Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Sparking change across the nation
The Dover, Pa., intelligent design trial in federal court was billed as a Super Bowl-like battle over evolution that could reverberate throughout American public education.
This one lived up to the hype.
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones, a conservative Republican nominated in 2002 by President Bush, appears to have single-handedly turned the national tide against inclusion of intelligent design in science curriculum by ruling against it in the Dover case and detailing his rationale in a long, detailed and devastating legal opinion.
After it was issued, intelligent design backers were quick to point out that the ruling was limited to Pennsylvania, which was true. But the impact has begun to mushroom. Emboldened by the Dover case, evolutionists began to push hard elsewhere in the country, including Ohio, where the state board of education has been trying to fit an intelligent design discussion into its science standards for two years.
So yesterday, Ohio essentially withdrew from the intelligent design debate when the state board decided to drop the new science standard after calls from both sides of the political spectrum, including Gov. Bob Taft who appoints much of the board.
So one legal opinion, technically confined to a small jurisdiction, is causing change everywhere.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design
Comments
By Mary
February 16, 2006 7:59 AM | Link to this
Okay. I’ll bite since no one else has commented. I’m rusty in science, but let’s look at this change through some scientific concepts. Change ultimately seeks stability. A rapid chemical change or reaction will usually stabilize. Borrowing from physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We observe this law of physics in public debate as well. We could think about the Pennsylvannia case judge as one of many pebbles cast upon the water creating outward ripples upon the still water and then the water stabilizes again. I am sure the debate and change will stabilize and destabilize periodically on this topic.