Objectivity and elites: A creation science trial

Abstract

The recent controversy over “scientific creationism” represents an intriguing case study of the interpenetration of the paradigm discourses of science, religion, politics, and law and public motive structures. Despite nearly unanimous judicical rejection, creationist claims for “balanced treatment” with evolution in the public schools have received an inexplicably favorable public response. Our analysis of journalistic accounts of a pivotal trial in the creationism controversy suggests that the journalistic commitment to objectivity produced a journalistic leveling which rhetorically transformed competing discourses into equivalent ones. We argue that the elite discourse of science found resonance in the elite discourse of law, while the populist discursive commitments of journalism indirectly legitimated the populist discourse of creationism.