Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Monday, January 9, 2006
Is science being taught “illegally?”
Dover, Pa., is just one city in one state and the ruling of a judge there calling instruction of intelligent design in science class illegal is technically limited to the case at hand.
But the way this case was decided, especially the judge’s rich and detailed rejection of the arguments for intelligent design as science, is likely to reverberate across the country.
It may not be long before a similar challenge by intelligent design opponents comes to Ohio.
In fact, there already are signs that those forces may be ready to go beyond just making fun of Ohio’s science standards to actually challenging them.
Last week in the Akron Beacon Journal, a prominent Ohio scientist said Ohio’s biology standards would not survive a court challenge in light of the Dover ruling.
For instance, the judge in the Dover case was very critical of an intelligent design book called “Of People and Pandas,” noting evidence that the authors had simply removed the word “creation” and replaced it with “intelligent design” to repackage the book for modern consumption. He ruled this proved intelligent design was religious doctrine dressed up as science.
The scientist quoted by the Beacon Journal, Case Western Reserve physics and astronomy professor Lawrence Krauss, noted that much of Ohio’s model lesson plan on intelligent design is taken directly from that book.
So while the Dover case has no direct impact on Ohio, it appears to provide a road map to challenging the state’s intelligent design-friendly science standards.
Given that reality, it’s probably just a matter of time before the legal fight comes here.
If that’s the case, what should Ohio be doing now? Re-writing its standards? Dropping intelligent design entirely? Or putting the lawyers on speed dial and girding up for a legal battle?
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