Intelligent Design and Evolution in American Courts Again! (moved from ATSNN), page 1

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Topic started on 23-9-2005 @ 02:27 PM by kenshiro2012

The parents of eleven high school students and the ACLU are suing the Dover school district for including intelligent design into the curriculum of ninth-grade biology classes. Tha ACLU states that this Pennsylvania school district is a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state, which prohibits teaching religion in public schools.
The school board which is being represented by The Thomas More Law Center, a non-profit organization who litigate to promote "the religious freedom of Christians and time-honored family values," are arguing that there are too many gaps in the Evolutionary Theory, first porposed by Charles Darwin in 1859. The school board also cites the recent reports that President George W. Bush has said that ID should be taught alongside evolution in schools today.

www.washingtonpost.com
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A new battle over teaching about man's origins in U.S. schools goes to court for the first time next week, pitting Christian conservatives against educators and scientists in a trial viewed as the biggest test of the issue since the late 1980s.

Eleven parents of students at a Pennsylvania high school are suing over the school district's decision to include "intelligent design" -- an alternative to evolution that involves a God-like creator -- in the curriculum of ninth-grade biology classes.

The parents and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) say the policy of the Dover Area School District in south-central Pennsylvania violates the constitutional separation of church and state, which forbids teaching religion in public schools.

They also argue that intelligent design is unscientific and has no place in a science curriculum.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Once again, the lines between Church and State are being blurred and corrupted. Yes, if a student puts forth a question in class that is of a creation / ID basis, I beleive that the teachers should instruct the students as to where best to get their answers. I can not find anything that I could use to support this issue. Look at the recent issues out of Topeka, Kansas.
I knew this would happen when Bush said that he believed in teaching ID in schools.
This looks like that the Fundementalists are trying to tackle this from multiple fronts. As per the first ATSNN link below, notice that they are attempting to promote teaching the Bible in schools based on it's Literacy relevance.
Next question.... who's version of creationism / ID should be taught?

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
NEWS: Bible Textbook for Public Schools Planned
Bush Advocates Teaching ID in Schools

Edited to add the following for a more rounded argument :O
Here are some more interesting links for this story that I just came across
Enjoy :O

“Intelligent design is simply the most recent version of creationism, which is admittedly a religious concept,” said Alan Leshner, chief executive of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and publisher of the journal Science. “There is no scientific basis to intelligent design.”

MSNBC Report on ID/Evolution Court Battle

The next has a very good argument against ID but also presents reasons ID why ID worries some scientists

In his highly influential book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," science philosopher Thomas Kuhn presented the idea that science is not a gradual progression toward truth, but a series of insurgencies, with scientific theories constantly usurping one another.

Why Scientists Dismiss ID

An open argument on ID

"The question that we're facing in biology is that when we look at nature, we see design," said Scott Minnich, a microbiologist at the University of Idaho and an ID proponent. "But is it real design or apparent design? There are two answers to the question and both are profound in terms of their metaphysical implications."

LiveScience

Another good page by LiveScience
Unfortunately, if it is distorted science, How about teaching the correct way to use the scientific method?

Prominent scientists Thursday called a teleconference with reporters to say that intelligent design distorts science and would bring religion into science classrooms.

Court Case Can Cross Over to the Supernatural
The Below link speaks for itself:

Students in Cobb County, Georgia, are being told by the school board that scientific material should be approached “with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.” And this has irritated some so much that a lawsuit was filed, demanding that this outrage be stopped. U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that the outrage should be stopped. His ruling demonstrated what the Cobb County School Board called “unnecessary judicial intrusion into local control of schools”—judicial activism run amok, according to full page ads in the local paper. The school board has voted to appeal the judge’s decision. Local writers of letters to the editor have made it abundantly clear that the ACLU and those who support the case are anti-freedom, anti-science, anti-religion, socialists, and atheist devils to boot.

Yes, Evolution is a Theory. It's Religion and Politics that are the Problems

Thirty-eight Nobel Prize laureates asked state educators to reject proposed science standards that treat evolution as a seriously questionable theory, calling it instead the "indispensable'' foundation of biology.