Darwin v God case nears its conclusion on creationism

Published on Tuesday 1 November 2005 00:06

IN A landmark court case that effectively pits Charles Darwin against God, a judge is set to decide whether American school pupils can be told that life on Earth may be the result of "intelligent design".

The federal trial, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which began in September and is due to conclude this week, will determine the future direction of the nation's high school biology curriculum and intensify debate over whether all life evolved from a common origin, or was created by an unspecified supreme being.

Parents of eight children at a Pennsylvania school brought the case complaining that "intelligent design" - or ID - is simply a dressed-down version of creationism - the Christian belief that God made man.

The teaching of creationism has been banned from public schools since 1987, when the Supreme Court ruled that it violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

The families complain that in pointing ninth-grade biology students towards the theory of ID, the Dover School Board in Pennsylvania is still violating the ban on promoting religious views.

"They have usurped my authority to be the one in charge of my daughter's education," complained Steven Stough, one of the parents who brought the case. It has become a cause clbre for Christian conservatives, who are concerned that the outcome will affect plans to spread the teaching of ID to 30 other states.

But scientific proponents of ID are also worried, saying that the row over its religious implications has overshadowed the biological evidence. Some forms of life are so complex and ordered, they say, that they cannot be fully explained by natural selection and an intelligent - and unidentified - force must have had a hand in their development.

"It seems to me in many respects the cards are stacked against radical, innovative views getting a fair hearing in science these days," said British professor Steve Fuller, a sociologist at Warwick University, while testifying in support of the school board last week.

The row centres around a statement that the board insists must be read out to ninth-grade biology students before they launch into lessons on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The four-paragraph notice states that Darwin's explanation for the origins of species "is not a fact" and that "gaps in the theory exist".

Whatever the judge's ruling, it is unlikely to settle the controversy. It is expected that the losing side will appeal to the US Supreme Court.