First Kansas and now Pennsylvania. What is goin on down there people? WAKE UP!

Republished from education.guardian.co.uk
US school's evolution teaching goes on trial

Supporters of the theory of evolution go head-to-head with proponents of "intelligent design" in a Pennsylvania court today in what is being billed as a crucial cultural battle for American education.
A group of parents in the small town of Dover, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is seeking to overturn a decision by the local school board insisting that intelligent design - the claim that complex organisms have been designed rather than evolved in response to natural selection - must be included in the curriculum.

The case, to be heard in the US district court in nearby Harrisburg, will revisit the clash between creationism and Darwinism in the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial and highlight the growing influence of the religious right.

Any verdict in the case could end up before the supreme court because of the importance of the issues at stake.

The 11 parents challenging the Dover school board will argue that intelligent design is a cover for creationism and therefore an attempt to impose religion in schools.

"We're fighting for the first amendment, the separation of church and state and the integrity of schools," Philadelphia lawyer Eric Rothschild told the Los Angeles Times. "This trial should decide whether a school board can impose its religious views on other students."

This is the first legal challenge to the mandatory teaching of intelligent design, which is championed by a growing number of Christian fundamentalists and has been taken up by a number of school boards across the United States. President Bush has backed the teaching of intelligent design in schools.

Although supporters of intelligent design claim it is not creationism because it does not actually mention God, there is no doubt about the religious overtones of the controversy which has split the town of Dover as well as the nation.

In October last year, the school board voted six to three to require a statement on intelligent design approved to be read to ninth-grade science students. One board member, William Buckingham, urged his colleagues: "Nearly 2,000 years ago someone died on a cross for us. Shouldn't we have the courage to stand up for him?" The statement said: "Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in theory exist for which there is no evidence ... Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin ... With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind."

Students are then pointed to a book, Of Pandas and People: the Central Question of Biological Origins, published by an intelligent design advocacy group, the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, based in Texas.

Two school board members, Carol and Jeff Brown, resigned in protest and a group of angry parents contacted the ACLU, which is hoping to put intelligent design on trial as a theory without any credible scientific basis.

Standing against them will be a team from the Thomas More Law Center, a non-profit Christian law firm that says its mission is "to be the sword and shield for people of faith" in cases on abortion, school prayer and the 10 commandments.

In Dover, Sheree Hied and her husband Michael strongly back the board. "I think we as Americans, regardless of our beliefs, should be able to freely access information, because people fought and died for our freedoms," she said.

But neighbour Steven Stough countered: "You can dress up intelligent design and make it look like science, but it just doesn't pass muster. In science class, you don't say to the students, 'Is there gravity, or do you think we have rubber bands on our feet?" '