Editor,
I am grateful for the increasingly high tone of the current discussion on evolution and intelligent design in the Daily Lobo.
Contrary to the first letter in the series, Charles Darwin did not invent evolution. His thought was preceded by the work of Charles Lyell, a high British church official, who concluded from the geologic record that the world was much older than biblical accounts. The concept of evolution evolved over many decades. Darwin himself was a very religious man and quite dismayed at evolution's implications for his own faith in the biblical narrative, yet pursued the ideas to those conclusions the facts led him to.
The connection between science, intelligent design and religion was the subject of a recent court case concluded in December 2005 involving several parents and the Dover Area School in Pennsylvania. The Dover Board mandated the teaching of intelligent design as science.
Several parents objected and filed suit. Each side presented the testimony of distinguished experts in religion, history and science to buttress its arguments, and the case drew national attention.
Judge John E. Jones III was reported to be a Republican appointee to the Pennsylvania Federal District Court. In a lengthy decision, Jones concluded that intelligent design was not a scientific theory but a religious argument. The board's mandate thus constituted an unconstitutional endorsement of a religious view in a science curriculum, violating both the U.S. and the Pennsylvania constitutions.
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The case was not appealed, and the local voters removed several members of the school board at its next election. The lengthy decision is understandable and accessible to nonspecialists online. Jones provides summaries of the scientific arguments, the parties' contentions and his evaluation of the evidence. Enter "Kitzmiller v. Dover" into any search engine to access the case.
Robert Poyourow
UNM staff
