Intelligent Design Challenge

Science

Decision comes down: ACLU wins!

December 20, 2005 - This morning Judge Jones issued a blistering 139-page opinion in the Dover intelligent design trial. There will be a press conference with our lawyers and several plaintiffs in Harrisburg this afternoon. We will be providing more news and analysis of the decision as the day progresses. Check out our blog Speaking Freely for the latest.

Biggest trial on evolution in two decades concludes

After six weeks of testimony, the intelligent design trial in Harrisburg came to a close Friday, Nov. 4, 2005, with laughter and applause. For first-hand accounts of the trial, see the ACLU blog Speaking Freely.

The trial of Kitzmiller v. Dover tests whether American public schools can include 'intelligent design' as a part of science education. The school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, voted in 2004 to require that intelligent design be included in the biology curriculum.

“Intelligent design” is a pseudo-science that has been repudiated by every leading scientific organization, including the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Each of these organizations asserts that the ideas promoted by ID advocates lack any scientific merit and that their claims cannot be supported by scientific research.

The Latest

Resource
A collage of newspaper headlines from 20 years ago about the ruling on Kiztmiller v. Dover Area School District.

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District – A 20-year Retrospective on Using the Law to Defend Scientific Integrity

Twenty years ago, in December of 2005, a federal court in Pennsylvania issued a ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that an effort to teach so-called Intelligent Design Creationism as an alternative to evolution in public schools was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.