The Intelligent Design Movement Begins to Attract Serious Attention at US Universities. (April 28, 2004) 

    The battle was well and truly drawn by

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

by Charles Darwin, M.A.,

Fellow of the Royal, Geological, Linnæan, etc. societies; Author of Journal of researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage round the world. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1859

Then in 1925 a jury in the US state of Tennessee was to decide the guilt or innocence of John Scopes, a high school biology teacher charged with illegally teaching the theory of evolution. Scopes' fate, or even the constitutionality of Tennessee's anti-evolution statute were of secondary importance. The trial was seen as a conflict of social and intellectual values.

Clarence Darrow a fixture in Chicago's intellectual circles defended Scopes while William Jennings Bryan a three-times defeated US presidential candidate acted for the prosecution. By 1925, Bryan and his followers had succeeded in getting legislation introduced in fifteen states to ban the teaching of evolution.

Darrow lost the battle but won the war or so it was thought at the time.

Eighty years have gone by since "State vs. John Scopes" and the war continues to rage. In a News Feature "Who has designs on your students' minds?" Nature opens with, "The intelligent-design movement is a small but growing force on US university campuses. For some it bridges the gap between science and faith, for others it goes beyond the pale."

Two charts from the article sourced from Gallop bring home the current mindset of the US population.

When nearly half of university graduates do not believe that evolution is a scientific theory well supported by the data, the whole matter of the understanding of science and the scientific method is thrown into question.

And how appropriate the US findings may be not only to Australians in general but to the select group who make up Australia's law makers should give pause.