Wrapper

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A Pennsylvania school district cannot require
the teaching of intelligent design in high school biology classes, a
federal judge ruled in a case that may influence other challenges to
the theory of evolution.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
ruled today that the Dover, Pennsylvania school board can't force the
teaching of intelligent design, a theory that claims that the universe
is too complex to have developed randomly and must have been designed
by a superior power. The board in October 2004 ordered that intelligent
design be introduced alongside the theory that life evolved by natural
selection.

``To preserve the separation of church and state'' mandated by the
First Amendment, the Dover Area School District is barred from
maintaining the ID policy in any school, Jones wrote. ``The students,
parents and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better
than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter
waste of monetary and personal resources.''

....

In his opinion, Jones said the key issue is ``whether Intelligent
Design is science,'' and said, ``we have concluded that it is not.''

Jones said the concept of Intelligent Design, ``cannot uncouple itself
from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.''

The ruling ``has potential impact'' across the country because ``it's a
piece of ammunition that will be used'' by the winning party, Landsberg
said.

Dover voters ousted eight of the nine school-board members who backed
the plan in November. The ninth wasn't up for re- election. The vote
came the same day the Kansas school board adopted statewide science
standards casting doubt on evolution.

Eight Dover families filed the federal lawsuit last December, accusing
the board of threatening to fire science teachers who refused to give
creationism equal weight with evolution.

``Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross,'' the board's
leading proponent of intelligent design said during a discussion of the
issue, according to the suit. ``Can't someone take a stand for him?''

....

<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aHhAnvL4XhjU&refer=us>