1st Suit in State to Attack 'Intelligent Design' Filed

An initial course description, which was distributed to students and their families last month, said "the class will take a close look at evolution as a theory and will discuss the scientific, biological and biblical aspects that suggest why Darwin's philosophy is not rock solid. The class will discuss intelligent design as an alternative response to evolution. Physical and chemical evidence will be presented suggesting the earth is thousands of years old, not billions."

The course, which began Jan. 3 and is scheduled to run for one month, is being taught by Sharon Lemburg, a special education teacher with a bachelor of arts in physical education and social science, according to the lawsuit.

The suit adds that Lemburg "has no training or certification in the teaching of science, religion or philosophy," and is "the wife of the minister for the local Assembly of God Church, a Christian fundamentalist church, and a proponent of a creationist world view."

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is representing the plaintiffs, said the course is "the wave of the future throughout the United States," for backers of intelligent design.

"It is my understanding that this school district has been approached by other school districts to clone this course and use it elsewhere. That is why this is of national significance. We would like to build a retaining wall against that wave in this case," he said.

The course description shows that the class "is not philosophy or comparative religion," Lynn said, but, instead, "is a teacher trying to trump science with religion."

Casey Luskin, the legal affairs director of the Discovery Institute, an organization that supports intelligent design said he had not read the lawsuit but that if Americans United is trying to keep students from hearing about alternatives to evolutionary theory that would be "censorship."

On the other hand, Luskin said, if the school district is trying to teach "young-earth creationism or biblical creationism as fact, that will get them into legal trouble. I would like to see the full course syllabus before making a definitive judgment."

Intelligent design holds that some biological systems are so complex they could not have evolved through random mutations as the vast majority of biologists teach. They argue that complexity is proof that life was formed by an intelligent designer.