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A court in the US has ruled against the teaching of the theory of "intelligent design" alongside Darwinian evolution.
A group of parents in the Pennsylvania town of Dover had taken the school board to court for demanding biology classes not teach evolution as fact.

The authorities wanted to introduce the theory that Earth's life was too complicated to have evolved on its own.

Judge John Jones ruled the school board had violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion."

"It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID policy," [Judge Jones] said.

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“We conclude that the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child," Jones said.

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Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur."

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Originally posted by Dude

Didn't take long....

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=3107&program=CSC%20-%20Views%20and%20News

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Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur."

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Gotta love the DI. They have strted off the swift-boating of this judge with a bang.

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Originally posted by Dude

Gotta love the DI. They have strted off the swift-boating of this judge with a bang.

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Their only recourse is to appeal, and I don't think they'll do it.

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Judge Jones was appointed to his current position by President George W. Bush in February, 2002, and was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on July 30, 2002

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Judge Bans Teaching Intelligent Design...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A judge on Tuesday barred the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution at a Pennsylvania school, saying in a scathing rebuke to the school board that it violated a constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

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Jones condemned the "breathtaking inanity" of the policy of the board, all but one of whom have now been ousted by local voters. "Any asserted secular purposes by the Board are a sham and are merely secondary to a religious objective," he said.

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from the decision
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

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To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, § 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID.

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