Science, Religion, and the First Amendment

Following up on Rob’s post, if a public high school biology teacher teaches his or her students that there is no evidence for the existence of God (or, in what amounts to the same thing, that science provides no evidence for the existence of God and the only valid evidence on that question is what counts as evidence within the confines of science), then that teacher isn’t merely teaching science, but rather espousing scientism, which for the purposes of First Amendment establishment clause doctrine is a quasi-religious view. For a teacher to espouse a religious or quasi-religious view in a public school classroom is a violation of the establishment clause according to current constitutional doctrine.

Parenthetical edited for clarity.