This is the “last week of the Dover trial”:http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-31/113074333546830.xml&storylist=penn, brought by parents in the school district against the administrators who forced non-science to be injected into the science classroom. The final witnesses are current and former school board members. The central question – whether the required language, which makes the misleading statement that evolution is a “theory, not a fact”, constitutes establishment of a religion – will be decided in the coming weeks. I am anxious to see if this case fails the tests set by previous Supreme Court precedents on Biblical creationism and public education.
Ultimately, this is a question of whether reason will triumph. Intelligent design’s key proponents present a distorted view of science, shaped to fit their faith. They mislead the public by putting scientific lipstick on their fundamentalist pig, and they pursue an agenda meant to weaken science standards in our nation’s education system, a system already weakened by a myriad of other problems. I’ll be watching this ever closer as it draws to a close.
