Some pretty important testimony in the Dover trial:
“Intelligent design” is vastly similar to creationism and should be taught as religion, not science, a Catholic theologian testified Friday, on the fifth day of a trial over whether the concept belongs in a public school science curriculum as an alternative to evolution.
Georgetown University theology professor John F. Haught said that while intelligent-design proponents do not explicitly identify God as the creator of life, the concept is “essentially a religious proposition.”
“I understand it to be a reformulation of an old theological argument for the existence of God,” he said…
“When we have a failure to distinguish science from religion, then confusion will follow,” Haught said. “Science and religion cannot logically stand in a competitive relationship with each other.”
During cross-examination, Richard Thompson, a lawyer representing the school district, asked Haught to draw distinctions between intelligent design and creationism.
Haught conceded that not all intelligent-design supporters literally interpret the Bible, but said the two concepts only differ “in the same sense that an orange is different than a navel orange.”
And let’s not forget how this all started:
Dover Area School District board members openly advocated the teaching of creationism in science class before a policy on intelligent design was adopted, two former board members testified in federal court yesterday.
The effort began in January 2002, when board member Alan Bonsell cited a need “to bring prayer and faith back into the school,” former board member Carol “Casey” Brown said in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg.
The board completed the task in October 2004, when it voted to amend the biology curriculum to include a statement on intelligent design as an alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution, said lawyers representing 11 parents opposed to the policy change.
Brown and her husband, Jeffrey A. Brown, also a former board member, testified that they resigned in protest over the policy, which requires teachers or administrators to read a four-paragraph statement on evolution and intelligent design at the start of ninth-grade biology segments.
The parents sued, claiming that the policy violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibiting government from passing legislation to establish an official religion or to single out preference of a religion. District lawyers call the intelligent design statement a “modest policy change” that does not result in less instruction on evolution.
The statement calls evolution “just a theory” with inexplicable “gaps” and refers to intelligent design as “an explanation of life that differs from Darwin’s view.”
Bonsell and former board member William Buckingham made references to faith, God, Christianity, creationism, prayer and the Bible prior to adoption of the policy, Carol Brown said. She said that when the subject of evolution arose, Bonsell described it as “fiction” and Buckingham called it “atheist propaganda.”
In other creationism news, another survey:
Americans are divided on the issue of what public-school students should be learning about the origins of life, according to results from a survey conducted in August by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life:
Most, 78 percent, say God created life on Earth.
While 48 percent say that humans and other living things have evolved over time, nearly as many (42 percent) say that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.
Of those who say that living things have evolved over time, roughly half (26 percent of the overall public) accept the Darwinian theory of natural selection; nearly 40 percent of people who believe in evolution (or, 18 percent of the public) say it was guided by a supreme being.
Most Americans, 54 percent, think that there is general agreement among scientists that evolution has taken place; 33 percent say that no such scientific consensus exists.
Most, 64 percent, support teaching creationism, along with evolution, in schools; 38 percent say creationism should be taught instead of evolution.
Depressing that 38% of the public thinks creationism should be taught INSTEAD of evolution.