Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

I was kinda hoping that intelligent design would become common course work in the public schools, I was looking forward to reading the text.

The unanimous answer was "that's disgusting".

Case Seen As Setback to Intelligent Design

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 21, 2005
Filed at 8:57 p.m. ET

A federal judge's ruling that intelligent design is faith masquerading as science is being viewed by all sides involved with the issue as a setback, though not a fatal blow, for the movement promoting the concept as an alternative to evolution.

Intelligent design advocates say the judge's lengthy, pointed rebuke of the concept Tuesday in a case out of Pennsylvania may energize supporters, many of whom view his opinion as part of a broader pattern of hostility by courts and the government to religion in public schools.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones criticized the ''breathtaking inanity'' of the 2004 decision by the Dover Area School Board to insert intelligent design into the science curriculum. He called the concept ''a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism'' and said the board's policy violated the constitutional separation of church and state. Intelligent design holds that living organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher being.

''This galvanizes the Christian community,'' said William Dembski, a leading proponent of the theory and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think-tank that promotes intelligent design research. ''People I'm talking to say we're going to be raising a whole lot more funds now.''

From a legal perspective, the decision's immediate consequences are very limited. The school system is not expected to appeal, because several board members who backed intelligent design were voted out of office in November and replaced by candidates who reject the policy.

Yet opponents contend intelligent design advocates have emerged from the case substantially weakened. The ruling will likely influence judges in other districts and discourage other school officials from pursuing similar policies, said K. Hollyn Hollman, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee, a Washington group that promotes separation of church and state.

Battles over evolution are already being waged in Georgia and Kansas.

''Because it was a six-week trial, with a lot of testimony from proponents of intelligent design as well as critics from the scientific community, it's going to have a big impact,'' Hollman said. ''It had a pretty full hearing.''

The court defeat also comes at a time when movement leaders are failing to win support even among scientists sympathetic to their religious world view.

The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, an association of more than 100 U.S. schools, said its members have a wide range of approaches to the issue. In fact, most conservative Christian colleges are far from embracing intelligent design.

The John Templeton Foundation, a major funder of projects that aim to reconcile religion and science, has given none of its $36 million in annual science-related grants to intelligent design research, said foundation spokeswoman Pamela Thompson. ''We do not consider it a hard science,'' she said. ''We feel that it is not something that's important to universities.''

Dembski, of the Discovery Institute, formerly taught at Baylor University, a Baptist school in Texas, but left following opposition on the issue from other faculty members. He now leads the Center for Science and Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

The Rev. Albert Mohler, the seminary president, criticized Christian schools for rejecting intelligent design, saying they are intimidated by the ''secular establishment.''

However, Uko Zylstra, a biologist and dean for natural sciences at Calvin College, a Christian school in Grand Rapids, Mich., said intelligent design is not catching on at his college and others because it is based on philosophy, not science.

''We don't think this is how the problem should be articulated,'' Zylstra said. ''The strength of intelligent design is as an apologetic -- that God is the creator, but not a scientific explanation.''

Michael Cromartie, an evangelical and vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington institute that addresses religious issues, said it was important to remember that the movement is ''very, very young.'' He said it was too new to be judged a success or failure.

''There are all kinds of smart, young scientists who are emboldened by the literature they read in the intelligent design movement and they're going to become important professors,'' Cromartie said. ''Dover wasn't a Supreme Court decision. It's a local decision. Local decisions are very important, but they don't end the conversation.''

of our children's science courses.

The Creationists dont believe in, but their practices clearly demonstrate the processes of evolution.

blatham, Not surprising that the IDers are still clammering to make ID part of our children's science courses. I hope all states have the requirement that their legal loss in the courts will be punished by the payment of all legal fees. Otherwise, they'll keep coming out of the woodworks with no end in sight.

Before you continue with further hugely unsupported attempts at making an argument , perhaps you should read the document at hand.

The Creationists dont believe in, but their practices clearly demonstrate the processes of evolution.

By impugning judge jones as a low achiever, you demonstrate your hyperactive ignorance, you should visit some sites that argue otherwise.

His was a rather compelling argument (just finished it last night) That outed a cynical bunch of lying short sighted religious fanatics who bent and broke the spirit of the commonwealth Law to establish their narrow world view.

Nice reminder on the effectiveness of being succinct. In fact, it is more than effective, it is aesthetic. I think I would slice a month off the end of my days in exchange for sitting here in New York and listening to Lincoln's great speech.

The kid's welfare is the one thought I keep in mind whenever educational issues are debated.

surely with tongue firmly in cheek.

Great, Well, I must warn you that we have a thing called Megans Law here in the US, you Frederick's wearing old sot.