Intelligent Design

A Pennsylvania school district's use of "intelligent design" in its high school biology curriculum goes on trial in federal court today in the nation's first legal challenge to the idea, which contends that evolutionary theory alone does not explain how life on Earth took shape. The lawsuit, brought by 11 parents in the Dover Area School District, attacks as unconstitutional the year-old policy of telling ninth-grade biology students that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution "is not a fact.

Many scientists still skeptical about evolution The article "Evolution or Design?" (Dec. 19) is typical of the distortion of the truth the left promotes as soon as its sacred cow, evolution, is attacked. The problem does not necessarily arise from a disagreement between scientists and conservative Christians, as the authors would have us believe. There is, in fact, a significant disagreement among qualified scientists as to the feasibility of the theory of evolution. Indeed, to believe that simple cells have, in the course of about 1 billion years, accidentally combined to form something as complex as a human being is ludicrous.

A federal judge ruled yesterday that a Pennsylvania school board's decision to include "intelligent design" in its science curriculum was unconstitutional because the concept is "rooted in theology, not science." The often-scathing 139-page opinion - the first legal test of intelligent design - dealt a blow to ID advocates who are challenging evolutionary theory in schools around the country. The judge called ID a "mere re-labeling of creationism," which was ruled unconstitutional for public school science classes by the U.S. Supreme Court nearly 20 years ago, and accused two school board members of lying under oath.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. --God and Charles Darwin are not on the primary ballot in Kansas today, but once again a contentious schools election has religion and science at odds in a state that has restaged a three-quarter-century-old battle over the teaching of evolution. Less than a year after a conservative Republican majority on the State Board of Education adopted the most far-reaching standards in the nation defining science education in ways that challenge Darwin's theory of evolution, moderate Republicans and Democrats are mounting a fierce counterattack to retake power and switch the standards back to what they call conventional science.

ARLINGTON, VA. -- The decision by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III to bar the teaching of "intelligent design" in the Dover, Pa., public school district on grounds it is a thinly veiled effort to introduce a religious view of the world's origins is welcome for at least two reasons. First, it exposes the sham attempt to take through the back door what proponents have no chance of getting through the front door. Judge Jones rebuked advocates of intelligent design, saying they repeatedly lied about their true intentions.

CLAY CENTER, Kan. - In this rural swath of northern Kansas, where the grass rolls thick and green to the horizon, a white cross dominates the landscape. Kathy Martin, a member of the state Board of Education, and her family built it on their farm this spring, gathering weathered chunks of limestone from the horse pasture and laying them on a hillside. The cross is a proud expression of Martin's faith. And as hearings challenging the role of evolution in the state's school science curriculum began yesterday, that cross left little doubt about where she stands in the debate.

BOSTON - I don't know whether to call this good news, but something is happening when the opponents of evolution recast themselves as defenders of academic freedom and guardians of open debate. This is the take-home lesson from Kansas, where another in the apparently endless controversies over science and religion took place on the 80th anniversary of the Scopes trial. This time, hearings were called by the State Board of Education on whether to change the science standards and require that Charles Darwin's theory be challenged in the classroom.