WASHINGTON (ABP) — Supporters and opponents of teaching “intelligent design” in public-school classrooms were either appalled or thrilled at a federal judge's strongly worded decision condemning the practice.
Federal District Judge John Jones III issued his sweeping opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Dec. 20. The decision, stemming from a Pennsylvania high school policy, is the federal courts' first foray into the raging controversy over teaching intelligent design as an alternative to evolution.
“The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate. And it won't work,” read a statement from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, the leading group advocating the teaching of ID.
“Judge Jones found that the Dover board violated the [First Amendment's] establishment clause because it acted from religious motives. That should have been the end to the case,” the organization said. “Instead, Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur.”
The Dover school board instituted the policy in 2004. Shortly thereafter, a group of 11 parents filed suit against the district, saying the policy violated the federal and Pennsylvania constitutions.
The parents were represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Officials for those groups, understandably, praised the ruling.
“Public schools should teach science in science class, and let parents make their own decisions about religion,” said Barry Lynn, AU's president, in a statement. “It's a simple idea that the Religious Right has never been able to grasp.”
Judge Jones found unconstitutional the practice of requiring teachers to preface a ninth-grade biology course with a statement suggesting that evolutionary theory is flawed, “is not a fact,” and that intelligent design is a plausible alternative. Intelligent design theory posits that some life forms are too complex to have arisen from naturalistic evolutionary processes without the aid of an unseen, super-intelligent designer.
The disclaimer also directed students to an ID textbook, “Of Pandas and People,” as a resource for those wanting to learn more about the theory.
Jones said not only that school-board members had clearly religious motivations in instituting the policy and that ID was merely spruced-up creationism, but also that it fundamentally does not constitute science.
“[W]e find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory, as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community,” Jones wrote. “ID, as noted, is grounded in theology, not science. Accepting for the sake of argument its proponents', as well as defendants', argument that to introduce ID to students will encourage critical thinking, it still has utterly no place in a science curriculum.”
But one advocate for intelligent design said the court's decision ultimately may not prove to be the best for either side.
“It's not the way you want [the controversy over ID] resolved,” said Hal Poe, a professor at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. “You don't want it resolved by the courts; you want it resolved by the academy.”
Poe, who is the Baptist-affiliated school's Charles Colson professor of faith and culture, said neither intelligent design, in its current form, nor the aspect of evolution it challenges qualify as science.
“My view is that intelligent design at the present moment is philosophy of science rather than science,” he said. “With natural selection, you have the argument that mutations [in life forms over time] occur by random chance. The argument of intelligent design is that mutations occur through some intentionality.”
But both are predicated on competing philosophies of science, Poe said.
“So it's a major problem in the academy, because most scholars, most professors have no training in philosophy to recognize it when they see it.”
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