News & Views item - December 2005

 

 

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory." Pennsylvania federal district judge John Jones (December 22, 2005)

    Judge John Jones III ruled yesterday that Intelligent Design (ID) meets none of the tests of a scientific theory, "ID is not science," Jones wrote. "We find that ID fails on three different levels. ... Moreover, ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

    "We conclude that the religious nature of intelligent design would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child."

 

According to Science, "The decision came in a civil suit brought by the parents of 11 Dover students after the school board passed a resolution in October 2004 declaring that 'students will be made aware of gaps and problems in Darwin's theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design'. Last month, eight of the nine members of that board were defeated for re-election by a slate of candidates upset with the board's action, which sharply divided the small rural community in southeastern Pennsylvania."

 

In his ruling Judge Jones states, "This is manifestly not an activist Court. 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." He described the local school board's efforts to promote ID as a "breathtaking inanity".

 

Jones' ruling effectively removes the ID statement from the curriculum and invites the plaintiffs' lawyers to bill the school district for "reasonable" costs.

 

According to Nature, Nick Matzke, of the National Center for Science Education, cautions that intelligent design, under any name, is hard to squelch. "The history of creationism is that it doesn't go extinct... it evolves. We fully expect that they will come up with a new strategy." The Center is a non-profit organization in California that guards the teaching of evolution in public schools.

 

As far as the Australian constitution is concerned, a reader in law at the Australian National University, John Williams, has told The Sydney Morning Herald, there is nothing to stop the Commonwealth from linking school grants with curriculum standards that could consider alternatives to evolution, provided it did not mandate a state religion. "It would be a leap of faith to think the Australian constitution would stand in the way of a curriculum that included such things as intelligent design," Dr Williams said and continued, "The wall between state and church in Australia is more of a bush or a low hedge. The Commonwealth can fund religious schools, and does, and, by inference, allows religious teachings in all schools, private or public."

Carolyn Evans, deputy director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at the University of Melbourne, told the Herald the US case had no legal implications here. "The High Court in Australia has been extremely reluctant to follow the lead of the United States Supreme Court in cases of religious freedom," Dr Evans said. "In the United States and Australia the constitutions prohibit the establishment of a religion. The Australian constitution is almost exactly the same words as the US constitution but Australian judges interpret it very differently. In the United States the funding of religious schools is considered establishment of a religion, in Australia it is not."