HARRISBURG, PA., Dec. 20 - A federal judge ruled today that it is unconstitutional for a Pennsylvania school district to present intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in high school biology courses because intelligent design is a religious viewpoint that advances "a particular version of Christianity."
In the nation's first case to test the legal merits of intelligent design, Judge John E. Jones III issued a broad, stinging rebuke to its advocates and a boost to scientists who have fought to bar intelligent design from the science curriculum.
The judge also excoriated members of the school board in Dover, Pa., who he said lied to cover up their religious motives, made a decision of "breathtaking inanity" and "dragged" their community into "this legal maelstrom with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."
Eleven parents in Dover, Pa., a growing suburb about 20 miles south of Harrisburg, sued their school board a year ago after the board voted to read students a brief statement introducing intelligent design in ninth grade biology class. The statement said that there are "gaps in the theory" of evolution and that intelligent design is another explanation they should examine.
Judge Jones concluded that intelligent design is not science, and that in order to claim that it is, its proponents admitted that they must change the very definition of science to include supernatural explanations. He said that teaching intelligent design as science in public school violates the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits public officials from using their positions to impose or establish a particular religion.
"To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect," Judge Jones wrote. "However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions."
The six-week trial in Federal District Court in Harrisburg gave intelligent design the most thorough academic and legal airing it has had since the movement's inception about 15 years ago, and was often likened to the momentous Scopes case that put evolution on trial 80 years before.
Intelligent design posits that biological life is so complex that it must have been designed by an intelligent source. Its adherents say that they refrain from identifying the identity of the designer, and that it could even be aliens or a time traveler.
But the judge said the evidence in the trial proved that intelligent design is "creationism relabeled." The Supreme Court has already ruled that creationism, which relies on the Biblical account of the creation of life, cannot be taught as science in a public school.
The decision by the judge, a longtime Republican nominated for the federal bench by President Bush during his first term, is legally binding only for school districts in the middle district of Pennsylvania. It is unlikely to be appealed, because the school board members who supported intelligent design were unseated in elections in November, and replaced with a slate that opposes the intelligent design policy and said it would abide by the judge's decision.
Good for you, Judge Brown. And in the interesting reading category, a few thoughts on the psychological disorder phenomenon that is religous fundamentalism from Spot in Minnesota.
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