A federal judge, saying "intelligent design" is "an interesting theological argument, but ... not science," ruled Tuesday that a school board violated the Constitution by compelling biology teachers to present the concept as an alternative to evolution.
The ruling came after U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III heard 21 days of testimony in a closely watched trial that pitted a group of parents against the school board in the town of Dover, Pa.
In October 2004, the board had required school officials to read a statement to ninth-graders declaring that Charles Darwin's ideas on evolution were "a theory ... not a fact," and that "gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence."
"Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view," the statement said.
Jones, a church-going conservative who was appointed to the federal bench by President Bush in 2002, said the statement was clearly designed to insert religious teachings into the classroom. He used much of his 139-page ruling to dissect arguments made for intelligent design.
Legal experts described the ruling as a sharp defeat for the intelligent design movement -- one likely to have considerable influence with other judges, although it is only legally binding in one area of Pennsylvania.
The "overwhelming evidence" has established that intelligent design "is a religious view, a mere relabeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory," Jones wrote.
Public remarks by school board members, he said, made clear that they adopted the statement to advance specific religious views.
Testimony at the trial included remarks from a board meeting, where one of the backers of the intelligent design statement "said words to the effect of '2,000 years ago someone died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?' " the judge noted.
Supporters of intelligent design argue that biological systems are so complex that they could not have arisen by a series of random changes. The complexity of life implies an intelligent designer, they say. Most of the movement's spokesmen take care not to publicly say whether the designer they have in mind is equivalent to the God in the Bible. On that basis, they argue that their concept is scientific, not religious.
But Jones said the concept was inescapably religious.
