Intelligent design ruled religion not scientific theory: "'In making this determination,' wrote Judge John E. Jones III, 'we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents. ... We hold that the ID policy is unconstitutional.'
... Last October, the Dover Area School Board voted to include a brief statement as part of the ninth-grade biology curriculum that questioned the Darwinian theory of evolution, and referred students instead to a Christian textbook titled "Of Pandas and People." Eleven parents of children in the Dover district, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and other lawyers, sued the board.
In his opinion, Jones found that the religious nature of intelligent design "is evident because it involves a supernatural designer." Intelligent design holds that some parts of nature are too complex to be accounted for by evolution and therefore are the handiwork of an unspecified intelligent designer.
The judge wrote that evidence at the trial -- in which scientific witnesses were called by both sides and which often resembled a classroom more than a courtroom -- "demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism." The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 1987 decision, Edwards vs. Aguillard, ruled that creationism was also religiously based and, as such, could not be taught in public schools.
Because copious evidence was presented during the trial in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg, Pa., Jones wrote, "no other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than we are to traipse into this controversial area." He concluded that the goal of intelligent design proponents "is not to encourage critical thought," as they asserted in testimony, "but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory," the bedrock of biology, "with ID." "
- posted by geoff @ #