Word: dover
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Intelligent design is a religious idea and a Pennsylvania school board may not introduce it into the classroom, a federal judge ruled today. Judge John E. Jones III ruled that the Dover Area School Board improperly introduced religion into the classroom when it required science teachers to read a brief statement during the 9th grade biology class telling students that evolution was ?Just a theory? and inviting them to consider alternatives. The only alternative specifically mentioned was ?intelligent design,? the notion that life is so complex that it could not possibly have been the work of natural selection alone...
...Jones seemed particularly annoyed by the Dover school board members, who denied under oath that the approval of intelligent design was based on religious conviction, despite the testimony of several witnesses who said board members made overtly religious comments during their deliberations. ?It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy,? Jones wrote...
...Jones? decision applies only to the Dover case, but the case had been closely watched nationwide since it was the first court test of intelligent design. The Supreme Court has repeatedly banned efforts to remove evolution from the classroom or to introduce Creationism, the idea that life on earth was created directly by God. Critics of evolution had hoped that intelligent design, which is not specific about who or what created life, would survive a court challenge...
...unclear whether the case will be appealed, however. Voters in Dover threw out eight of the nine pro-intelligent design school board members in the regular election last month, installing a slate of solidly anti-intelligent design candidates. Those school board members have given conflicting statements as to whether they would allow the case to continue to the appeals courts in hopes of making it a national test case to ban intelligent design from the classroom...
...fight over how evolution is taught is now being waged most directly in a federal courtroom in Pennsylvania, where an ongoing trial will decide whether ninth-graders in the Dover school district should be required to learn about intelligent design...