Evolution OR Creation: American Schools Teaching Being Challenged in Court

Are we created by some Unidentified Intelligent Force or are we the Products of Evolution, a process that lasted Thousands of Years, is The Question that is currently being Answered in Various Ways in schools across America. And some People are not happy as to what their kids are being taught.

So they moved the Pennsylvania Court in this regard and thus, after about 80 years, such a case has come to light and waits decision. Basically, a group of Parents in the small township of Dover approached the American Civil Liberties Union, complaining and thus seeking to overturn a decision made by the local school board that insists that Intelligent Design - A study by scholars and researchers done over the past 15 years which suggests Creationist Principles - should be included in the School Curriculum and taught to Ninth-Grades. At one level, the argument is about a very tiny part of the US school curriculum. But at another, it is about the very meaning of science.

Intelligent Design clearly challenges and in part negates the Darwin’s Theory about the Origin of Life and Evolution through Variability and Natural Selection - Survival of the fittest, as it is popularly known, which has been accepted by biologists for over a hundred years. Intelligent Design, in contrast argues that key moments in the history of life were guided by a higher power and that Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection and Evolution cannot explain the origin of life or the key features of the biological form. ID proponents say this body is so complex, it could only have arisen as a result of some guiding hand.

President Bush has weighed in, saying schools should present both concepts when teaching about the origins of life. However, Critics say Intelligent Design is merely creationism - a literal reading of the Bible’s story of creation - camouflaged in scientific language, and it does not belong in a science curriculum. A four-paragraph statement read to students tells them that evolutionary theory "is not a fact" and "intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view." The school district ordered science teachers to point out in a brief statement that unexplained gaps exist in the evolution theory. The statement then refers students to the pro-intelligent design textbook Of Pandas and People, which is available in high-school libraries.

Dover is believed to be the first school system in the nation to require that students be exposed to the concept under a policy adopted by a 6-3 vote in October 2004. The 11 parents challenging the Dover school board will argue that intelligent design is a cover for creationism and therefore an attempt to impose religion in schools. Standing against them will be a team from the Thomas More Law Center, a non-profit Christian law firm that says its mission is "to be the sword and shield for people of faith" in cases on abortion, school prayer and the 10 commandments.

"We’re fighting for the first amendment, the separation of church and state and the integrity of schools," Philadelphia lawyer Eric Rothschild told the Los Angeles Times. "This trial should decide whether a school board can impose its religious views on other students. Also, Intelligent Design is unscientific and has no place in a science curriculum." Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, which supports the teaching of evolution in public schools, said the controversy has little to do with science because mainstream scientists have rejected intelligent-design theory.

The history of evolution litigation dates back to the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, in which Tennessee biology teacher John T. Scopes was fined $ 100 for violating a state law that forbade teaching evolution. Not since Edwards vs Aguillard in 1987, in which the US Supreme Court struck down the teaching of "creation science", has there been such a challenge to the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. The trial begins Monday in Harrisburg, Pa., and is expected to last about five weeks.