Harry Mount, "Keep the divine out of biology lessons, federal judge rules" (2005)

Keep the divine out of biology lessons, federal judge rules
> <span class="storyby">By Harry Mount<span>
> <span class="filed">(Filed: 2112/2005)

In the biggest courtroom clash on evolution for 80 years, a Pennsylvania judge yesterday ruled that schools cannot mention divine intervention in biology classes as an alternative to Darwinian evolution.

The judge's decision to ban any reference to so-called "intelligent design", which maintains that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, is another blow to Christian hardliners in America.

Last month, eight members of the school board who introduced the intelligent design policy into schools in Dover, Pennsylvania, last year, were voted out and replaced by Darwin supporters.

The federal judge, John E Jones III, appointed by President George W Bush in 2002, said the school board members had violated the American constitution when they ordered that the biology curriculum must include the notion of intelligent design. "The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the board,"the judge wrote in his judgment.

"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom."

The old policy required students to listen to a statement about intelligent design before biology lessons on evolution. It said Charles Darwin's theory was "not a fact" and referred students to an intelligent design textbook, Of Pandas and People.

"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 the theory exist for which there is no evidence," students were told.

"Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book Of Pandas and People is available in the library for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design involves." The board's lawyers said members were seeking to improve science education by exposing students to alternatives to Darwin's theory that evolution develops through natural selection.

Intelligent design proponents argue that biological structures are so complex that they must have been designed by an unidentified intelligent being.

The plaintiffs successfully argued that intelligent design was no more than a secular repackaging of creationism, which the courts have already ruled cannot be taught in public schools.

The battle between God and Darwin in the classroom has raged in America since 1925, when a Tennessee biology teacher was fined £60 for violating a state law that banned the teaching of evolution. The law was repealed in 1967.

In Georgia, a similar case is determining whether it is unconstitutional to place evolution disclaimer stickers in biology textbooks.