Today in class, Mr. Stewart mentioned a 2005 court case that dealt with the teaching of intelligent design in public school. I looked it up and found that the case is called Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
Controversy started when the Dover Area School District started requiring that biology teachers present both evolution and intelligent design to their classes. The district also required the book Of Pandas and People, a book that teaches that all living things were designed by an intelligent creator, to be used as a textbook. Parents sued the school district over a school board requirement that teachers read an explanation for the origin of life that contradicted Darwin's theory of evolution, arguing that intelligent design is just another name for creationism pseudoscience.
The case went to a Pennsylvania court, where a Republican judge ruled that the district's mandate that required the statement to be read was unconstitutional and mixed church and state.
Just like the Scopes trial, this case asks the question of whether religion and science can be mixed. According to this case, it seems, separation of church and state must be enforced in public schools.
Sources:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People#Overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
Great post Analisa!
ReplyDeleteIt is really interesting how frequently people deny the result of the Scopes trial. I did more research to review the actual trial.
In 1925, John T. Scopes broke the law by teaching "any theory that denies the story of divine creation of man as taught in the Bible." Since Scopes had actually broken the law, the best hope for the case was to review the law's constitutionality. The argument was that the Bible could be interpreted metaphorically rather than literally, making Darwin's Theory of Evolution perfectly valid while still in tact with religion.
Though the case never reached the Supreme Court, evolution was considered appropriate for public schools and creationism was deemed unfit. This standard is accepted today but Americans continue to question Darwin and the Bible.
Just a bit of review for the day!
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2005/09/the_legend_of_the_scopes_trial.2.html