have to teach them to you, but I don't believe
them?
A What does it do to the student? I would
like to think that it decreases, reduces the degree
of respect that the student has for the teacher.
And it would also indicate that the teacher is
intellectually incapable of dealing with things in
an intellectual way.
I would be very suspicious of a teacher
who didn't have that much intellectual flexibility.
You could extend this other criticism of literature,
the analysis of economic positions, and the political
science class, many things.
Q Do you think that evolution which is
thought of in public schools denies the existence of
God?
A I suppose it can lead to that conclusion.
Q Does the teaching of evolution reinforce
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any negative values or beliefs in children?
A It certainly can.
Q Raises them?
A Well, see, you could essentially take
practically anything that's taught and end up with
all sorts of negative and unpleasant and undesirable
consequences on how it is taught.
Q How about belief in abortion?
A I suppose so. I will have to stretch
my imagination to see how you could get to that
state of affairs.
Q What input should an educator have to
the development of science curriculum?
A What input? Well, it depends on what
aspect of the educational enterprise they are teaching.
Now, if we are in a public school system, the educators
ideally would make their views known as to what is
appropriate to be taught in a specific class under a
specific topic.
Then presumably, the people who would
have the children in the school should make their
views known again at the ballot box, indirectly through
the election of the school board.
And then there has to be achieved some
sense of agreement between -- shall we say -- what
177
the customers want to be taught to their children and
what the practitioners are willing to teach.
Q Would you agree, though, that most
curriculum is determined outside of the ballot box
process?
A As a matter of fact, far too much is
determined that way. Parents in general pay very little
attention to what's taught to their children and, of
course, they are surprised at the consequences.
Q Isn't our American educational system
basically built on a system whereby, for instance,
practicing scientists and educators jointly determine
what should be taught in a science curriculum?
A I think this is true. But what you are
also saying is that the American public, by and large,
has indicated the sublime indifference in most respects
to what's being taught.
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Q What credentials does a parent have that
enables them as to what to be taught to a student in
a science class?
A It is their children and that is a credential.
Q Because it is their children, they are
capable of determining what is science?
A Because it is their children that are recip-
ients of education, they are qualified to pass judge-
ment on whether the things should be taught or not.
Q Is there a difference between deciding what
should be taught and deciding what should be taught as
science?
A I would say fundamentally, no.
Q Do you believe Flat Earth Theory?
A The Flat Earth Theory, I am unaware that
there is strong scientific evidence in support of the
Flat Earth.
Q Does support for the Flat Earth even fall
into the category of science, as far as you know?
A I would say essentially, no. However, if
there were enough people out there that wanted a Flat
Earth Theory presented in a public institution and
their kids were there, we would present the Flat Earth
Theory.
Q As science in a science classroom?
179
A Wait a minute. We would deal with the topic
as fairly and -- you might say -- benignly. We would
try to deal with it in a sensible scholarly way.
Q The legislature could pass a Statute that
required the teacher to give balance treatment to the
scientific evidence in support of the Flat Earth
Theory and the scientific evidence in support of the
theory that the Earth is round.
A The legislature could, indeed, pass such a
law. And I doubt that it would be unconstitutional.
And it would stand as long as the people in that state
wanted it.
Q Would it offend you as an educator?
A It would bother me, yes.
Q Would it offend you as a scientist?
A Yes.
Q Okay.
A Because I don't think the evidences are worth
bringing in.
Q Okay.
(Thereupon, a short break was held.)
MS. FERBER: I would like to mark as
Plaintiff's 5 a two-page letter stamped
with Paul Ellwanger's name and address at
the top. It is a letter to Dr. Morrow from
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Paul Ellwanger.
(Thereupon, Plaintiff's Exhibit
No. 5 was marked for identifi-
cation.)
Q (By Ms. Ferber) Doctor, is this a copy of
the letter that you produced to us today?
A I think so. I remember some little note
like this; I think that's correct.
MS. FERBER: I would like to mark as
Plaintiff's Exhibit No. 6 a two-page docu-
ment on stationery headed Citizens for Fair-
ness in Education. It is to state legislators
and others who support academic freedom on
the subject of origins and public schools;
from Paul Ellwanger; dated October 1981;
re revised model (uniform) bill, now entitled
"Unbiased Presentation of Creation Science and
Evolution Science Act."
(Thereupon, Plaintiff's Exhibit
No. 6 was marked for
identification.)
Q (By Ms. Ferber) Doctor Morrow, is this a
document which you previously produced to us today?
A Probably.
Q Okay.
MS. FERBER: I would like those marked
as Plaintiff's 7 and 8.
181
(Thereupon, Plaintiff's Exhibit
Nos. 7 and 8 were marked for
identification.)
Q (By Ms. Ferber) Plaintiff's Exhibit No. 7
in a one-page letter to Dr. Morrow from Tim Humphries
of the Office of the Attorney General, State of Arkansas.
Dr. Morrow, is this a letter which you received --
A Yes.
Q -- requesting that you produce documents at
this deposition?
A Yes, I remember that.
Q Plaintiff's Exhibit 8 is an article from
the October 28th, 1981, edition of the Spartanburg
Herald, entitled Creationists Vs. Evolutionists, Local
Professor may testified on his views.
Dr. Morrow, have you seen this article?
A Yes.
Q Does it accurately reflect an interview which
you had with the author of the article?
A Pretty much so, yes.
Q Are there any inaccuracies in it?
A Well, I did not look over the notes that the
fellow put together and I did look over his final com-
position before it was published.
Q But is there anything that is inaccurate as
to your statements or beliefs?
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A I would have to look through it here.
Q Please, sir.
A Oh, he quotes me as saying: As far as I
know, I am the only one with my beliefs, that is, a
biochemist who is in favor of the Creationist Theory
being taught. He forgot that I told him that Gish,
for example, was a biochemist with similar views.
There is a part where he quotes me as saying:
I feel that the Creationists are a functional minority
in their degree of influence. Okay. I think that's
what I said.
He also said, "It is possible that most
people in this country are Creationists, but you
wouldn't know it by the biology that's being taught.
I suppose I said that to him, although that was not
one of the three reasons for my viewpoint.
Q But is your viewpoint otherwise accurately
reflected?
A Pretty much so; about as far as you would
expect a reporter with limited scientific background
to put together.
Q Are there any statements attributed to this
which you would want to at this time retract?
A Let's see. I think that's pretty fair.
Q Should religious implications be considered
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along with deciding whether Creation Science is taught?
A I would say yes.
Q Have you ever read anything by Richard Bliss
on his two mile approach to teaching of origins?
A The name is familiar. I may have read
something, but I don't recall specifically.
Q You are not familiar with it?
A Way back, I think I have read something by
Bliss on this, but I don't remember.
Q Have you ever been involved in writing text-
books?
A In writing textbooks?
Q Or other teaching materials.
A I don't think so. It made very little
impression on me at the time.
Q Is evolution currently approved by all of
the textbooks?
A The ones that I have used or read, yes.
Q Act 590, as you have explained it, gives
teachers the option of either giving balance treatment
to evolution and Creation Science or ceasing to teach
evolution.
A All right.
Q How much of biology curriculum would this
cut out?
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A Very little of real importance at that level
of education.
Q By that level, you are referring to --
A At the pre-college level anyway.
Q Evolution is a small portion of pre-college
biology?
A It can be as important as you want to make
it, I will put it that way.
Q Is evolution a uniform think in biological
forces?
A Yes.
Q But cutting it out would only destroy a small
portion of a curriculum?
A It depends on what you are teaching. There
is a great deal that you can teach in terms of anatomy,
physiology, and there's a great deal of biology taught
without dealing with evolution.
Q Is the idea of unifying concepts important
in education?
A It can be.
Q Do they aid students to understand and remember
information?
A Properly used and properly presented, yes.
Q Is evolution an important unifying concept
in biology?
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A It can be, again, if properly used.
Q Do you think that modern biology makes sense
to a student in the absence of evolution as a unifying
theme?
A It is very difficult to find out how much of
biology, modern or otherwise, makes sense to students
if you objectively try to test them all.
Advanced students, very capable, high-achieving
students, I believe, can typically grasp a lot of con-
cepts. However, it can be very difficult with the
other students.
Q Do you think it is professionally proper to
teach theories for information as science which have
not gained acceptance in a scientific community?
A Sometimes, yes.
Q Given the limited number of hours that you
have to teach a student?
A Of course, you can't buy off more than you
can chew. But I would like to think that teachers are
willing to teach things that are not necessarily
commonly-accepted if, indeed, the teacher feels that
that topic merits consideration.
Q Do you want accountability based education is?
A I would have to guess what it means.
Q What do you think it means?
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MR. CHILDS: Don't guess.
Q (By Ms. Ferber) Do you have an opinion as to
what it means? You are free to answer.
A Well, he just said don't answer it.
MR. CHILDS: I'm sorry. If you want to
guess, just say that you are guessing.
A I would guess. I would assume that what you
are driving at would be there would be some way to
examine the students on what was taught and how well
it was taught. And then to hold the teacher responsible
for those achievements be they beneficial or detrimental.
Q Do you have any existing biological textbooks
to teach without teaching evolution?
A I can't think of one right now.
Q Do students have the academic background to
weight the relative merits of evolution and Creation
Science and to make a judgment as to each?
A It depends on what level they got through
their education.
Q High school biology students.
A High school biology students again I find
that they have difficulty grasping all sorts of concepts
quite separate from these. The job of the teacher
would be to facilitate achieving that level --
Q The job of the teachers who don't know how to
187
teach it is to facilitate --
A If they wanted to teach biology, they have
to get their act and learn enough to teach it. I don't
care if it is mathematics, biology, or economics, they
have to be stronger scholars.
Q This is a new concept to teach --
A Science is a growing body of knowledge, and
you have to keep up with this stuff.
Q As I understand it -- I have not taken science
in some 15 years -- the formation of oil or coal, as
it is conventionally understood and taught, requires
that the Earth be very old or requires that a great
number of years have passed for these minerals to
form?
A Yes.
Q How does a student who learns that the Earth
is relatively young, six to ten thousand years old,
learn to explore for oil or understand where coal would
be formed and found?
A How do they do this? I would suspect they
would find several inconsistencies between the young
Earth and those requirements that are needed to look
for oil.
Q What happens to the student who is taught
Creation Science, believes Creation Science, and wants
188
to grow up and work for Mobile and/or Exxon?
A They probably won't be very good working
for Mobile and Exxon drilling for oil.
Q What does the term "model" mean to you as
an educator?
A What term?
Q Model.
A Model, it is an intellectual construction
that makes it possible to mentally visualize processes
or concepts in your mind requisite to a certain end.
It's an intellectual construction.
Q In your teaching, have you ever used any
materials that came from Creationists' Organizations?
A Well, off hand, I have referred to them like
in my general science classes again when I try to be
talking about the evidences for or against these two
models. I would use those. But I haven't photocopied
them or distributed them.
Q But you have consulted them?
A Yes, I consulted them, sure.
Q Do you know which materials?
A Right off, no, to be very frank. I would
simply take most of the stuff that you saw that I had
in the bag there plus Acts and Facts all the way back.
Q So Acts and Facts are among the materials
189
that you did not produce today that might be within
the document request?
A Did you want me to bring Acts and Facts?
Q What I would have liked is all of the docu-
ments in your possession and that would fit within the
document request.
A I don't have a whole set of them. You could
get them better from Gish or Morris.
Q The document request --
A It also said convenient.
Q No, no. The Attorney General's cover letter
said convenient; the document request asked you --
A I didn't deliberately mean to withhold any-
thing.
Q I don't mean to imply that you did. But I
would like to understand what other materials you have
in your possession, custody or control that would fall
within the document request.
A Would I have given you today. I don't think
there is anything I haven't given you today that would
be bear substantially on what I would say.
There could be one Acts and Facts some place
back in some notes that I may have used, but I don't
think it is a substantial thing.
Q I would request that if at any time you
190
determine that the facts or opinions which you will
state at trial will be based on any of the materials
in your possession that you notify the Attorney
General's Office and us of that.
A Find, that's fine. I would do that anyway.
Q Okay. Are you familiar with a writing of
Tim LaHaye; have you ever heard of him?
A No.
Q Are you familiar with the writings of Henry
Morris?
A To a certain extent.
///
191
Q Are there any goals for Christian funda-
mentalist education?
A Any goals? Well, I'm not a Christian
fundamentalist. I would suppose that -- and I'm
guessing at this, but the -- a goal would be the
reinforcement of fundamentalists' belief and the
general development of the individual toward helping
them stand against a rather -- a world that can be
rather alien.
Q Do you think that Act 590 promotes
those two goals that you've just articulated?
A Not necessarily. I mean, I think it
gives a better opportunity for a kid to feel that
there's a sense of fairness going on in the classroom.
Q Earlier today, you testified regarding
the South Carolina Statute that sought balance
treatment for Creation Science and evolution.
A Right.
Q And you testified that you foresaw no
difficulty teaching modern biology under that Statute.
A I doubt it; no.
Q But, in other words, you would have
testified that you wouldn't foresee a difficulty in
teaching --
A I think I testified to -- to something to
192
the effect that if I were in the public school system
and if I were trying to teach modern biology, I would --
I believe I would comply with that bill. I'm in a
private school, by the way.
Q And do you teach biology?
A No. I teach chemistry. You know, if
they ask me to teach biology, I would do that.
MR. FERBER: I have no further
questions. Thank you very much.
(Deposition concluded.)
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