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Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 00:47:11 -0500 (EST)
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Subject: Intelligent Design Falls Hard
Intelligent Design Falls Hard
Dover, PA, reams school board over Creationist
teaching
by Robert Zeliger
November 10th, 2005 2:11 PM
<http://villagevoice.com/news/0546,zeliger,69964,2.html>
Tuesday's school board election in Dover, Pennsylvania,
a quiet rural community near the Maryland border where
churches seem to outnumber streetlights, was a fitting
climax to a year of bitter division there. In a contest
with national implications, Dover voters tossed an
entire slate of Intelligent Design supporters, replacing
them with backers of evolution.
The eight incumbents, calling themselves 'Dover First,'
were defendants in a lawsuit over a board decision last
year to include a statement on Intelligent Design-a
theory of creation favored by Christians-in all classes
dealing with evolution.
Their eight challengers--running under the name 'Dover
CARES,' short for Citizens Actively Reviewing
Educational Strategies-will now be free to ditch that
policy.
At times, the campaign grew downright nasty. A mailing
sent out to many Dover residents accused the CARES
challengers of partnering with the ACLU-which, the flyer
said, defends the North American Man/Boy Love
Association's "right to put out information on how
adults can lure young children into having sex with
them."
What was really at issue, however, was not man/boy sex,
but a good old-fashioned debate over God and monkeys.
Dover, which voted last year for George Bush by a margin
of two to one, has the dubious distinction of being the
first school district in the nation to work the
theistic-friendly theory of Intelligent Design into
classrooms-specifically those for ninth-grade biology.
Last October, the board voted six to three to open
classes concerning evolution with a one-minute statement
that points out 'gaps' in Darwin's theory. The statement
then suggests that students consider Intelligent Design,
which posits that humans are too complex to have evolved
from chimps. The theory is widely rejected by
scientists, but its proponents find proof, or at least
cause for further inquiry, in the similarities between
machines and the machine-like structures in human
organisms. Just as your father's Oldsmobile had a
designer, they say, so did you. Supporters are quick to
deny any religious overtones, saying who or what the
designer is cannot be known through science alone.
The board's decision put Dover and its school system
into the media spotlight, with administrators and board
members cast as heroes or sinners, depending on your
view of evolution, and with the parents and teachers who
oppose them as either martyrs for science or anti-
Christian reactionaries.
'It has turned neighbor against neighbor, friend against
friend,' said Jeff Brown, a Sunday school teacher and
former school board member who resigned in protest of
the vote (as did his wife, another of the board's three
dissenter). 'I have lost friends over this.'
'It is embarrassing,' said Tammy Kitzmiller, whose 14-
year-old daughter was in the biology class last year in
which the statement was read. 'I know teachers who are
afraid to say they teach at Dover because of the
embarrassment.'
With the help of the ACLU, Kitzmiller and 10 other
parents sued the school board for teaching a religious
doctrine. The board found representation with the Thomas
More Law Center, which calls itself the 'sword and
shield for people of faith.'
The trial, in federal court, wrapped on Friday. The
judge is expected to make a decision by the end of the
year.
Meanwhile, the people of Dover finally had a chance to
be heard at the polls.
And as much as the candidates said the election was
about more than just God and chimpanzees, for many Dover
residents that is indeed exactly what it came down to.
Ray Mummert sided with God and the board members. 'I
think they're making a courageous statement,' said
Mummert, a pastor at a nearby church and the father of
14-year-old in the Dover biology class. Along with his
wife and two other couples, he tried unsuccessfully to
join the lawsuit as co-defendants. 'They stood up
against the ACLU and said we will not be intimidated.
And I think they speak for a significant portion of this
community.'
Apparently they didn't speak for a large enough portion.
All of the current board members were ousted, replaced
by the Dover CARES candidates, a sobering splash of cold
water perhaps to the dozens of other school districts
considering following in Dover's path. Measures to do
just that are pending in 20 legislatures around the
nation, and President Bush has come out in favor of
teaching it. And in Kansas this week, the State Board of
Education approved changes to the science curriculum
that would cast doubt on the theory of evolution.
One of the losing incumbents in Dover, David Napierskie
told a local newspaper a week before the vote, ' I
believe that Nov. 8 will decide how the [Dover community
feels] about' the Intelligent Design court case.
It seems as though they just sent a pretty strong
message.
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