In the late autumn of 2005, leading proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) and evolution met in a Pennsylvania courtroom to resolve the question: Is Intelligent Design science? Why did these worldviews collide in a courtroom, rather than a symposium? And why was ID so badly injured? While the creationist movement has tried to use the law to further its purposes, the results have been disastrous for creationism as a movement. The Kitzmiller case was the latest in an unbroken string of creationist losses in the courts.

Because the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from establishing religion, and because the government funds public schools, U.S. law forbids teaching religion in the public schools. For Intelligent Design to be taught in the public schools, its proponents must convince a court, possibly eventually the country’s highest court, that Intelligent Design is science, not religion.

To understand why ID was overrun by evolution, it is necessary to go back in time and picture two vehicles approaching one another: the progress of the law and its rulings against teaching creationism, heading directly toward the ID movement and its efforts to gain scientific respectability.

Creationism

Christian creationism is part of a religious movement that worships a God with a unique identity and personality, a God who created the natural world directly and intervenes in that world. This is not a vague, Deist, set-up-the-rules-and-enable-life-to-happen version of God. Theirs is a God who fashioned the first man out of clay and drowned all living things in a great deluge.

Because creationists believe that these specific, observable events actually occurred, science ought to be able to discover evidence for them. Fundamentalists base their belief in creation on divine revelation, which cannot be questioned. If scientific discoveries do not support these truths, there must be something wrong with science.

We have moved beyond the time when the church arrested and tortured scientists. There may be Christians today who long for the time when the Bible and revelation were the only source of knowledge. They can no longer reject science altogether because we have proven its validity. Religious orthodoxy no longer requires adherents to believe that the sun revolves around the earth, or that pigeon’s blood cures leprosy. We know better.

Creationists also seek the credibility and propaganda value of being able to say that their views are based in science. It strengthens conversion efforts to claim that science supports their theology. From toothpaste to touch screen telephones, nothing sells like science, and creationists want it in their sales pitch.

The creationist movement also wants very much for its claims to be taught in the public schools. And, under U.S. law, this cannot be accomplished as long as they are considered to be religious beliefs.

For all these reasons, creationism as a movement seeks scientific respectability. So creationists are faced with a dilemma: while science doesn’t support their beliefs, nor can they reject science without losing credibility.

Creationists believe that the problem must lie with science; it must be possible to fix science so it comes out right, vindicating their religious beliefs. But the inherent nature of science is that it can’t be fixed. No matter how unpalatable or even bizarre its results, the non-negotiable core of scientific method is the commitment to follow empirical methodology and accept its results. Thus, creationism’s “scientific” enterprise is doomed from the outset.

Creationism’s cure for science would kill the patient. Creationists argue that the problem with science is that it does not permit supernatural explanations. If only this arbitrary barrier could be dispensed with, science would be liberated to discover the truth of God’s word. It is true that the scientific limitation against investigating the supernatural does bar any divine explanation for anything in the natural world. But without this restriction to methodological naturalism, the requirement that everything it studies be observable, it would be impossible to do science at all.

Constitutional Law

Initially, creationists passed laws to prohibit evolution from being taught in the public schools. This was the subject of the Scopes trial. [1] When a similar statute came before the Supreme Court in 1968, [2] the court ruled that it violated the Constitutional separation of church and state by promoting a particular religious belief.

This decision motivated religious fundamentalists to recast creationism as science. In its first incarnation, it was called “creation science.” And to avoid the finding that creationists were promoting religion, they succeeded in passing new statutes that called for equal treatment of evolution and creation science.

When an Arkansas statute came before the federal court, the court, foreshadowing Judge Jones in the Kitzmiller case, reviewed the history of the creationist movement and concluded that it was nothing but a disguised attempt to teach the Bible in the science classroom. [3] When a Louisiana law came before the Supreme Court, it was also struck down as advancing a particular religious belief. [4]

Creationists did not surrender after this defeat. In a 1988 conference, Charles Thaxton, author of a new creationist biology textbook, offered the term “Intelligent Design” as a new, scientific version of creationism.

Intelligent design is the claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” [5] The difference between intelligent design and creationism is that ID does not name a creator; it claims only that some living things are too complicated to have come into existence without such a creator. In this way, it tries to avoid being labeled as a religious claim, and present itself as a scientific one.

Millions of dollars were committed to the Discovery Institute to promote the new “scientific” claim. Although the Discovery Institute never names the purported designer, and denies any religious purpose, all of its funding and its leading members are Christian, and promote a Christian religious agenda.

The creation science textbook was rewritten with the words “Intelligent Design” replacing “creationism,” and given a new name, Of Pandas and People. This book was to make a prominent appearance as an exhibit at the Kitzmiller trial.

The Discovery Institute continued to spread its message, particularly among fundamentalist Christians, a message that was heard in Pennsylvannia.

Kitzmiller v. Dover

In another front in the religious wars, fundamentalist Christians across the country were seeking election to local school boards. In 2004 one of these local school boards in York, Pennsylvania, decided to change its biology curriculum by adopting this policy:

Students will be made aware of the gaps/problems in Darwin’s theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design.

To implement this policy, the board decided that all ninth-grade biology students would have this statement read to them:
The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's theory of evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.
Because Darwin's Theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.
Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People is available for students to see if they would like to explore this view in an effort to gain an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.
As is true with any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments.
Three dissenting members of the School Board resigned in protest. District science teachers refused to read the statement. A group of parents sued, and the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State agreed to represent them. The Thomas More Law Center came to the defense of the School Board, with the help of the Discovery Institute. Two opposing national forces massed behind the parents and the School Board. The case was set for trial before Judge John E Jones III, a conservative Bush appointee.
Both sides brought in leading members as expert witnesses. Of Pandas and People was introduced into evidence to show exactly how and where the words “Intelligent Design” were used to replace “creation” and “creationism.”
After a month of testimony, Judge Jones ruled conclusively, and in strongly worded language, that “ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.” [6] “Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause.” Judge Jones explained why ID is not science:
ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community.
It was a devastating setback for the ID movement. Instead of striking the policy down on the limited grounds that the Board was seeking to further a religious purpose, the Judge, like the court in the 1982 Arkansas case, found that, as a matter of law, Intelligent Design is not science.
Because the school board was voted out of office, the decision will not be appealed. The effect of this decision is likely to be that other local school boards will be wary of repeating the Kitzmiller disaster by enacting similar policies. [7]
History has shown us that fundamentalists are not likely to give up this struggle, and creationism will re-appear in a new guise with a new legal strategy.
In responding to the decision, the Discovery Institute complained:
The opinion in Kitzmiller is a misguided attempt on the part of a federal judge to settle controversies over science and religion that properly belong to practicing scientists and religious groups, respectively. [8]
But under the U.S. Constitution, whenever creationism’s proponents seek to have their beliefs, or any incarnation of them taught in the public schools, that controversy becomes the province of the courts, including the Supreme Court.

In decrying the court’s ruling, Discovery Institute members have argued strenuously that ID is science, even if it is not accepted by the scientific community, “Just because ID is a minority view in science does not make it unscientific,” [9] even if it has never been tested “[t]he requirement is that a scientific theory be testable, not that its proponents
actually test it.” [10], even if it is wrong. “[A] theory can be scientific even if it is opposed by the majority of scientists, and even if it is ultimately shown to be wrong.” [11]

There is a certain amount of truth to this. To the limits of their ability, those working on the ID project are trying to do science; they’re just doing it very badly. They are correct in their assertion that there are published articles supporting ID. There may be as many as five—of the thousands of articles published in Biology every year. They are hampered in their efforts by several limitations. One is that they are not biologists, and few of them are even scientists. [12] This makes it very hard for them to do biology.

Their second problem is that they are wrong. Biologists and mathematicians have discredited their concrete empirical claims: irreducible complexity and specified complexity. To be taught to high school students, a claim must not merely be scientific, it must be well established. To prevail in the court of law, ID must first win in the much more rigorously contested court of science. Until ID persuades scientists that it is correct, it cannot persuade the courts that it is science.

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Rene Rosechild is a lawyer and proponent of science, including the Theory of Evolution

References

1 While John Scopes was actually convicted in that trial, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed his conviction on a technicality, some believe to avoid Constitutional review of the statute.

2 Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 1968

3 McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255 (E.D. Arkansas 1982)

4 Edwards v. Aguilard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987)

5 Top Questions-1.What is the theory of intelligent design?. Discovery Institute.

6 Kitzmiller decision, p. 43

7 Because the case was not appealed, the ruling is not precedent, and does not legally control any other court’s possible ruling.

8 Intelligent Design will survive Kitzmiller v Dover, David K. DeWolf, John G. West,Casey Luskin, p. 54

9 DeWolf, p.41

10 Ibid.

11 DeWolf, p. 40

12 The movement’s leader, Phillip Johnson, is a lawyer. Micahel Dembski is a mathematician. Michael Behe, a biochemist, Steven Meyer a philosopher/theologian, Charles Thaxton a chemist and. John Angus Campbell a rhetoricician