Inferior Design

Inferior Design
Prospect September issue: In late September, a contemporary Scopes trial gets under way in Pennsylvania. For the right, it’s been 39 years in the making.
By Chris Mooney
Web Exclusive: 08.10.05
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10084


On September 26, an event that the national media will surely depict as a new Scopes trial is scheduled to begin. Hearings will commence in a First Amendment lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Dover, Pennsylvania, school district over its decision to introduce “Intelligent Design,” or ID, into its biology curriculum. The analogy with the 1925 Tennessee “monkey trial” certainly has its merits. With a newly rejuvenated war against evolution now afoot in the United States, one being prosecuted by religious conservatives and their intellectual and political allies, it is virtually inevitable that the courts will once again serve as the ultimate arbiters of what biology teachers can and cannot present to their students in public schools.