New Evolution Battle Underway in Ohio

April 1, 2002 — -- Charles Darwin is in the hot seat again.

Seventy-seven years after the John Scopes "Monkey" trial and three years after the state of Kansas voted to exclude evolution from its science standards, a theory known as Intelligent Design is clamoring for recognition in Ohio.

Supporters of the theory are arguing that Ohio's science education standards should include language saying that Darwin's theory remains unproven and is challenged by other theories, including Intelligent Design. The state's draft of standards, which were submitted for review today, contain the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution but no opposing theories.

"There's no reason why the controversy over evolution should not be presented to students," said Robert Lattimer, a minority supporter of Intelligent Design within the science writing team.

Defenders of the science standards as they are now written counter that Intelligent Design has no scientific backing and should not be included.

The Ohio debate has reignited challenges to Darwin's theory of evolution, which was last disputed by Kansas educators. It has also become one of the first public platforms to feature the arguments of Intelligent Design, a theory which critics have called a "subtle" approach to insert religious belief into science instruction.

The Intelligent Design theory was launched in 1991 when Phillip Johnson, a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley, published his book Darwin on Trial. The idea proposes that the intricate complexity of plants and animals is evidence that life could only be the work of an intelligent designer, not evolution. The theory stops short of declaring what or who the intelligent designer might be.

"It's like finding a radio and thinking it was simple and then opening it up and realizing it has many many different parts," said Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University and author of another book about Intelligent Design, Darwin's Black Box. "By its intricacy you know it had to be put together by intellect."