Judge Will `Rule as I See Fit’ in Closely Watched Intelligent Design Case

c. 2005 Religion News Service HARRISBURG, Pa. _ Both sides of a federal trial on intelligent design expect that Judge John E. Jones III will rule on whether the school board in Dover, Pa., violated the First Amendment when it adopted a policy on intelligent design. But beyond that, all bets are off. The Discovery […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

HARRISBURG, Pa. _ Both sides of a federal trial on intelligent design expect that Judge John E. Jones III will rule on whether the school board in Dover, Pa., violated the First Amendment when it adopted a policy on intelligent design.

But beyond that, all bets are off.


The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based proponent of intelligent design, wants the judge to limit his ruling to the school board’s actions. Opponents of the policy want a broad ruling, one that addresses not only the board’s decision but also the issue of whether intelligent design is science or a new term for creationism.

Jones, who plans to rule by early January, would not disclose whether he intends to issue a narrow or broad decision, but said he was aware of the potentially historic significance of his verdict.

Asked if he will rule on the board’s decision and intelligent design, Jones hesitated a moment and said: “I really shouldn’t get into that area. That could be interpreted as getting to the merits of the case.

“I’ll rule as I see fit,” he said earlier this month in his chambers at the U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg. “We’ll go through a lot of drafts to make sure we got it right. I welcome the opportunity to write this decision. I’ve been given the opportunity to preside over one of the most important trials (on the) First Amendment and the Establishment Clause.”

That clause bars government from forming a religion or favoring one religion over another. Opponents to the Dover policy said the board was motivated by religious beliefs, specifically Christianity, when it approved a one-minute statement _ read to ninth-graders at the start of a science unit on evolution _ in which evolution is described as “not a fact” and intelligent design is mentioned as an alternative explanation of the origin of life.

Eight board members who favor the policy were voted out of office Nov. 8 and will be replaced in December by eight others who oppose mentioning intelligent design in science class, but not necessarily in other classes. Jones said the election results will have “zero” impact on his ruling.

Experts on both sides of the case said it might be difficult for Jones to address the board’s motivation without speaking to the issue of whether intelligent design is science or creationism, but that the easiest and potentially least significant ruling would be one that does not address intelligent design.

“All you need to do is look at the issues raised in this trial to see that this case reached far beyond Dover,” said Witold Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represented 11 parents opposed to the school board’s policy. “This trial didn’t just involve the local board. We put intelligent design on the witness stand. We obviously would prefer a broad ruling.”


The Discovery Institute wants Jones to limit his ruling to the school board’s actions. The institute said it opposes the Dover policy and teaching of intelligent design in class, but that it would be unconstitutional, under First Amendment free speech rights, to order teachers not to talk about it.

“If he finds that the board had no secular purpose, there’s no need to go on _ everything else is extraneous,” said John G. West, a senior fellow and program associate director at the institute. “If he gets into the broader question of whether he thinks intelligent design is scientific, that would be a setback.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, the Christian firm retained by Dover to defend its policy in court, said he welcomes the opportunity for the judge to rule on intelligent design.

Representatives of the law center and the Discovery Institute said they believe intelligent design is science, but the two organizations have been at odds since last year on how to address the Dover trial. Two advocates of intelligent design withdrew from the Dover case before the trial, and Thompson said the Discovery Institute tried to convince two other experts, university professors Michael Behe and Scott Minnich, not to testify, but both did.

West said the dispute arose from the law center’s insistence that no outside lawyers represent the experts _ all of whom are affiliated with the Discovery Institute _ during depositions in the Dover case.

Plus, West said, “We did not have confidence” in the law center.

Walczak said he believes the Discovery Institute appears to have distanced itself from the Dover trial partly because the timing does not conform with the organization’s “wedge strategy,” a document leaked to the Internet in 1999 and later dismissed by the Discovery Institute as an “early fundraising proposal” that has become a “giant urban legend.”


According to the strategy, the five-year goal was to “see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory.” The 20-year goal is to see intelligent design “as the dominant perspective in science.”

Walczak said the Dover case is taking place “too early in the process” for the Discovery Institute.

“None of their work is peer-reviewed in science journals,” Walczak said of intelligent design proponents. “This trial is the first careful scrutiny intelligent design is getting outside of a political forum.”

During the trial, witnesses testified about intelligent design’s religious roots and of how the word “creationism” was systematically replaced with “intelligent design” in draft versions of the pro-intelligent design text “Of Pandas and People.”

Other witnesses testified that school board members spoke of the need for prayer in class and for creationism to be taught equally with evolution.

For advocates of the Dover policy, “This is not a good case for writing the history of intelligent design,” Walczak said.


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

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