http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/religion/12732377.htm
[excerpt]
Posted on Sun, Sep. 25, 2005
Court test is near for 'intelligent design'
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
America's culture war moves tomorrow to a federal courtroom in Harrisburg,
where religion, science and law will collide in a closely watched trial
over the teaching of evolution in public schools.
Both sides in this latter-day version of the Scopes "monkey trial" will be
playing to national audiences, with the outcome likely to influence how
biology is taught far beyond the Dover, Pa., school district that spawned
the case.
"We're very, very concerned about it," said Alan I. Leshner, chief
executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, the world's largest general scientific society. "There are
national implications, of course. This is part of an ongoing movement to
bring religion into the science classroom."
Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the Christian law firm from Michigan
that is defending the Dover school board, said of his opponents, "If they
lose in Dover, they're worried they will start to see these kind of
[efforts] all over the place. And I think they're right."
The trial will spotlight "intelligent design," the latest wrinkle in a
debate that has been raging ever since Charles Darwin published his On the
Origin of Species in 1859.
Eleven Dover parents filed the federal lawsuit last December to stop the
local school board from requiring biology teachers to present "intelligent
design" as an alternative to evolution. Intelligent design holds that
natural selection cannot explain all of the complex developments observed
in nature and that an unspecified designer must be involved.
The teaching of evolution has been under increasing attack throughout the
country, but Dover is the first district to require that students be told
about intelligent design, and that has made the 3,600-student York County
district the crucible for this constitutional confrontation.
The non-jury trial, expected to last five or six weeks, will be heard in
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
The case goes to court in a contentious national atmosphere, as Americans
are deeply divided over the proper role of religion in government and the
schools.
The nation's leading science organizations and the vast majority of
scientists accept the theory of evolution as the explanation of all living
things, and they say the question of a creator is a religious one,
unanswerable by science. Intelligent design's critics denounce the concept
as simply a more sophisticated form of "creation science," which the
Supreme Court has ruled is religiously motivated and cannot be taught in
public schools.
But Americans in general, and conservative Christians in particular, are
much less convinced.
In a recent survey, 42 percent of those polled - and 70 percent of white,
evangelical Protestants - said they believed humans and other living things
have existed only in their present form. The survey was conducted in July
for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
[snip]
The school board, and its lawyers from the Thomas More Law Center in Ann
Arbor, Mich., argue the school district simply wants to make students aware
of weaknesses with Darwin's theory of evolution, not inject religion into
the science classroom.
"This is not religion versus science, this is science versus science," said
Thompson, the chief counsel for the law center, which describes itself as
"dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of
Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life."
Thompson said: "Is it unconstitutional to mention that Darwin's theory is
not a fact? Is it unconstitutional to be critical of Darwin's theory? Is it
unconstitutional to make students aware of an alternative theory -
intelligent design?"
Barry Lynn, a lawyer and an ordained minister who is the executive director
of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the Dover
policy "was purposely designed to advocate a particular religious
viewpoint," which makes it unconstitutional.
Lynn also said that for students to be told that "evolution is true and
your silly Bible stories are false would also be unconstitutional."
Religion, in either a positive or negative manner, has no place in a
science classroom, he said.
[end excerpt]
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Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the U.S. and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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