Intelligent Design Makes Spotlight In Both The Classroom And Courtroom
Just days after closing arguments concluded in the nation’s first test case of intelligent design being taught in public schools, Kansas became the fifth state in the country to allow students to learn about the scientific evidence both for and against Darwin’s theory of evolution.
A federal judge in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, presided over the six-week, non-jury trial which stemmed from a lawsuit challenging intelligent design in the Dover Public School District.
This past academic year, the school board in Dover, a small community situated south of the state capital, voted to read to ninth-grade biology students a four-paragraph statement, saying that there are “gaps” in the theory of evolution, and that intelligent design is an alternative they should explore.
The main premise behind intelligent design is that life and the universe are so complex that they must have been created by an unspecified higher power. Many proponents of intelligent design say they believe that designer is God.
vv Eleven parents filed suit against the school district on grounds that the board violated the constitutional ban on advancing religious belief in public schools, and in the hopes of having the board rescind its action.
Lawyer Eric Rothschild, who represented the plaintiffs, noted, “Intelligent design does not belong in a high school biology class. It is an inherently religious doctrine that is a modern form of creationism, and this shell game has to end. This board wanted to trash evolution, not to teach it. It wanted to impose its religious views on others.”
Richard Thompson, founder, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, who represented the school board, said outside the courtroom, “There are two Americas today, one that’s still very religiously based, and another that has no foundation, where everything is relative, where everything goes. All scientific theories, including Darwinism, have religious implications. And the religious implication of Darwinism is atheism. Furthermore, moral relativism, atheism and the idolatry of science are symptoms of our floundering society.”
Among the witnesses called to testify in the trial was Michael Behe, a Lehigh University biochemistry professor and author. Behe said, students should be taught evolution because it is widely used in science, and that “any well-educated student should understand it.” However, Behe added that evolution cannot fully explain the biological complexities of life, suggesting the work of an intelligent force, whom he believes to be God. “I conclude that based on theological and philosophical and historical factors,” Behe said.
The trial, which thrust Dover into the national spotlight, resulted in repercussions to last month’s local elections. All eight incumbent Dover school board members who backed intelligent design were voted out of office.
That prompted some controversial remarks from Christian Broadcasting Network founder, Dr. Pat Robertson. On his daily television show, “The 700 Club,” Robertson warned the community, “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover, if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God–you rejected him from your city. And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there.”
Also, Kansas last month became the latest state to allow the discussion of intelligent design in public high school science classes.
In 2002, Ohio became the first state to require students to learn about scientific evidence critical of neo-Darwinian theory, adopting a benchmark that says students should know “how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.” Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Mexico subsequently adopted similar standards calling for critical analysis of the scientific evidence both for and against neo-Darwinian theory.”
A divided Kansas State Board of Education voted 6-4 to adopt science standards that will study not only “the best evidence for modern evolutionary theory,” but also “areas where scientists are raising scientific criticisms of that theory.” The document, which followed ten months of contentious debate, also stated that “these standards neither mandate nor prohibit teaching about this scientific disagreement.”
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius called the new science standards a “step in the wrong direction,” and said she was “baffled” by the board’s lengthy debate on the issue. Sebelius said that, as a Catholic who attended parochial schools, she sees no contradiction between faith and scientific explanation of the universe. “I was taught that God created the universe. I was also taught science in science class,” Sebelius said.
School board member Janet Waugh, who voted against the new standards, called it a “sad day.” “We’re becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that,” Waugh said. However, board member John Bacon, who voted for the proposal, said, the new standards would promote academic freedom. “It gets rid of a lot of dogma that’s being taught in the classroom today,” Bacon said.
U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings’ office had no comment on the Kansas vote, calling it a local affair. However, President Bush went on record in August as saying “both sides” (evolution and intelligent design) should be taught in public schools.
B’nai B’rith International President Joel Kaplan decried the Kansas board’s action. “It stretches credulity that this board of education could not have been aware of the dangerous waters in which they have dived head first. We are not just talking about teaching creationism in schools. We are opening the door for a broader introduction of religious-based issues, ideas and symbols into public settings,” Kaplan warned.
Likewise, Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued a statement saying the Kansas policy “undermines both church-state separation and the teaching of science.” The statement continued, “The board adopted highly controversial science standards that will affect the way science is taught in the state’s public schools. The new standards promote the Religious Right-fueled myth that Darwin’s theory of evolution is controversial among scientists and that there are other valid scientific theories available for students to consider.”
Some intelligent design advocates argue that those in favor of evolution theory are trying to stifle the free flow of information. John West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture, an arm of the Discovery Institute, noted, “We have finally found an idea too dangerous for the ACLU to defend. It’s intelligent design.”
The 17,000-member Christian Medical Association is calling for “fair and open consideration of the scientific merits” of intelligent design. CMA Executive Director, Dr. David Stevens, said, “It’s hard to reconcile the scientific principles of freedom and exploration, testing hypotheses and evaluating evidence, with the tyrannical rhetoric coming from some scientific elites who want to squelch the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolutionary theory. Some of the greatest pioneers of science saw God’s fingerprints in the natural order they investigated. Scientists like Copernicus, Kepler, Boyle, Ambriose and Newton produced tremendous scientific breakthroughs as a result of, and consistent with, their religious faith and belief in the God who ordered the universe."
"Instead of an open and systematic consideration of the evidence, a small but powerful scientific elite have launched the equivalent of a ‘Scientific Inquisition’ against any scientist who dares to break ranks to consider the claims of intelligent design. Besides persecuting any scientist who dares consider the evidence for intelligent design, the ruling elite would also excommunicate any scientist who sees God behind that design,” Stevens said.
A day after the Kansas board vote, Pope Benedict XVI weighed in on intelligent design during his general audience. “How many people are there today who, fooled by atheism, think, and try to demonstrate, that it would be scientific to think that everything is without direction and order? With the sacred Scripture, the Lord awakens the reason that sleeps, and tells us: In the beginning, there was the creative word. In the beginning, the creative word–this word that created everything and created this intelligent project that is the cosmos–is also love,” the pontiff said.
Physicist Charles Townes, 2005 recipient of the $1.5 million Templeton Prize for linking religion and science, quipped, “If you look at what religion is all about, it’s trying to understand the purpose and meaning of our universe. Science tries to understand functions and structures. In the long run, they must come together.”
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