Judge rejects intelligent design

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, December 20, 2005

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The concept of “intelligent design” is inherently religious in nature and may not be introduced into high school biology classrooms in a Pennsylvania public school district, a district court judge ruled Tuesday.

“The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID (intelligent design) is a religious view, a mere relabeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge John Jones in a 139-page decision.

The ruling was hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union as a major vindication for 11 parents who had sued the school board in Dover, Pa., over its policy requiring a statement questioning evolution and promoting intelligent design to be read to the district’s ninth-grade biology students. Organizations ranging from the Interfaith Alliance to the American Association for the Advancement of Science also applauded the ruling.

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which represented the school district and describes its mission as defending the religious freedom of Christians, said the ruling appeared to be “an ad hominem attack on scientists who happen to believe in God.”

Intelligent design holds that living organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher force.

Critics, however, say intelligent design ascribes complexity in nature to an unnamed supernatural deity and represents little more than camouflaged legal strategy to circumvent a June 19, 1987, Supreme Court prohibition against teaching biblical creation science in public schools.

Jones agreed, writing that while intelligent design, or ID, arguments “may be true, a proposition on which the court takes no position, ID is not science.” Among other things, the judge said intelligent design “violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation”; it relies on “flawed and illogical” arguments; and its attacks on evolution “have been refuted by the scientific community.”

Jones saved some of his harshest words for the “breathtaking inanity” of the school board’s decision and for the members themselves.

“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 true purpose behind the ID Policy,” he wrote.

Although the ruling has no binding precedent on other school districts, the “decision is really quite striking in its breadth,” said Boston University School of Law Professor Jay Wexler, who wasn’t involved with the trial. “I would imagine that will make other school districts pretty cautious going forward,” he said.