c. 2005 Religion News Service

HARRISBURG, Pa. _ The lone witness in a federal lawsuit being scrutinized across the country testified on the trial’s first day that a statement on intelligent design being read in the Dover Area School District is “terribly dangerous.”

Kenneth R. Miller, a biology textbook author and professor of biology at Brown University in Rhode Island, said the Dover policy is based on flawed information and “misleads students” into equating intelligent design with evolution.

Miller testified on Monday (Sept. 26), the first day of the nonjury trial that has attracted more than 40 media outlets. It pits the American Civil Liberties Union and 11 parents in the Dover district against the school board’s policy, adopted last fall, of requiring a discussion of intelligent design _ in a four-paragraph statement _ at the start of a ninth-grade unit on evolution.

Proponents of intelligent design say the universe and many living things are so complex that they must have been created by an intelligent, higher being. Critics say intelligent design is unscientific, rooted in creationism and a barely veiled attempt to bring religion into public schools.

The school board requires that science students be told that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is “not a fact,” and that intelligent design is “an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view.”

Miller said the board, in its statement, is essentially telling students that it allows the district to teach evolution only because it is required to under state Department of Education policy. He said students could infer from the statement that the board doesn’t believe in evolution, but that it does view intelligent design as “ a really good idea.”

Outside the courtroom, Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., criticized Miller for making “editorial” comment on the Dover statement. He said intelligent design “is not the same as creationism,” and that there was “controversy” in the scientific community on evolution.

The school board hired the law center, a self-described defender of the “religious liberty of Christians,” to defend against the lawsuit. Parents opposed to the board’s policy are represented by the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, both of which want Middle District Judge John E. Jones III to order the school board to stop requiring that the statement be read.

In his opening statement, Patrick Gillen, a law center attorney, said the Dover statement represents a “modest curriculum change that embodies the essence of a liberal education.”

The York County school district, about 25 miles southeast of Harrisburg, is the first in the country to require the reading of a statement on intelligent design in science class. Experts on both sides of the issue have said that if the policy is allowed to stand in Dover, other public school districts around the country could add intelligent design to their science classes.

In the original statement to students, the board said, “Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, `Of Pandas and People,’ is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.”

The board revised the statement during the summer to say the “Pandas” book “and other resources” are available to students.

In his opening statement, Eric Rothschild, a lawyer for the parents opposed to the board policy, showed how wording in “Pandas” changed over six years. In 1987, the book stated, “Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent Creator with their features already intact.”

In 1993, the last year the book was updated, the phrase was the same except that “Creation” was replaced with “intelligent design,” and “intelligent Creator” with “intelligent agency.”

Miller, co-author of biology textbooks used in colleges and high schools, including Dover, said evolutionary science is “eminently tested” and “broadly accepted” as fact in the scientific community.

Miller said intelligent design is “not a testable theory” but rather is a “classic form of creationism.” He said the landmark case is significant because it represents “the first movement to try to drive a wedge between students and the scientific process.”

Alan Bonsell, one of the school board members who approved the statement on intelligent design, sat through Miller’s testimony.

Asked what he thought of it, Bonsell said, “Nothing he said in there changes my mind.”

Outside the courtroom, Miller wore a mousetrap as a tie clip. He referred a reporter with a question about the mousetrap to “Darwin’s Black Box,” a book written by Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University.

Behe, an intelligent-design advocate who is to testify on behalf of the school district during the five-week trial, referred to a mousetrap in his book as an example of an “irreducibly complex” object that needs all of its parts to operate. In the book, Behe refers to “irreducible complexity” to contend that certain aspects of evolution are unexplainable, and are therefore best explained by the presence of an intelligent designer.

Behe said in a telephone interview that Miller removed one of the parts of the mousetrap and wore it as a tie clip to send a message that the mousetrap can work without all of its parts.

MO/JL END RNS

(Bill Sulon writes for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.)