Court Rejects Intelligent Design in Science Class

The Opinion of Judge John E. Jones III

by Raymond Fontaine, Ph.D. - December 2005

E-mail no. 21: I send My Opinion to Judge John E. Jones

Good evening, Judge. I recently saw the news on TV that you have barred a Pennsylvania public school district from teaching "Intelligent Design" (ID) in biology classes. I don't doubt that you sought the truth during the six-week deliberations held in your court. What you heard there convinced you that striking down the teaching of ID in science classes was the better thing to do. 

The following days, I searched the Internet for a complete copy of your 139 page opinion all in vain. But in various articles, I gathered 11 quotes attributed to you. If these quotations are not exact, please set me straight. I am looking for the truth which in my book comes first.

One quote in the Associated Press article dated December 20 has you saying "While the arguments for intelligent design may be true, the court takes no position on this proposition." But isn't making this pronouncement tantamount to taking a position?

The same article has you saying, There is overwhelming evidence establishing that intelligent design is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism." My dictionary defines 'creationism' as the doctrine that ascribes the origin of matter and species to an act of creation by God. Sorry, sir, but the theory of ID does not do that. It simply states that the designs in Nature indicate intelligence - nothing more. 

I for one gladly accept that revelation of intelligence in its stark simplicity. When I first learned about ID, I let my mind speculate about that intelligence: it was supreme, all powerful, and benevolent. But what humans observe in nature is simply intelligent designs. Could I be satisfied with that terse revelation of nature? Yes I could and I am. 

Apparently, during the deliberations in your court, some advocate remarked that the teenagers in science classes could easily be led to believe that the Intelligence revealed in nature's designs is the same Being who is revealed more elaborately in the Bible.

So, instead of flatly saying that "ID is not science", you could have warned the science teachers not to identify the Intelligence of ID with what the Bible and its preachers call God. The theory of ID does not say that nor should the teachers of ID. 

Such an injunction would have been within your authority and competence, not so your opinion that  "ID is not science". A judge determines what is or is not lawful - not what is or is not scientific. I believe that in this instance you may have overstepped the bounds of your competence. 

To ward off this indictment, you grasped the charge that ID was nothing but creationism in disguise. In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that creationism may not be taught in public schools. Identifying ID with creationism got you off the hook. You could benefit from their decision and authority to exclude the teaching of ID in the science class rooms of public schools.  

But when you forbade the teaching of ID in high school science classes, you prevented teenagers from hearing about intelligent designs in nature that presuppose intelligence. That was an injustice to those young people who are being brainwashed by instructors of revealed religions at home and churches or synagogues or mosques. 

I recall my teenage environment totally immersed in Catholicism. About God and religion I knew nothing other than what my parents, nuns and priests taught me. So in making choices for my career and preparing for it, the profession of priesthood appeared like the most noble. That's what I chose and became its captive for many years.

Today's teenagers are also preparing for their future. Millions of them are born and bred in religious families and in places of worship where they hear only about God as revealed in the Bible or the Koran. There God is revealed as the creator of the universe which includes the earth in which we live. 

For centuries, religions caused conflict, persecution, and wars. To avoid that in our country, the  constitution forbids the promotion of any religion in its laws and institutions. 

In March 1925, the State of Tennessee forbade the teaching of evolution in public schools. Months later one teacher, John Scopes, ignored that prohibition and taught evolution in his class. The court found him guilty and fined him.

Later in the year, after a famous debate, the state allowed the teaching of evolution in public schools.

In 1987, the U.S.Supreme Court ruled that states cannot require public schools to balance evolution lessons by teaching creationism.

I have a feeling that history will repeat itself with a twist. This year, your court ruled that public school boards in your district cannot require the science teacher to balance evolution lessons by teaching or simply mentioning the theory of Intelligent Design. 

While regretting your ruling against the teaching of ID in science classes, I am confident that the truth of ID will win out and its teaching in science classes will resume somewhere in the country. But next time, when it's challenged in court, perhaps in the Supreme Court, ID will be allowed in the science class - not to replace the valid theory of evolution but to complement it with another facet of the universe. That will be a great day for teenagers in science classrooms. Those youngsters need and deserve to know the whole truth about nature.

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