Creation, Evolution, and the Passing of a Judicial Giant

We note the passing today of US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. As America’s judicial watchers assess his full legacy, we note there were strong hints that he denied the evolution worldview. Last year, speaking at his granddaughter’s high school graduation, Scalia declared: “Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges as confronted are any worse now, or alas even much different, from what they ever were.” Biblical creationists argue for 6,000 years as the age of the earth and humankind; evolutionists contend that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor millions of years ago.

Justice Scalia was also one of the dissenters in the famous 1987 Edwards v Aguillard decision, where the Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation be taught alongside evolution in government-run schools was unconstitutional. In his dissent, he wrote: “The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that supporting evolution. In fact, it may be stronger. The evidence for evolution is far less compelling than we have been led to believe. Evolution is not a scientific ‘fact,’ since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory.”

Justice Scalia also opposed abortion and gay “marriage,” two hot-button issues addressed in the Book of Genesis. As a traditional Roman Catholic, he apparently accepted the teachings of Genesis that humans are created in God’s image and thus abortion is wrong and that marriage was instituted as one man for one woman, starting with Adam and Eve.