THE DOVER RULING SENDS A MESSAGE ACROSS THE COUNTRY:
On the second day of the Scopes trial, the first legal challenge to evolution in America, Clarence Darrow issued this warning: “Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more.” That trial ended badly for Darrow, but he would have been quite pleased with the setback suffered by ignorance and fanaticism last week in Pennsylvania. There, U.S. District Judge John Jones III issued a ruling that should delight all Americans who care about science, about education–and, indeed, about the very values of reason and critical thinking that underlie our democracy. In Kitzmiller, et al v. Dover Area School District, et al, Judge Jones ruled that intelligent-design theory cannot be presented in public schools as an alternative to Darwinism. He declared ID to be a form of religion, and explained that teaching it thus violates the First Amendment’s prohibition of the public establishment of religion…