Federal
judge bars 'intelligent design'
Ruling thrashes Pa. school
district
Wednesday, December 21, 2005 • BY MARTHA RAFFAELE
• Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- In one of the biggest
courtroom clashes between faith and science since the 1925
Scopes Monkey Trial, a federal judge yesterday barred a
Pennsylvania public school district from teaching
"intelligent design" in biology class, saying the concept is
creationism in disguise.
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones
delivered a stinging attack on the Dover Area School Board,
saying its first-in-the-nation decision in October 2004 to
insert intelligent design into the science curriculum
violated the constitutional separation of church and
state.
The ruling was a major setback to the
intelligent design movement, which is also waging battles in
Georgia and Kansas. Intelligent design holds that living
organisms are so complex that they must have been created by
some kind of higher force.
Jones decried the "breathtaking inanity"
of the Dover policy and accused several board members of
lying to conceal their true motive, which he said was to
promote religion.
A six-week trial over the issue yielded
"overwhelming evidence" establishing that intelligent design
"is a religious view, a mere relabeling of creationism, and
not a scientific theory," said Jones, a Republican and a
churchgoer appointed to the federal bench three years ago by
President Bush.
The school system said it will probably
not appeal the ruling, because several members who backed
intelligent design were ousted in November's elections and
replaced with a new slate opposed to the policy.
During the trial, the board argued that
it was trying to improve science education by exposing
students to alternatives to Charles Darwin's theory of
evolution and natural selection.
The policy required students to hear a
statement about intelligent design before ninth-grade
lessons on evolution. The statement said Darwin's theory is
"not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps." It referred
students to an intelligent design textbook, "Of Pandas and
People."
But the judge said: "We find that the
secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext
for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion
in the public school classroom."
In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
that states cannot require public schools to balance
evolution lessons by teaching creationism.
Eric Rothschild, an attorney for the
families who challenged the policy, called the ruling "a
real vindication for the parents who had the courage to
stand up and say there was something wrong in their school
district."
Richard Thompson, president and chief
counsel of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich.,
which represented the school district and describes its
mission as defending the religious freedom of Christians,
said the ruling appeared to be "an ad hominem attack on
scientists who happen to believe in God."
It was the latest chapter in a debate
over the teaching of evolution dating back to the Scopes
trial, in which Tennessee biology teacher John T. Scopes was
fined $100 for violating a state law against teaching
evolution.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals
court in Georgia heard arguments over whether a suburban
Atlanta school district had the right to put stickers on
biology textbooks describing evolution as a theory, not
fact. A federal judge last January ordered the stickers
removed.
In November, state education officials in
Kansas adopted new classroom science standards that call the
theory of evolution into question.
Bush also weighed in on the issue of
intelligent design recently, saying schools should present
the concept when teaching about the origins of
life.
In his ruling, Jones said that while
intelligent design, or ID, arguments "may be true, a
proposition on which the court takes no position, ID is not
science." Among other things, the judge said intelligent
design "violates the centuries- old ground rules of science
by invoking and permitting supernatural causation"; it
relies on "flawed and illogical" arguments; and its attacks
on evolution "have been refuted by the scientific
community."
"The students, parents, and teachers of
the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be
dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter
waste of monetary and personal resources," he
wrote.
The judge also said: "It is ironic that
several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly
touted their religious convictions in public, would time and
again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real
purpose behind the ID Policy."
Former school board member William
Buckingham, who advanced the policy, said from his new home
in Mount Airy, N.C., that he still feels the board did the
right thing.
"I'm still waiting for a judge or anyone
to show me anywhere in the Constitution where there's a
separation of church and state," he said. "We didn't lose;
we were robbed."
The controversy divided Dover and
surrounding Dover Township, a rural area of nearly 20,000
residents about 20 miles south of Harrisburg. It galvanized
voters in the Nov. 8 school board election to oust several
members who supported the policy.
The new school board president,
Bernadette Reinking, said the board intends to remove
intelligent design from the science curriculum and place it
in an elective social studies class. "As far as I can tell
you, there is no intent to appeal," she said.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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