UCSB Homepage UCSB History Department Homepage Sign In

Brian Thomasson

Announcements

There are no announcements

History of Science


Graduate Student
B.A., Azusa Pacifc University; M.A., California State University Northridge

Office: HSSB 3218
Hours:

Advisor: Michael A. Osborne

Dissertation Title

  • Darwinism and Religion in England's State Secondary Schools, 1920s-1970s.
    My dissertation investigates the teaching of evolution in both Biology and Religious Education classes in a country with no formal separation of church and state.

Teaching Fields

  • History of Science
  • Modern Europe
  • Early Modern Europe
  • Intellectual History/Philosophy
  • Ancient Western Civilizations

Teaching Assistantships

  • HIST 2A
    World History: Prehistory – 1000 C.E.
  • HIST 4A
    Western Civilization: Prehistory – A. D. 1000
  • HIST 4B
    Western Civilization: 1050 – 1715
  • HIST 4C
    Western Civilization: 1715 – Present

Publications

  • “Arguing from the Evidence: The Correct Approach to Intelligent Design’s Challenge in the U.S. Courts”
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 41, no. 4 (December 2011): 495-534

    Abstract:
    In Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005), the only U.S. federal case on teaching Intelligent
    Design in public schools, the plaintiffs used the same argument as
    in the creation-science trials of the 1980s: Intelligent Design is religion, not
    science, because it invokes the supernatural; thus teaching it violates the
    Constitution. Although the plaintiffs won, this strategy is unwise because it
    is based on problematic definitions of religion and science, leads to multiple
    truths in society, and is unlikely to succeed before the present right-leaning
    Supreme Court. I suggest discarding past approaches in favor of arguing
    solely from the evidence for evolution.

Presentations

  • Arguing from the Evidence: The Correct Approach to Intelligent Design and the U.S. Courts
    British Society for the History of Science, University of Leeds, Sept. 3, 2007