In what may become a precedent-setting case in the debate over evolution in public schools, Georgetown Theology Professor John Haught is slated to give expert trial testimony today opposing the teaching of intelligent design theory alongside evolutionary theory in public school science classes.
Eleven parents of children who attended the Dover Area School District in Dover, Pa., filed a complaint last December against the Dover School Board to oppose the mention of intelligent design theory in biology classes. The district had been teaching the theory in classes alongside evolution. A trial in the case, Kitzmiller v. Dover, commenced Monday in the Middle District Court of Pennsylvania.
Intelligent design theorists hold that life is so complex that it could not have begun by purely evolutionary processes. Instead, a designer is ultimately responsible for the beginning of life and the creation of the cell, proponents say.
Opponents argue that intelligent design is not a scientific theory but an altered form of creationism that propagates the existence of God. It should not be taught in public schools because it violates the separation of church and state, they say.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State are representing the parents who brought the case against the Dover School Board. Attorneys from the Thomas More Law Center, a Michigan-based, non-profit law firm that aims to defend the religious freedom of Christians, are representing the defendant, the Dover School Board.
T. Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, said that by allowing the teaching of intelligent design the Dover School Board is promoting a religious view as a scientific theory.
“It should not be taught as science in science classes,” he said. “To pretend that it is science would be a sincere mistake.”
Gunn said that his clients hold religious views that do not correspond with intelligent design.
“They are Christians who were very unhappy that their children were being taught a doctrine that they don’t believe in,” he said.
Gunn called the case the “first full-blown trial on the intelligent design theory.”
“This is important for the scientific education of our children,” he said. “The U.S. needs to be competitive in science.”
Gunn dismissed intelligent design as a thinly-veiled religious idea.
“Intelligent design is an evolution of creationism . partly proving the theory of evolution itself,” he said. “It violates the Constitution, because it asks the government to endorse a particular religious view.”
Attorneys from Thomas More Law Center were not available for comment Thursday.
Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and expert witness for the Dover School Board, defended intelligent design in an expert witness report in the case.
“[Intelligent design theory] is a `scientific’ theory because . it is based entirely on empirical, observable facts about biology plus logical inferences,” Behe wrote.
“Intelligent design theory proposes that the origin of some aspects of living organisms is best explained as the result of deliberate intelligent design, rather than as the result of such unintelligent processes as the self-organization proposed by complexity theory or the natural selection proposed by Darwinian theory.”
Georgetown Theology Professor Thomas King, S.J., said that proponents of intelligent design believe that the cell is so complicated that it would have taken a divine act to bring about.
“God in some way intervenes, moves life along in particular directions,” he said.
King gave the example of someone seeing a watch for the first time and deciding that it is not a product of evolution, but something with intricate parts that had to have been designed.
He cautioned that intelligent design theory may inappropriately explain gaps in evolutionary theory that have not yet been explained scientifically by attributing them to God.
“Science should work to find a natural explanation for things,” King said. “Just jumping up to God like that can have a number of problems. . You can explain all kinds of things by saying it’s a miracle.”
Haught was unavailable for comment Thursday. In his expert witness report, however, Haught argues that intelligent design theory is inherently religious, not scientific.
“Intelligent design, for its part, functions not as a physical cause but as an ultimate explanation,” he wrote. “Science understands the world, including life, without resorting to ideas such as God, mystery, purpose, meaning, values and intelligence. Appealing to any of these ideas in the laboratory or in science class would violate the fundamental rules by which science works.”
Haught wrote that although he is a Christian, he recognizes that religious theories should not be required material in public school science classes.
“[As] a Christian theologian I share the concern that people be exposed to intellectually plausible alternatives to materialist or secularist ideology. However, the public schools and especially science classrooms are not the place to do so,” he wrote.
Haught is expected to testify today. The attorneys for the Dover School Board will be able to call witnesses after the parents’ attorneys rest their case in coming days.
