Intelligent Design

A school in Pennsylvania decided that the biology books of the ninth graders were getting much too boring with the Darwian theory of evolution. To liven up things a bit they decided to teach the theory of intelligent design as well.
Only now, 11 parents have used the most basic right of Americans - they have sued the Dover Area School District to stop the teaching of intelligent design, saying it violates the constitutional separation of church and state (for a change maybe, this is not a useless case).

A bit abt the intelligent design theory...basically the term "intelligent design" was first used in 1897 by Oxford scholar F.C.S. Schiller, who wrote in an essay that "it will not be possible to rule out the supposition that the process of evolution may be guided by an intelligent design."
What it basically means is that whatever we marvel abt our body...capability to pick things...ability to process info could not have been achieved over time.

Proponents of the intelligent design theory say life is way too complex to have emerged on its own and needed a push by a higher, intelligent being a.k.a God.

This is from the nicely titled report God versus science debate continues in court that appeared in Reuters :-
"...The trial over teaching man's origins in U.S. schools pits Christian conservatives against teachers and scientists in what is seen as the biggest test of the issue since the late 1980s. It also echoes the famous Scopes Monkey trial of 1925, when lawyers squared off in a Tennessee courthouse over the teaching of Darwin's work."

"...The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that creationism -- the belief that Earth and its beings were created by God and not by natural selection -- could not be taught in public schools since it violated the separation of church and state. "

"...More than 30 U.S. states are considering measures to teach alternatives to evolution. The Harrisburg case is the first to challenge such initiatives in court and is widely expected to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of the outcome. President George W. Bush has said schools should teach both evolution and intelligent design."

I know one person who would be happy to back Mr. President...our good old Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi... :)
But seriously what is more interesting is the ruling of the SC of the USA clearly emphasising the separation of religion from state policy.
Once upon a time it was tried by our own SC and it was cutely overturned by the Parliament...the sooner we take our own secularism beyond paper (read constitution) the sooner our policies will focus on the core issue of eliminating poverty. It is vital that the state doesn't use religion as a tool to push its own agenda or as a shield to explain its own shortcomings.