Intelligent Design Smacked Down In Court

A Pennsylvania judge has delivered a scathing opinion that holds the Dover, PA school district’s decision to teach intelligent design as unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III held that Dover’s ID program was an unconstitutional infringement on the Establishment Clause.

As problematic as this decision might be, it’s hard to argue that Judge Jones is incorrect. The Dover School Board was clearly trying to ruffle feathers and teach a doctrine that has little to no basis in science. Judge Jones points out that there is nothing in the theory of evolution that disproves the existence of God, and the idea that “intelligent design” is a theory that has equal standing with evolution is scientifically ignorant.

The decision also states:

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has not been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

There’s nothing wrong with teaching ID in schools – although as a talking point about the difference between irrationality and science – but to try and supplant evolution with Creationism Lite does a great disservice to the students in Dover. The School Board in Dover should be removed for their actions – dragging their district into this legal mess for such a flimsy purpose was an example of political grandstanding over doing their jobs.

UPDATE: Not only should they be removed, they were removed

3 thoughts on “Intelligent Design Smacked Down In Court

  1. I trust this judge made a correct decision after considering all the facts and the context. But I think I am rightfully uncomfortable with judicial dictatorship like this. The Holy Spirit’s messages on The Christian Prophet blog have influenced me. It seems that public schools themselves are the problem, divorced as they are from parental control of education. A message on The Holy Inheritance blog seems to laugh at it all saying we are all created by love.

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