Newly-elected members of the Dover (Pa.) Area School Board, from left, Judy McIlvaine, Larry Gurreri and Rob McIlvaine, vote unanimously in favor of rescinding the inclusion of 'intelligent design' from the biology curriculum of Dover High School, Tuesday
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The newly-elected school board of a Pennsylvania school district rescinded its highly-disputed school policy Tuesday night, two weeks after a federal judge ruled that such a policy violated the Constitution.
The policy, which the previous Dover Area School Board had approved in October 2004, required teachers to read a statement to students before the beginning of a ninth grade biology class, indicating that evolution theory “was not a fact,” that it contained “gaps,” and that there were competing scientific theories including intelligent design. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled on Dec. 20, 2005, that the Board members violated the Constitution by ordering that teachers mention the theory, which he said “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.”
"This is it," new school board president Bernadette Reinking said Tuesday, indicating the unanimous vote to rescind the policy was final and the case was closed.
In November, Pennsylvania’s voters swept out of office the eight school district board members who supported telling students that intelligent design was an alternative to evolution. A ninth member of the board also supported intelligent design but was not up for re-election.
Thomas More Law Center President and Chief Counsel Richard Thompson, who represented the Dover Area School Board in the recent trial over intelligent design in federal court, said after the election that despite the results, intelligent design would not be deterred. Main proponents and detractors of the theory similarly noted after the trial’s conclusion that the debate over intelligent design would continue despite the ruling, which will be enforceable only in the local school district in Dover, Pa.
Proponents of intelligent design say that their arguments for theory are based solely on observable evidence from nature and that it does not rely on the biblical account of creation in Genesis. The theory states that certain aspects of nature are so complex that they could not have come about by evolution alone, but that the evidence points to an intelligent designer, although they say that science cannot identify who or what that is.
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The majority of science organizations have not accepted intelligent design as a valid scientific theory, and many critics have said that it is creationism in disguise and does not have scientific evidence to support it.
After the highly-publicized six-weeklong trial in Pennsylvania, which saw witnesses defending the Dover Area School Board with testimonies that intelligent design is based only on observable evidence from nature and makes no mention of the Biblical account of creation, Judge Jones concluded that “The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.”
"Any asserted secular purposes by the board are a sham and are merely secondary to a religious objective," he added.
The judge did, however, note in his decision that while intelligent design should not be discussed in the science class, talk and discussion of the topic should not be stifled.
