The Proposal Of The Dover Area School District

In the “Monkey Trial” William Jennings Bryan spoke as the leader of the Christian fundamentalist, what him and his followers wanted to do was for the people and court to find out how unfair it was for something that they perceived as “materialistic and anti-religious be taught in the very same classrooms from which all religious instruction had been banned” (Thomas, 2009 p. 25). This situation created a lot of debates among the people. Many things changed in the American public schools that arise because of the evolution theory and religion.

Louisiana legislators established the Louisiana Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act. The Act forbids the teaching of the theory of evolution and the theory of “creation science” in public elementary and secondary schools unless accompanied by the instruction of the theory other. The Act defines the theories as the scientific evidence for creation or evolution and inferences from those scientific evidence. The lower courts established that the Act violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because it lacked a clear secular purpose.

In the late nineteen-eighties, Edwards v. Aguillard argued that a Louisiana law was against the First Amendment of the Constitution. This law prohibited public schools from teaching about evolution and the evolutionary processes unless the topic was taught alongside religious based creation theories. More specifically, this law imposed on public schools was argued to have broken the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This clause simply says that absolutely no law can establish or support a religion (“Establishment Clause”, 2011). Many people challenged the state’s law including local parents and teachers as well as men and women with religious affiliations. Ultimately, the Supreme Court found that the state’s act was unlawful according to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment due to the fact that there was no non-religious basis to the act. The creation theories are entirely based around the idea that an all-powerful god created the human race. Therefore the state is promoting this religious teaching. Although it was argued that the act was to give students more opportunities to learn, the point was made that the teachers lost the power to make decisions in his or her own classroom. Furthermore, the law inhibits the learning of children by banning the teaching of evolution unless creation is also taught in the classroom. The law

The Scopes trial, writes Edward Larson, to most Americans embodies “the timeless debate over science and religion.” (265) Written by historians, judges, and playwrights, the history of the Scopes trial has caused Americans to perceive “the relationship between science and religion in . . . simple terms: either Darwin or the Bible was true.” (265) The road to the trial began when Tennessee passed the Butler Act in 1925 banning the teaching of evolution in secondary schools. It was only a matter of time before a young biology teacher, John T. Scopes, prompted by the ACLU tested the law. Spectators and newspapermen came from allover to witness

The Scopes Trial, a Dayton, Tennessee legal case involving the teaching of evolution within the public school system, induced a pivotal point in American history. This world-famous trial represents the ongoing conflict between science and theology, faith and reason, individual freedom of speech, and overruling opinion of the majority. The preeminent purpose of the case was to decide not only the fate of an evolution theory teacher by the name of John Scopes, but also to decide if fundamentalists or modernists would rule American culture and education. An object of profound publicity, the trial was identified as a battle between urban modernism and rural fundamentalism.

With advancements in intellect and social boundaries changing, political inconsistencies swept the nation creating widespread conflict concerning specific beliefs based in religion. The most exemplary and remembered scenario in which politics and religious beliefs wove together was a court case regarding the teaching of evolution as opposed to creation. Because religion, specifically Christianity, remained the prominent faith in America, the teaching of evolution became shocking and simply disgraceful. This court case, the Scopes trial, displays an instance in which the debate of legality in teaching evolution in a public school turned into an attack on a man’s faith as Clarence Darrow pestered W.J. Bryan about his religious beliefs and practices.

The Dover Area School Board passed a resolution offering Intelligent Design as an alternative theory to Darwin’s theory of evolution in public school. Tammy Kitzmiller sued the Dover school board in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The federal question brought to the court by the plaintiff was whether Intelligent Design was an offshoot policy of creationism. Moreover, does Intelligent Design constitute an establishment of religion, prohibited by the First Amendment, made applicable by the Fourteenth Amendment? Judge Jones presided over the case and held that Intelligent Design was not science, but religion. The Judge also ruled that the Dover School Board violated the Establishment Clause by implementing religion in public

The debate of whether Darwin’s theory of evolution or the theory of intelligent design is how life and the universe came to be is a very controversial topic that turns people against each other in hatred for the past two hundred years. It is still argued today whether mankind and was created due to evolution, or if an intelligent higher power created them. One significant event regarding this dissension occurred in Dover, Pennsylvania, in the year 2004, leading to the court case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, in which the citizens of Dover argued over the idea of teaching the theory of intelligent design alongside evolution in a 9th grade biology classroom. However, intelligent design is not scientific because there is not enough evidence to support it; therefore, intelligent design should not be taught in schools.

creation has pervaded American society and culture in numerous ways. One of its more prominent impacts has been on the discussion of public school curricula. Some state legislatures and school boards have even enacted statutes or implemented policies that mandate creation be included in the science curricula of public schools. U.S. courts have then been tasked with determining the constitutionality of such mandates. The principal question is whether such a mandate constitutes a violation of the Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court has decisively ruled that it does indeed constitute such a violation. In Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), a public school teacher challenged the constitutionality of an Arkansas law that criminalized the teaching evolution and subjected her to dismissal from her position. The Court ruled in favor of the teacher, as it determined that the law was written based upon motives that violated the Establishment Clause. The opinion provided that Providing this reason in support of holding the law in violation of the Establishment Clause, that the purpose of the law was not of a bona fide secular nature, appears to be an implicit reference to the purpose prong of the Lemon

Kitzmiller v. Dover brought up a global attention. The case arose in 2004, when the Dover Area District High School Board tried to add creationism ideas to a science class curriculum by masking it under scientific gear of a disclaimer promoting the “Intelligent Design”. High School students’ parents sued the school to ban the Intelligent Design from biology curriculum. Judge Jones ended the six-week trial and made his wise decision by ruling out the Intelligent Design from being considered a science, and by stating that the Board’s disclaimer was violating the First Amendment and its Establishment clause, and the PA Constitution. Judge Jones was a judge of facts; he was a Christian and a Republican, but it did not affect his fair decision not

What is the difference between belief and ethics? Where is the line drawn between faith and law? This is the debate fought by creationists and those who recognize evolution as true. The argument has been thrown back and forth for years. But, the real question is, should intelligent design be taught in public schools? In America, creationists believe that the world was created by a god, the majority of which is made up of Christians, are usually the the people that believe in intelligent design. This Christian theory states that all life on earth, and the earth itself, was created by an intelligent designer or god in their present form. There are variations in belief including “Young Earth Theory,”

The theory behind the origin of life has always been a sensitive and delicate topic. There are many ideas or theories of how this planet and all life forms on it appeared. However, there have been two main ideas battling for decades, creationism and evolution. Creationism is the idea where a divine power created all matter and life. Evolution is a scientific theory that current species have evolved from ancestral species over time. This debate made its debut into classrooms in 1925, during the Scopes Monkey Trial. Issues surrounding evolution and creationism in the classroom are still prevalent today. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”. The Establishment Clause is a provision to the First Amendment prohibiting the government from creating any law “respecting an establishment of religion”. This amendment and clause are repeatedly referenced in

Instead, they claim, some aspects of those organisms must have been created, fully formed, by a so-called ‘intelligent designer’” (McMaster). Anybody can notice that the words Intelligent Designer and God are synonymous which makes it a religious belief. One of the most recent and important court cases focusing on Intelligent Design is Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (Matsumura). Dover High School fought to have Intelligent Design mentioned as a theory in science classes alongside the theory of evolution and to provide students with access to an Intelligent Design textbook (McMaster). In the end, Dover School District lost the case, but Intelligent Design gained much attention. Although Intelligent Design lost, that does not mean it will stop fighting.

Imagine not being able to choose what you learn, this is slowly becoming a problem in the field of science. Evolutionists and other scientists are trying to stop intelligent design from being a field of science to offer in schools. The war between evolution and intelligent design has been long fought, even taken to court and the teens and children who are in school are often stuck in the dark, unable to find a side to agree with. Intelligent design should be offered in schools because it is a type of science, it has plausible theories and it fills in the holes that evolution leaves behind.

Public schools are a place to learn proven facts and some very well—known and accepted theories. These schools have been led this way for a long time and show no signs of changing. Many states around the country have rejected the teaching of creationism in public schools, since the subject is so controversial among teachers and parents. In Ohio, a bill to develop new science content standards was not successfully passed. Many creationists were upset when they discovered that the first drafts of the standards were filled with evolutionary content, without any allowance for alternative explanations of life’s origins. In the uproar, the state board held a special meeting to investigate the process that the writing team and advisory committee used to draft the science standards (Matthews, Answering Genesis). This is why learning the facts about evolution should be taught at school. By doing this, there would be much less confrontation between teachers, students, and parents. If one has the desire to learn about creationism or any other beliefs of how the world came to be, one should learn it at a place outside of school, such as church or at home.