US lawsuit challenges teaching on evolution
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《英国医生杂志》
A fierce battle over how evolution is taught in schools in the United States has resulted in a lawsuit being filed in a federal district court in Pennsylvania by eight families. They are claiming that Dover County School District is violating the separation of church and state by introducing the concept of "intelligent design" into science classes.
On 26 September the US district judge John Jones III, in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, heard opening arguments in the case. The families asked for "injunctive relief" to prevent the school district requiring all ninth grade biology teachers to read a disclaimer to their students. The disclaimer says, "Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin抯 view" and "Darwin抯 Theory is a theory . . . not a fact."
The case is thought to be the first legal challenge about evolution since a 1987 US Supreme Court ruling that public schools could not teach creationism梩he belief that God, not natural selection, is responsible for life梑ecause it violates the separation of church and state.
Since the 1987 ruling a number of creationists have joined the "intelligent design" movement. Instead of making arguments against evolution on purely religious grounds, they have adopted a strategy of promoting "intelligent design" on what they claim are scientific grounds. Michael Behe, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank and leading force in the intelligent design movement, argues that various biological processes, such as the immune system or clotting cascade, exhibit "irreducible complexity"梞eaning that all their parts are necessary for them to function. Such complexity, he argues, is the "hallmark of intelligent design."
President Bush gave the intelligent design movement a boost when he said the jury is still out on evolution (Washington Post, 14 March; sect A: 1). A recent poll showed that 44.2% of adult Americans consider that intelligent design or creationism should be taught in schools (www.cjr.org/issues/2005/5/mooney.asp ). Nineteen states have initiated course work on intelligent design or have weakened teaching about evolution, according to the Thomas B Fordham Foundation, an education reform organisation based in Washington, DC. A report published by the foundation in 2000, Good Science, Bad Science, said that 19 states did a "weak-to-reprehensible job" of handling evolution in their science standards, 12 "shun the word 慹volution,? and four "avoid teaching biological evolution altogether" (www.edexcellence.net/foundation ).
Proponents of intelligent design often minimise the role of religion in their advocacy of new teaching standards. "This case is about free inquiry in education, not about a religious agenda," said Patrick Gillen of the Thomas More Law Centre in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in his opening statement in the lawsuit. The centre, a conservative Christian "public interest" organisation, is defending the school district.
But the plaintiffs argue that the effect of the schools?actions "will be to compel public school science teachers to present to their students in biology class information that is inherently religious, not scientific, in nature."(Jeanne Lenzer)
On 26 September the US district judge John Jones III, in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, heard opening arguments in the case. The families asked for "injunctive relief" to prevent the school district requiring all ninth grade biology teachers to read a disclaimer to their students. The disclaimer says, "Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin抯 view" and "Darwin抯 Theory is a theory . . . not a fact."
The case is thought to be the first legal challenge about evolution since a 1987 US Supreme Court ruling that public schools could not teach creationism梩he belief that God, not natural selection, is responsible for life梑ecause it violates the separation of church and state.
Since the 1987 ruling a number of creationists have joined the "intelligent design" movement. Instead of making arguments against evolution on purely religious grounds, they have adopted a strategy of promoting "intelligent design" on what they claim are scientific grounds. Michael Behe, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank and leading force in the intelligent design movement, argues that various biological processes, such as the immune system or clotting cascade, exhibit "irreducible complexity"梞eaning that all their parts are necessary for them to function. Such complexity, he argues, is the "hallmark of intelligent design."
President Bush gave the intelligent design movement a boost when he said the jury is still out on evolution (Washington Post, 14 March; sect A: 1). A recent poll showed that 44.2% of adult Americans consider that intelligent design or creationism should be taught in schools (www.cjr.org/issues/2005/5/mooney.asp ). Nineteen states have initiated course work on intelligent design or have weakened teaching about evolution, according to the Thomas B Fordham Foundation, an education reform organisation based in Washington, DC. A report published by the foundation in 2000, Good Science, Bad Science, said that 19 states did a "weak-to-reprehensible job" of handling evolution in their science standards, 12 "shun the word 慹volution,? and four "avoid teaching biological evolution altogether" (www.edexcellence.net/foundation ).
Proponents of intelligent design often minimise the role of religion in their advocacy of new teaching standards. "This case is about free inquiry in education, not about a religious agenda," said Patrick Gillen of the Thomas More Law Centre in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in his opening statement in the lawsuit. The centre, a conservative Christian "public interest" organisation, is defending the school district.
But the plaintiffs argue that the effect of the schools?actions "will be to compel public school science teachers to present to their students in biology class information that is inherently religious, not scientific, in nature."(Jeanne Lenzer)