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Intelligent design is the claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as Natural Selection ."1.2 • 3 It is a modern form of the traditional Teleological Argument for the existence of God , modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer."ID is not a new scientific argument, but is rather an old religious argument for the existence of God. He traced this argument back to at least Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, who framed the argument as a syllogism: Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex; therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer.""this argument for the existence of God was advanced early in the 19th century by Reverend Paley" (the .. Its primary proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute ,"Q. Has the Discovery Institute been a leader in the intelligent design movement? A. Yes, the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Q. And are almost all of the individuals who are involved with the intelligent design movement associated with the Discovery Institute? A. All of the leaders are, yes." Barbara Forrest , 2005, testifying in the Kitzmiller V. Dover Area School District trial. 5 • "The Discovery Institute is the ideological and strategic backbone behind the eruption of skirmishes over science in school districts and state capitals across the country." In: 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 (PDF file from Discovery Institute). • "The engine behind the ID movement is the Discovery Institute." 1011 believe the designer to be God ."the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity." 12, . Intelligent design's advocates claim it is a Scientific Theory ,13 and seek to fundamentally redefine Science to accept Supernatural explanations.Stephen C. Meyer and Paul A. Nelson, May 1, 1996, CSC – Getting Rid of the Unfair Rules , A book review, Origins & Design, Retrieved , February 13, 2007, Retrieved 2007-05-20 . The unequivocal Consensus in the Scientific Community is that intelligent design is not science.See: 1) . 3) The Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism petition begun in 2001 has been signed by "over 700 scientists" as of August 20 , 2006 . A four day A Scientific Support For Darwinism petition gained 7733 signatories from scientists opposing ID. The AAAS, the largest association of scientists in the U.S., has 120,000 members, and firmly rejects ID . More than 70,000 Australian scientists and educators condemn teaching of intelligent design in school science classes . List of statements from scientific professional organizations on the status intelligent design and other forms of creationism. The U.S. National Academy Of Sciences has stated that "intelligent design, and other claims of Supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by Experiment , do not generate any predictions, and propose no new Hypotheses of their own. National Academy of Sciences, 1999 Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition The National Science Teachers Association and the American Association For The Advancement Of Science have termed it Pseudoscience . National Science Teachers Association, a professional association of 55,000 science teachers and administrators in a 2005 press release: "We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science.…It is simply not fair to present pseudoscience to students in the science classroom." National Science Teachers Association Disappointed About Intelligent Design Comments Made by President Bush National Science Teachers Association Press Release August 3 2005 . • "for most members of the mainstream scientific community, ID is not a scientific theory, but a creationist pseudoscience." Trojan Horse or Legitimate Science: Deconstructing the Debate over Intelligent Design David Mu. Harvard Science Review, Volume 19, Issue 1, Fall 2005.. • "Creationists are repackaging their message as the pseudoscience of intelligent design theory." Professional Ethics Report American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2001. Others have concurred, and some have called it Junk Science . Defending science education against intelligent design: a call to action Journal of Clinical Investigation 116:1134–1138 American Society for Clinical Investigation, 2006. • "Biologists aren’t alarmed by intelligent design's arrival in Dover and elsewhere because they have all sworn allegiance to atheistic materialism; they’re alarmed because intelligent design is junk science." H. Allen Orr. Annals of Science. New Yorker May 2005. Devolution—Why intelligent design isn't. . • Also, Robert T. Pennock Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism. . • Junk science Mark Bergin. World Magazine, Vol. 21, No. 8 February 25 2006. "Intelligent design" originated in response to a 1987 United States Supreme Court Ruling involving Constitutional Separation Of Church And State .16, , citing 17. Its first significant published use was in '' Of Pandas And People '', a 1989 textbook intended for high-school biology classes.18, . The following year a small group of proponents formed the Discovery Institute and began advocating the inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula. Media Backgrounder: Intelligent Design Article Sparks Controversy Discovery Institute. September 7, 2004. • Berkeley’s Radical James M. Kushiner. Touchstone Magazine, June 2002. • Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive Jodi Wilgoren. The New York Times, August 21 2005. The " Intelligent Design Movement " grew increasingly visible in the 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in the 2005 "Dover trial" challenging the intended use of intelligent design in public school science classes. In '' Kitzmiller V. Dover Area School District '', a group of parents of high-school students challenged a public school district requirement for teachers to present intelligent design in biology classes as an alternative "explanation of the origin of life". U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and concluded that the school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment To The U.S. Constitution .19, . OVERVIEW The term "intelligent design" came into published use after the Supreme Court Of The United States ruled in the 1987 case of '' Edwards V. Aguillard '' that to require the teaching of " Creation Science " alongside evolution was a violation of the Establishment Clause , which prohibits state aid to religion. In the Edwards case, the Supreme Court had also held that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction."20 In drafts of the 1989 high-school level textbook '' Of Pandas And People '', almost all derivations of the word "creation", such as "creationism", were replaced with the words "intelligent design". In the 1990s the term "intelligent design" was increasingly used by advocates of teaching a Creation-based alternative to evolution, particularly in the United States. Intelligent design is presented as an alternative to Kitzmiller V. Dover Area School District , April, 2005. Proponents of intelligent design look for ). For example, intelligent design proponents argue that an archaeologist who finds a statue made of stone in a field may justifiably conclude that the statue was designed, and reasonably seek to identify its designer. The archaeologist would not, however, be justified in making the same claim based on an irregularly shaped boulder of the same size. Design proponents argue that living systems show great complexity, from which they infer that some aspects of life have been designed. Intelligent design proponents say that although evidence pointing to the nature of an "intelligent cause or agent" may not be directly ORIGINS OF THE CONCEPT Philosophers have long debated whether the complexity of nature indicates the existence of a purposeful natural or supernatural designer/creator. The first recorded arguments for a designer of the cosmos are in Greek Philosophy . In the 4th century BC, Plato posited a " Demiurge " of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his '' Timaeus .''2425 Aristotle also developed the idea of a creator-designer of the cosmos, often called the " Unmoved Mover ", in his work '' Metaphysics ''.Aristotle, ''Metaphysics'' Bk. 12 In ''De Natura Deorum'', or "''On the Nature of the Gods''" (45 BC), Cicero stated that "the divine power is to be found in a principle of reason which pervades the whole of nature." Cicero , ''De Natura Deorum'', Book I, 36–37, Latin Library . The use of this line of reasoning as applied to a supernatural designer has come to be known as the , which is still used in intelligent design arguments. In the early 19th century, such arguments led to the development of what was called Natural Theology , the study of Nature as a means to understand "the mind of God." This movement fueled the passion for collecting fossils and other biological specimens, which ultimately led to Darwin's theory of The Origin Of Species . Similar reasoning postulating a divine designer is embraced today by many believers in Theistic Evolution , who consider modern science and the theory of Evolution to be fully compatible with the concept of a supernatural designer. Intelligent design in the late 20th century can be seen as a modern development of natural theology, which seeks to change the basis of science and undermine evolutionary theory. As evolutionary theory has expanded to explain more phenomena, the examples that are held up as evidence of design have changed. But the essential argument remains the same: complex systems imply a designer. Examples offered in the past included the eye (optical system) and the feathered wing; current examples are mostly , and bacterial Flagella (see Irreducible Complexity ). The earliest known version of the particular line of reasoning that would come to be called "intelligent design" began, according to Barbara Forrest , "in the early 1980s with the publication of ''The Mystery of Life's Origin'' (MoLO 1984) by creationist chemist Charles B. Thaxton with Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen. Thaxton worked for Jon A. Buell at the Foundation For Thought And Ethics (FTE) in Texas, a religious organization that published MoLO."Dr Barbara Forrest. Know Your Creationists: Know Your Allies Intelligent design deliberately does not try to identify or name the specific court ruling held the latter to be the case. ORIGINS OF THE TERM '', first published in 1989, changed approximately one-hundred instances of the word "creation" to "intelligent design" prior to its original publication. Its intended audience is secondary school biology classes.]] See Also: Timeline of intelligent design Prior to the publication of the book '', Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 3154, 23 May 1861. The words are also used in an address to the 1873 annual meeting of the British Association For The Advancement Of Science by Paleyite botanist George James Allman : No physical hypothesis founded on any indisputable fact has yet explained the origin of the primordial protoplasm, and, above all, of its marvellous properties, which render evolution possible — in heredity and in adaptability, for these properties are the cause and not the effect of evolution. For the cause of this cause we have sought in vain among the physical forces which surround us, until we are at last compelled to rest upon an independent volition, a far-seeing intelligent design.26 The phrase can be found again in ''Humanism'', a 1903 book by one of the founders of classical 1982 ; pg. 22; Issue 61130; col F. Hoyle stated in a 1982 speech: "...one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure or order must be the outcome of intelligent design." {Link without Title} The modern use of the words "intelligent design", as a term intended to describe a field of inquiry, began after the Johnson, considered the "father" of the Intelligent Design Movement , went on to work with Meyer on the formation and execution of the Wedge Strategy , and became the program advisor of the Discovery Institute's Center For Science And Culture . IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY was introduced in Michael Behe 's 1996 book, '' Darwin's Black Box '']] In the context of intelligent design, irreducible complexity was put forward by Michael Behe , who defines it as "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."Behe, Michael (1997): ''Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference'' {Link without Title} Behe uses the of '' E. Coli '', the Blood Clotting cascade, Cilia , and the adaptive Immune System . Critics point out John H. McDonald's " reducibly complex mousetrap "David Ussery, " A Biochemist's Response to 'The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution' " that the irreducible complexity argument assumes that the necessary parts of a system have always been necessary and therefore could not have been added sequentially. They argue that something which is at first merely advantageous can later become necessary as other components change. Furthermore, they argue, evolution often proceeds by altering preexisting parts or by removing them from a system, rather than by adding them. This is sometimes called the "scaffolding objection" by an analogy with scaffolding, which can support an "irreducibly complex" building until it is complete and able to stand on its own.For example, Bridgham ''et al.'' showed that gradual evolutionary mechanisms can produce complex protein-protein interaction systems from simpler precursors. 27 Behe himself has since confessed to "sloppy prose", and that his "argument against Darwinism does not add up to a logical proof."28 This article draws from the following exchange of letters in which Behe admits to sloppy prose and non-logical proof: 29 Irreducible complexity has remained a popular argument among advocates of intelligent design; in the Dover trial, however, the court held that "Professor Behe’s claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large."30, . SPECIFIED COMPLEXITY The intelligent design concept of "specified complexity" was developed by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian Sonnet is both complex and specified."Dembski. Intelligent Design, p. 47 He states that details of living things can be similarly characterized, especially the "patterns" of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as DNA . proposed the concept of Specified Complexity .Photograph of William Dembski, by Wesley R. Elsberry, taken at lecture given at University of California at Berkeley, 2006/03/17. ]] Dembski defines complex specified information as anything with a less than 1 in 10150 chance of occurring by (natural) chance. Critics say that this renders the argument a Tautology : Complex specified information (CSI) cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus, so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature.Branden Fitelson, Christopher Stephens, Elliott Sober: "How Not to Detect Design: A review of William A. Dembski’s The Design Inference -- Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998 of Dembski's responses to assertions of specified complexity being a tautology can be found at [http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_anotherwaytodetectdesign.htm Richard Wein (2002): "Not a Free Lunch But a Box of Chocolates: A critique of William Dembski's book ''No Free Lunch''" [http://www.talkorigins.org/design/faqs/nfl/] The conceptual soundness of Dembski's specified complexity/CSI argument is strongly disputed by the scientific community.Nowak quoted. Claudia Wallis. Time Magazine, , another critic of intelligent design, argues in '' The God Delusion '' that allowing for an intelligent designer to account for unlikely complexity only postpones the problem, as such a designer would need to be at least as complex.31 Other scientists have argued that evolution through selection is better able to explain the observed complexity, as is evident from the use of selective evolution to design certain electronic, aeronautic and automotive systems which are considered problems too complex for human "intelligent designers". Evolutionary algorithms now surpass human designers New Scientist, 28 July 2007 FINE-TUNED UNIVERSE Intelligent design proponents also raise occasional arguments outside biology, most notably an argument based on the concept of the Fine-tuning Of Universal Constants that make matter and life possible and which are argued not to be solely attributable to chance. These include the values of Fundamental Physical Constants , the relative strength of Nuclear Force s, Electromagnetism , Gravity between Fundamental Particles , as well as the ratios of masses of such particles. Intelligent design proponent and Center For Science And Culture fellow Guillermo Gonzalez argues that if any of these values were even slightly different, the universe would be dramatically different, making it impossible for many Chemical Elements and features of the universe, such as Galaxies , to form.32 Thus, proponents argue, an intelligent designer of life was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve that particular outcome. Scientists almost unanimously have responded that this argument cannot be tested and is not scientifically productive. Some scientists argue that even when taken as mere speculation, these arguments are poorly supported by existing evidence.The Panda's Thumb. review of The Privileged Planet Proponent Granville Sewell has stated that the evolution of complex forms of life represents a decrease of Entropy , thereby violating the Second Law Of Thermodynamics and supporting intelligent design.3334 Critics assert that this is a misapplication of Thermodynamic principles.35 for assuming no other forms of life are possible. Life as we know it might not exist if things were different, but a different sort of life might exist in its place. A number of critics also suggest that many of the stated variables appear to be interconnected and that calculations made by mathematicians and physicists suggest that the emergence of a universe similar to ours is quite probable.''See, e.g.,'' Gerald Feinberg and Robert Shapiro, "A Puddlian Fable" in Huchingson, ''Religion and the Natural Sciences'' (1993), pp. 220–221 INTELLIGENT DESIGNER Intelligent design arguments are formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid identifying the intelligent agent they posit. Although they do not state that God is the designer, the designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene. Dembski, in '' god, to the exclusion of all other religions. , a prominent critic of intelligent-design creationism.]] Beyond the debate over whether intelligent design is scientific, a number of critics go so far as to argue that existing evidence makes the design hypothesis appear unlikely, irrespective of its status in the world of science. For example, Jerry Coyne, of the '', Behe had argued that we are simply incapable of understanding the designer's motives, so such questions cannot be answered definitively. Odd designs could, for example, "have been placed there by the designer... for artistic reasons, to show off, for some as-yet undetectable practical purpose, or for some unguessable reason." Coyne responds that in light of the evidence, "either life resulted not from intelligent design, but from evolution; or the intelligent designer is a cosmic prankster who designed everything to make it look as though it had evolved."Jerry Coyne: “The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name: The Case Against Intelligent Design” in ''The New Republic'', Aug 22 & 29, 2005 issue, p. 21–33. Available at http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050822&s=coyne082205 Asserting the need for a designer of complexity also raises the question "What designed the designer?"Dr. Donald E. Simanek. Intelligent Design: The Glass is Empty Intelligent design proponents say that the question is irrelevant to or outside the scope of intelligent design.IDEA "One need not fully understand the origin or identity of the designer to determine that an object was designed. Thus, this question is essentially irrelevant to intelligent design theory, which merely seeks to detect if an object was designed... Intelligent design theory cannot address the identity or origin of the designer - it is a philosophical / religious question that lies outside the domain of scientific inquiry. Christianity postulates the religious answer to this question that the designer is God who by definition is eternally existent and has no origin. There is no logical philosophical impossibility with this being the case (akin to from which intelligent design proponents can only escape by resorting to religious creationism or logical contradiction.See, e.g., Joseph Manson, "Intelligent design is pseudoscience", ''UCLA Today'' Vol. 26. No.2 Sept. 27, 2005. [http://www.today.ucla.edu/2005/050927voices_pseudoscience.html]; Rev Max, "The Incredibly Strange Story of Intelligent Design", ''New Dawn Magazine'' No. 97 (July-August 2006) MOVEMENT See Also: Intelligent design movement The intelligent design movement is a direct outgrowth of the are primarily in the United States , although efforts have been made in other countries to promote intelligent design. Leaders of the movement say intelligent design exposes the limitations of scientific orthodoxy and of the Secular philosophy of Naturalism . Intelligent design proponents allege that science should not be limited to naturalism and should not demand the adoption of a naturalistic Philosophy that dismisses out-of-hand any explanation which contains a supernatural cause. The overall goal of the movement is to "defeat [the] Materialist World View " represented by the theory of Evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and Theistic convictions."[http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf Wedge Document] Discovery Institute, 1999. 's 1991 book '' Darwin On Trial '' was among the early "intelligent design" books that attempted to " Teach The Controversy " about evolution.]] while conducting its adjunct Teach The Controversy campaign. Leading intelligent design proponents have made conflicting statements regarding intelligent design. In statements directed at the general public, they say intelligent design is not religious; when addressing conservative Christian supporters, they state that intelligent design has its foundation in the Bible . Recognizing the need for support, the institute affirms its Christian, evangelistic orientation: "''Alongside a focus on influential opinion-makers, we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidences that support the faith, as well as to 'popularize' our ideas in the broader culture.''" Barbara Forrest , an expert who has written extensively on the movement, describes this as being due to the Discovery Institute's obfuscating its agenda as a matter of policy. She has written that the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious world-view that undergirds it."Barbara Forrest. 2001. " The Wedge at Work: Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics Religion and leading proponents Although arguments for intelligent design are formulated in Secular terms and intentionally avoid positing the identity of the designer,"...intelligent design does not address metaphysical and religious questions such as the nature or identity of the designer," and "...the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the competence of science and must be left to religion and philosophy." In: 36 most of the principal intelligent design advocates are Evangelical Christians who have stated that in their view the "designer" is God . Phillip E. Johnson , William Dembski , and Stephen C. Meyer are Protestants ; Michael Behe is Roman Catholic ; and Jonathan Wells , another principal advocate, is a member of the Unification Church . Johnson has stated that cultivating ambiguity by employing secular language in arguments that are carefully crafted to avoid overtones of Theistic Creationism is a necessary first step for ultimately reintroducing the Christian concept of God as the designer. Johnson explicitly calls for intelligent design proponents to obfuscate their religious motivations so as to avoid having intelligent design identified "as just another way of packaging the Christian Evangelical message".Phillip Johnson. ''Keeping the Darwinists Honest'', an interview with Phillip Johnson. Citizen Magazine. April 1999. "Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. ... The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens up for them some doors that have been closed." Johnson emphasizes that "the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion"; "after we have separated Materialist Prejudice from scientific fact ... only then can 'biblical issues' be discussed."Phillip Johnson. Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. July/August 1999."...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion. ...This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact." The Wedge The as the foundation of intelligent design. Barbara Forrest contends such statements reveal that leading proponents see intelligent design as essentially religious in nature, not merely a scientific concept that has implications with which their personal religious beliefs happen to coincide.Barbara Forrest. Expert Testimony. ''. May, 2007. CONTROVERSY See Also: Creation-evolution controversy A key strategy of the intelligent design movement is convincing the general public that there is a debate among scientists about whether life evolved, in order to convince the public, politicians and cultural leaders that schools should " for its proponents' campaign against what they say is the Materialist foundation of science, which they argue leaves no room for the possibility of God.3738 Advocates for intelligent design seek to keep God and the Bible out of the discussion, and present intelligent design in the language of science as a scientific hypothesis. However, among the general public in the United States the major concern is whether or not conventional evolutionary biology is compatible with belief in God and in the Bible, and concerns about what is taught in schools. The public controversy was given widespread media coverage in the United States, particularly during the Kitzmiller V. Dover trial in 2005. Prominent coverage of the public controversy was given on the front page of Time magazine with a story on Evolution Wars, on 15 August, 2005. The cover shows God facing off against a chimpanzee, and asks: The push to teach "intelligent design" raises a question: Does God have a place in science class? The Time magazine story describes the controversy in the Dover school district and the Kitzmiller vs Dover lawsuit that was brought as a result. The eventual decision of the court ruled that intelligent design was a religious and creationist position, and answered the question posed by Time magazine with a firm negative, finding that God and intelligent design were both distinct from the material that should be covered in a science class. From the standpoint of public-school educational policy, the intelligent design controversy centers on three issues: # Can intelligent design be defined as science? # If so, does the evidence support it and related explanations of the history of life on Earth? # If the answer to either question is negative, is the teaching of such explanations appropriate and legal in public education, specifically in Science classes? and Specified Complexity that cannot be explained by natural processes. According to critics, intelligent design has not presented a credible scientific case and is an attempt to teach religion in public schools, which the U.S. Constitution forbids under the "theory". There are innumerable mutually incompatible supernatural explanations for complexity, and intelligent design does not provide a mechanism for discriminating among them. Furthermore, intelligent design is neither observable nor repeatable, which violates the scientific requirement of Falsifiability .474849 Indeed, intelligent design proponent Michael Behe concedes "You can't prove intelligent design by experiment."50 Critics have asserted that intelligent design proponents cannot legitimately ''infer'' that an intelligent designer is behind the part of the process that is not understood scientifically, since they have not shown that anything supernatural has occurred. The inference that an intelligent designer created life on Earth, which advocate William Dembski has said could alternately be an "alien" life force, has been compared to the '' A Priori '' claim that aliens helped the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids.5152 In both cases, the effect of this outside intelligence is not repeatable, observable or falsifiable, and it violates the principle of Parsimony . From a strictly Empirical standpoint, one may list what is known about Egyptian construction techniques, but one must admit ignorance about exactly how the Egyptians built the pyramids. Intelligent design proponents aim to gain support by unifying the religious world — Christians, Jews, Muslims and others who believe in a creator — in challenging Darwinism with a God-friendly alternative theory. Mainstream religious denominations have responded by Expressing Support For Evolution . They state that their religious faith is fully compatible with science, which is limited to dealing only with the natural world53 — a position described by the term '' Theistic Evolution ''.54 As well as pointing out that intelligent design is not science, they also reject it for various philosophical and theological reasons.5556 The arguments of intelligent design have been directly challenged by the over 10,000 Clergy who signed the Clergy Letter Project . Prominent scientists who strongly express religious faith, such as the astronomer George Coyne and the biologist Ken Miller , have been at the forefront of opposition to intelligent design. While creationist organizations have welcomed intelligent design's support against Naturalism , they have also been critical of its refusal to identify the designer,575859 and have pointed to previous failures of the same argument.60Retired California surgeon Dr. Mel Mulder has produced a series of 50 radio spots, and a book entitled " Beyond Intelligent Design " that describes his feeling that the Intelligent Design Movement does not go far enough in several ways. Kitzmiller trial Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District was the first direct challenge brought in the United States Federal Courts against a public school district that required the presentation of Intelligent Design as an alternative to Evolution . The plaintiffs successfully argued that intelligent design is a form of Creationism , and that the school board policy thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment To The United States Constitution . Eleven parents of students in Dover , Pennsylvania , sued the Dover Area School District over a statement that the school board required be read aloud in ninth-grade science classes when evolution was taught. The plaintiffs were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans United For Separation Of Church And State (AU) and Pepper Hamilton LLP . The National Center For Science Education (NCSE) acted as consultants for the plaintiffs. The defendants were represented by the Thomas More Law Center .61 The suit was tried in a Bench Trial from September 26, 2005 to November 4, 2005 before Judge John E. Jones III . Kenneth Miller , Kevin Padian, Brian Alters , Robert Pennock , Barbara Forrest and John Haught served as expert witnesses for the prosecution. Michael Behe , Steve Fuller and Scott Minnich served as expert witnesses for the defense. |
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