John Hurdle, "Lawyers debate God vs. science in court drama Staff and agencies" (2005)

Lawyers debate God vs. science in court drama Staff and agencies
> <font>26 September, 2005
> <font>By Jon Hurdle 1 hour, 34 minutes ago

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania - The lawsuit over whether intelligent design should be taught in schools alongside evolution began in federal court on Monday with defendants‘ attorneys calling it a scientific theory and opponents saying it was an effort to put God in the classroom.

In the first such legal battle, lawyers sparred during opening arguments at Federal District Court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, over whether the teaching of intelligent design -- an alternative to evolution that involves a God-like creator -- violates the U.S. Constitution.

The battle over teaching about man‘s origins in U.S. schools pits Christian conservatives against educators and scientists in a trial viewed as the biggest test of the issue since the late 1980s.

"Intelligent design isn‘t science. It‘s old theology," said Eric Rothschild, lawyer for 11 parents who sued the Dover school district of central Pennsylvania over including intelligent design in its ninth-grade biology curriculum.

"It‘s a clever tactical repackaging of creationism," he said, telling a packed courtroom that the U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Supreme Court outlawed teaching creationism in public schools in 1987.

Creationism is the belief that God created the world as told in Genesis.

The parents are joined in their cause by the American Civil Liberties Union , America‘s largest civil liberties group.

Pat Gillen, a lawyer for the Dover school district, said intelligent design is anchored in science and is not creationism in disguise. He also rejected the accusation that it was unconstitutional to teach the theory to students.

"They (the Dover students) are merely made aware of the existence of another theory," Gillen said, add that teaching intelligent design "helps students grasp the controversy that surrounds science."

"Dover‘s modest curriculum change embodies the spirit of liberal education," he said.

Intelligent design holds that nature is so complex it must have been the work of a God-like creator rather than the result of natural selection, as argued by Charles Darwin in his 1859 Theory of Evolution.

Dover teachers are obliged to introduce their students to intelligent design and explain it‘s an alternative to evolution, but they do not delve into it in depth.

The courtroom drama over man‘s origins is reminiscent of the famous Scopes Monkey trial, when lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan squared off in a courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925.

The school board says there are "gaps" in evolution, which it emphasizes is a theory, not established fact, and that students have a right to consider other views on the origins of life. In their camp is President George W. Bush President George W. Bush, who has said schools should teach evolution and intelligent design.

Kenneth Miller, a Brown University professor of biology, testified as a witness for the parents. He told the court that teaching intelligent design does "a great disservice" to students because it has been discredited by top scientific groups such as the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"If you invoke a nonmaterial cause, a spirit force, you can‘t test it," Miller said, adding that scientific theories must stand up to empirical testing.

Miller told the court he is a practicing Roman Catholic who has no trouble reconciling his religious faith with his scientific acceptance of evolution.

The academic said intelligent design is undermined by the fact that more than 99 percent of species that ever existed on the earth are now extinct. "If an intelligent designer made all these things, why would they have gone extinct if he was so intelligent?" Miller said.

At least 31 states are taking steps to teach alternatives to evolution. A CBS poll last November found 65 percent of Americans favor teaching creationism as well as evolution while 37 percent want creationism taught instead of evolution.

Fifty-five percent of Americans believe God created humans in their present form, the poll found.
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