Saturday, September 24, 2005
Kitzmiller Complaint Available Online
Here's an excerpt from the complaint in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the intelligent design case that will be heard in federal court beginning Monday. You can read the whole complaint here.
Intelligent design has been publicly promoted by an organization called the Discovery Institute and others as a means of challenging the scientific theory of evolution in public classrooms and replacing it with so called "science" that is "consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." The purpose of the Dover School Board in passing the October 18 resolution was similarly religious. The Board decided to amend the district’s biology curriculum to include the presentation of intelligent design over the objection of the Dover High School’s science faculty. The leading proponent on the Board of the October 18 resolution stated during the Board’s discussion of the biology curriculum, "Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross. Can’t someone take a stand for him?" The Dover Area School
District has also arranged for Dover High School to be supplied with the book Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origin. Of Pandas and People is, by acknowledgment of its authors, directed at making the "favorable case for intelligent design," and raising doubt about natural descent (i.e., the scientific theory of evolution).
