It is now more dangerous for Australia not to have a Bill of Rights than to have one.
This week, a Bill of Rights came to the rescue in the US in a way that would not happen in Australia. A US court cited the Bill of Rights in striking down a Pennsylvania school board’s decision to order the unsubstantiated mumbo jumbo of “intelligent design” not be taught as part of the science course.
It is an appalling waste of students’ intellectual space to impose such “breathtaking inanity” — to use the judge’s words — upon young minds in the name of science.
US District Judge John Jones said, “Intelligent design . . . is a religious view, a mere re-labelling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.”
Jones, incidentally, is a Republican and a churchgoer.
The Pennsylvanian decision is a small advance in the face of considerable odds.
Bear in mind, it took the best part of 500 years for it to be (almost) universally accepted that earth is flat and not the centre of the universe. It has taken 500 years since Copernicus proved it that the vast bulk of humankind knows the earth goes around the the sun and that it is a sphere.
So why should we imagine that we can shortcut the process and expect that in a mere 150 years the vast bulk of people should accept the equally obvious proposition of evolution?We are expecting too much.
Even in 2005, a US poll found that it was acceptable to teach the dogma of intelligent design as science.
In the US religion and human rights are double-headed companions.
The US Bill of Rights says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
It means that the state cannot stop people practising religion but also that the state cannot act in any way to force people into religious activity – establishing a religion.
The US courts have widened the ambit of “establishing a religion” to mean virtually any state support for religion.
So a state school that sought to introduce “intelligent design” into a science class was in clear breach. The essence of science is to gather evidence to support a theory. While the evidence holds up, the theory is good. Intelligent design, on the other hand, is no such thing. It says the world is a complex place of high design. We do not have evidence to explain all of it. In the face of the absence of (scientific) evidence we must conclude a divine intervention to explain it.
That is simply not science. It is a statement that in the absence of evidence we will jump to a conclusion. That is called faith, religion, belief or the supernatural.
The US Constitution has two tranches of human rights with respect to religion. The first is that you can practice whatever religion you like without the state making it a criminal offence or imposing any other impediment on the practice of the religion. The second is that taxpayers should not be expected to fund state-sponsored religion. This includes the proposition that religion should not be forced upon anyone.
Australia is not in the same position. Australian Governments give a range of tax exemptions to religions. It came to a head in 1983 when the High Court ruled on a challenge by the oxymoronically named “Church of Scientology” to Victorian payroll tax. The court held that (in the absence of a bill of rights preventing religious preference) one person’s belief was as good as another’s and the Scientologists should have their exemption. Presumably, a group which worshipped cockroaches or Victor Hugo should get the same exemption.
They made the best fist of a deficient constitutional arrangement. How much better to strike out all tax exemptions for religions and let the Government hand out money to organisations according to charitable work or other objective criteria?
Now we face a worse position than 1983. The Federal Minister for Education Brendan Nelson is making noises sympathetic to intelligent design being taught as part of the science curriculum, and we have no Bill of Rights as in the US to protect us.
It is alarming stuff because science and the scientific method are critical to democracy.
After the collapse of Nazism and communism, government should no longer be done according to belief and ideology, but according to what works, what is best for the bulk of people without harming the minority. That sort of government requires an open mind and action according to evidence – according to the scientific method..
If we revert to government by belief and ideology we revert to the dangers of government by “isms” — it means repression and fear. Maybe that is why abusers of power are so opposed to science.
Of course, there are other reasons for a Bill of Rights. As police chomp through people’s text messages, round up the unusual suspects, mistake cleaning and paint fluid for bomb ingredients, they will inevitably lock up the innocent and abuse the powerless.
We saw that in the climate of fear induced by the Tampa incident and the Government’s bluster of, “We decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” That policy has largely be unwound after it served its political purposes, but Australian citizens were locked up and deported.
But the pendulum is swinging here. The Victorian Government announced this week that it would introduce a legislative bill of rights. Under it, Parliament can enact what it likes, but the courts will be able to declare that laws offend human rights and it will be up to Parliament to repeal the law. The moral pressure will be huge. Also, in fine-line cases the courts must interpret laws in a way consistent with the Human Rights Act. This has been in force in the ACT for a year now and cases decided upon it. The sky has not fallen in.
And who knows, the Victorian and ACT Human Rights Acts might make politicians think twice before allowing Australian children to be taught claptrap in the name of science.