Scopes Trial: The Sequel

'Intelligent design' plans draw lawsuit

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Almost 80 years after the trial of Tennessee biology teacher John Scopes launched the landmark battle between science and religion, a lawsuit filed yesterday in Pennsylvania might reopen national debate over the teaching of evolution.

Two civil liberties groups, representing 11 parents in a community 25 miles southwest of here, sued the Dover Area School District seeking to block its introduction next month of "intelligent design" in the science curriculum.

The suit, which contends that the teaching of intelligent design violates the constitutional separation of church and state, is believed to be the first of its kind.

The intelligent design theory, first advanced in the late 1980s, holds that the universe is so complex that a supernatural force must be at work.

Proponents say it provides scientific answers for gaps and inconsistencies in the theory of evolution.

Critics, including the groups suing, say intelligent design is a watered-down version of creationism, which the Supreme Court has repudiated in public school curriculums.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court by the ACLU of Pennsylvania and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, argues that intelligent design is "neither scientific nor a theory in the scientific sense; it is an inherently religious argument."

Initiatives to introduce intelligent design in curriculums are percolating nationally, and this case could test how far opponents of evolution can go in shaping the teaching of science, said advocates and critics of intelligent design.

Recent surveys have shown that a majority of Americans favor teaching alternatives in school, and local boards have stepped up efforts to challenge the teaching of evolution.

In Cobb County, Ga., the ACLU has sued the school district over a disclaimer about evolution inserted in textbooks. In Kansas, conservatives who favor challenging the teaching of evolution recently won a majority on the state school board, and they are generally expected to change the state science curriculum as early as the spring.

Witold Walczak, legal director for the Pennsylvania ACLU chapter, called intelligent design "a Trojan horse for bringing religious creationism back into the public school science classroom."

Proponents said the theory was not based on any religion's holdings about creation but on science.

"Students will be made aware of gaps and problems in evolution," said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, a public interest law firm in Ann Arbor, Mich., that promotes Christian values. "What's wrong with that? What gets the ACLU and others all upset is that those alternatives to evolution might include intelligent design, which might lead to God."

In October, the Dover school board voted to require ninth-grade biology teachers to read a statement that Darwin's theory, that life evolved through a process of natural selection, is "not fact" and that "gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence." The directive is scheduled to go into effect in January.

Officials of the school district, which has 3,600 pupils, could not be reached yesterday to comment on the case.
By Amy Worden KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE December 15, 2004
The New York Times News Service contributed to this report.