Harrisburg, Pa.
Eighty years after the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, the theory of evolution was back in court this week. Eleven Pennsylvania parents challenged their school board’s right to introduce the theory of “intelligent design” into ninth-grade biology classes. The Dover Area School District was the first in the nation to order that students be told that Darwin’s theory of natural selection had “gaps,” and that one way to explain them was “intelligent design,” which holds that evolution was guided by a higher power. The ACLU and the parents claim the school board violated the separation of church and state by pushing the Bible’s story of Creation “under a different name.” But a lawyer for the school board said the case “is about free inquiry in education, not a religious agenda.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Home Depots are the new epicenters of ICE raidsIn the Spotlight The chain has not provided many comments on the ongoing raids
-
Why does Trump keep interfering in the NYC mayoral race?Today's Big Question The president has seemingly taken an outsized interest in his hometown elections, but are his efforts to block Zohran Mamdani about political expediency or something deeper?
-
The pros and cons of banning cellphones in classroomsPros and cons The devices could be major distractions
