Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The lawsuit over whether intelligent design should be taught in schools alongside evolution began in federal court on Monday with defendants' attorneys calling it a scientific theory and opponents saying it was an effort to put God in the classroom.

In the first such legal battle, lawyers sparred during opening arguments at Federal District Court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, over whether the teaching of intelligent design -- an alternative to evolution that involves a God-like creator -- violates the U.S. Constitution.

The trial over teaching man's origins in U.S. schools pits Christian conservatives against teachers and scientists in what is seen as the biggest test of the issue since the late 1980s.

'Intelligent design isn't science. It's old theology,' said Eric Rothschild, lawyer for 11 parents who sued the Dover school district of central Pennsylvania over including intelligent design in its ninth-grade biology curriculum.

'It's a clever tactical repackaging of creationism,' he said, telling a packed courtroom that the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed teaching creationism -- the belief that God created the world as told in Genesis -- in public schools in 1987."
- posted by Gp @ 8:58 AM