鈥淪O THERE is a Santa Claus after all,鈥� laughed Barbara Forrest. Santa came early for her, when US federal judge John Jones ruled last month that intelligent design, the creationist challenge to Darwinism, cannot be taught in public schools in central Pennsylvania. The verdict is expected to discourage other school districts that may be thinking of putting it on the curriculum.
Forrest, a philosopher at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, has chronicled how the intelligent design (ID) movement has developed from its creationist roots. She testified for the 11 parents who were suing the school board of the Dover Area School District, Pennsylvania, in the federal district court. On 20 December Jones ruled in favour of the parents鈥� claim that ID is primarily a religious theory, not a scientific one, and hence cannot be taught in public schools.
In his 139-page judgment, Jones made it clear that ID fails as science by permitting supernatural causes, for using illogical arguments such as irreducible complexity (the idea that life is too complex to have evolved by accident) and for relying on attacks on evolution. 鈥淗e didn鈥檛 need to do that, but the fact that he did is significant,鈥� says Edward Larson, a historian and lawyer at the University of Georgia in Athens.
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The verdict is binding only on schools in central Pennsylvania, but it could bolster future anti-ID lawsuits elsewhere in the US. And such cases are expected. Anti-evolution curriculum guidelines are already in place in Kansas, and in 2005 alone the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), based in Oakland, California, documented 82 instances, spread over 30 states, in which attempts were made to teach students anti-evolution ideas. Jack Krebs of the group Kansas Citizens for Science says the Dover verdict sends out the message that proponents of ID are 鈥渓ikely to be unsuccessful鈥�. There may also be financial consequences. The Dover school board may have to pay $1 million or more in legal fees, according to the NCSE.
Biologist Kenneth Miller of Brown University, Rhode Island, who was an expert witness for the Dover parents, says it is also significant that the school board failed to convince a Republican judge who was appointed by George W. Bush. 鈥淓volution won, even in an environment that you might have thought would be hospitable to ID,鈥� says Miller. This makes it likely that teaching ID would be similarly outlawed by almost any court in the US.
The verdict is unlikely to spell the end for ID. 鈥淚 have never seen a creationist yet who could take no for an answer,鈥� Forrest says. One possible tactic for those who want to oust Darwinism from its place in the school curriculum would be to change tack. This is what happened after the US supreme court ruling in 1987 that outlawed the teaching of creationism: creationists published the textbook Of Pandas and People and founded the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington, to promote ID. One obvious option now is to 鈥渟ling mud at Darwinism鈥�, says NCSE鈥檚 Glenn Branch, as anti-evolution arguments are harder to prove unconstitutional than pro-ID ones.
鈥淚f there was genuine scientific evidence for intelligent design, it would simply become a part of normal science鈥�
William Dembski, a fellow of the Discovery Institute, says, 鈥淭he visibility of ID research in peer-reviewed journals needs to be stepped up.鈥� But Miller is dismissive of this strategy. 鈥淚f there was genuine scientific evidence for this, it would simply become a normal part of science,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut I certainly don鈥檛 expect that to happen.鈥� Only one paper that supports ID has ever been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but the phrases 鈥渋ntelligent design鈥� and 鈥渋rreducible complexity鈥� had to be removed before the paper was accepted.
The paper鈥檚 author, biochemist Michael Behe of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, who testified in the trial for the school board, says that there is no point in trying to get ID into peer-reviewed journals. 鈥淚D is a radioactive word,鈥� he says. He acknowledges that the trial was damaging to the ID movement.
But Behe insists that this does not change his position or his work. 鈥淭he complexity of the cell is the same as it was a week ago,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou just have to keep plugging away.鈥�
