Landmark US decision on evolution vs creationism

PHILADELPHIA - A federal judge today banned the teaching of "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution by Pennsylvania's Dover Area School District, saying the practice violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

The ruling by US District Judge John Jones dealt a blow to US Christian conservatives who have been pressing for the teaching of creationism in schools and who played a significant role in the re-election of President George W Bush.

"Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution in a public school classroom," Jones wrote in a 139-page opinion.

The school district was sued by a group of eleven parents who claimed teaching "intelligent design" was unconstitutional and unscientific and had no place in high school biology classrooms.

The six-week Harrisburg trial, one of the highest-profile court cases on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial, was closely watched in at least 30 states where Christian conservatives are planning similar initiatives.

"Intelligent design" holds that some aspects of nature are so complex that they must have been the work of an unnamed creator rather than the result of random natural selection, as argued by Charles Darwin in his 1859 theory of evolution.

Opponents argue that it is a thinly disguised version of creationism - a belief that the world was created by God as described in the Book of Genesis - which the Supreme Court has ruled may not be taught in public schools.

In October 2004, Dover became the first school district in the United States to include "intelligent design" in its science curriculum.

Ninth-grade biology students were presented with a four-paragraph statement saying that evolution is a theory, not a fact, and that there are "gaps" in the theory. The statement invited students to consider other explanations of the origins of life, including "intelligent design".

In a fierce attack on the Dover board - all but one of whom have now been ousted by voters -- the judge condemned the "breathtaking inanity" of its policy."

Jones defended the students and teachers of Dover High School whom he said "deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

- REUTERS

* The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia defines Intelligent Design as:

"Intelligent design (ID) is a perspective on origins that proposes that 'certain features of the universe and of living things exhibit the characteristics of a product resulting from an intelligent cause or agent, as opposed to an unguided process such as natural selection.'

Proponents say that intelligent design is a scientific theory that stands on equal footing with, or is superior to, current scientific theories regarding the origin of life.

The vast majority of the scientific community views intelligent design not as a valid scientific theory but as neocreationist pseudoscience or junk science.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment and propose no new hypotheses of their own." SOURCE: www.wikipedia.org