posted December 20, 2005 07:00 PM            

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones delivered a stinging attack on the Dover Area School Board, saying its first-in-the-nation decision in October 2004 to insert intelligent design into the science curriculum violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

The ruling was a major setback to the intelligent design movement, which is also waging battles in Georgia and Kansas. Intelligent design holds that living organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher force.

Jones decried the "breathtaking inanity" of the Dover policy and accused several board members of lying to conceal their true motive, which he said was to promote religion.

A six-week trial over the issue yielded "overwhelming evidence" establishing that intelligent design "is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory," said Jones, a Republican and a churchgoer appointed to the federal bench three years ago.

The school system said it will probably not appeal the ruling, because the members who backed intelligent design were ousted in November's elections and replaced with a new slate opposed to the policy.

During the trial, the board argued that it was trying improve science education by exposing students to alternatives to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection.

The policy required students to hear a statement about intelligent design before ninth-grade lessons on evolution. The statement said Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps." It referred students to an intelligent-design textbook, "Of Pandas and People."

But the judge said: "We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom."

In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot require public schools to balance evolution lessons by teaching creationism.

Eric Rothschild*'I am the great aristocrat savior direct desendant of the great architect' Rothschild* , an attorney for the families who challenged the policy, called the ruling "a real vindication for the parents who had the courage to stand up and say there was something wrong in their school district."

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which represented the school district and describes its mission as defending the religious freedom of Christians, said: "What this really looks like is an ad hominem attack on scientists who happen to believe in God."

It was the latest chapter in a debate over the teaching of evolution dating back to the Scopes trial, in which Tennessee biology teacher John T. Scopes was fined $100 for violating a state law against teaching evolution.

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court in Georgia heard arguments over whether a suburban Atlanta school district had the right to put stickers on biology textbooks describing evolution as a theory, not fact. A federal judge last January ordered the stickers removed.

In November, state education officials in Kansas adopted new classroom science standards that call the theory of evolution into question.

President Bush also weighed in on the issue of intelligent design recently, saying schools should present the concept when teaching about the origins of life.

In his ruling, Jones said that while intelligent design, or ID, arguments "may be true, a proposition on which the court takes no position, ID is not science." Among other things, he said intelligent design "violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation"; it relies on "flawed and illogical" arguments; and its attacks on evolution "have been refuted by the scientific community."

"The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources," he wrote.

The judge also said: "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

Former school board member William Buckingham, who advanced the policy, said from his new home in Mt. Airy, N.C., that he still feels the board did the right thing.

"I'm still waiting for a judge or anyone to show me anywhere in the Constitution where there's a separation of church and state," he said. "We didn't lose; we were robbed."

The controversy divided Dover and surrounding Dover Township, a rural area of nearly 20,000 residents about 20 miles south of Harrisburg. It galvanized voters to oust eight school board members who supported the policy in the Nov. 8 school board election. The ninth board member was not up for re-election.

The new school board president, Bernadette Reinking, said the board intends to remove intelligent design from the science curriculum and place it in an elective social studies class. "As far as I can tell you, there is no intent to appeal," she said.

posted December 20, 2005 11:28 PM              

A NATION
AN ACT ON ION RATION REACTION
NOT TO EAT OR ROT
CAN EAT OR ROT
RO(O)T TRE(E)
ORION RA TOA, NEAT!
CREAT(E) NATION TO A NOTE

so, I can ssay that we are not apes, or apes would no longer exist, you know evolution
we have been fallen man

we are children of God, Star Seeds
each an indiviual, with your own specail notes, your symphony
all together in Peace
would BE perfect Harmony... ...

posted December 21, 2005 01:13 AM            

I mean, didn't all life evolve from single-celled organisms? And don't we still have those?

posted December 21, 2005 11:05 AM              

Jesus performed miracles, he was the Son
of God, you think Jesus was an ape, before
becoming human
HELLo,
WE are divine, children of God
Created from the Heavens
Star Seeds of the Planets
A RATIO OF IONS, MOLECULES
Universal Laws

they you must not believe in astrolgy either
why would the planets guide you
why under a special sign?

posted December 21, 2005 02:19 PM            

All I'm saying is that any human who doesn't think that (s)he evolved from an ape - who wants to seperate themselves off from the rest of the animal kingdom - is doing so because of ego reasons (they don't want to think they are descended from animals) than out of actual scientific understanding.

posted December 21, 2005 02:23 PM              

You are divine too!
We all are... ...

posted December 21, 2005 02:28 PM              

each a perfect design in itself

the Human Mind is Amazing
and knows right from wrong

posted December 21, 2005 03:42 PM              

We were born into this World as Man
and Woman
there are other Universes
where we could have been born anything

This is what is so special about Earth
we were gods and goddesses
and chose this billion year journey
for the quest of senses, Earthly ones
and then it all went to hell... ...

posted December 21, 2005 03:52 PM            

Sooo, what would you say about the superficial resemblance between homo sapiens and lower primates? Is that just a coincidence? Surely you won't deny that, at least physically, we look a bit like some apes? (Gorilla's especially are very majestic creatures... )

posted December 21, 2005 02:50 PM              

I like banana's, and Curious George!

posted December 21, 2005 08:08 PM              

No offense to the scientists, of course.

For the record ... I do believe in evolution, both spiritual and material, but I do not believe I share a family tree with the apes.

posted December 21, 2005 09:42 PM            

-------------------------------------------

Scientists Find Gene That Makes People Brown or White

Newly Found Gene First Located in Fish Sheds Light on Complex Trait of Skin Color

By AMANDA ONION

Dec. 14, 2005 — In a discovery that begins to shed light on what makes one person brown and another white, scientists have identified a gene that appears to be a key player in human pigmentation.

People share 99.9 percent of the same genes, yet pinpointing the very minor genetic variations that cause skin-color differences long has been a mystery to scientists. This discovery, published in the journal Science, marks a significant step toward understanding what's behind the panoply of human skin tones.

"The gene we found seems to modulate the number, size and density of cellular packets that contain brown pigment," said Keith Cheng, a geneticist at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pa.

Cheng's team found that people with the normal form of the gene SLC24A5 had brown skin, while fair people of European descent carried a modified form of the gene that led to having fewer and smaller pigment packets, known as melanosomes.

Skin-Tone Genes May Help in Understanding Obesity, Blood Pressure

Understanding what causes differences in skin color may seem like a straightforward task, but in fact it's much more complex than understanding variations such as eye color. This is because skin pigmentation is a continuous trait — people aren't simply brown or white, but many shades in between.

Finding the genes behind skin variations could help scientists find new cures for skin cancers and possibly even identify safer ways of tanning than lying in the sun, but more importantly it might help in understanding other critical health conditions. Health factors such as blood pressure, obesity and dementia are all considered to be continuous traits and may be caused by a similar concert of genes.

"Something like gestational diabetes — it's not whether you have it or not — it's how serious it is," explained Gregory Barsh, a geneticist at Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif. "Part of understanding pigmentation is understanding how genes interact to create a trait. Pigmentation is one trait where we can begin to understand how this works."

The Hunt: From Fish to People

Cheng and his colleagues stumbled upon SLC24A5 by accident — while searching for a cancer-causing gene within a common aquarium pet, the zebrafish.

The researchers were looking at the genetics of different versions of the fish to locate genes possibly involved in cancer. It turns out people and zebrafish share many genes, including those that code for pigment. Cheng's team found that a kind of zebrafish called "golden" had fewer, smaller, and less heavily pigmented melanosomes than normal fish. This suggested the same gene may be at play among golden zebrafish and fair-skinned people.

To locate a similar gene in people, Cheng turned to colleague Mark Shriver of Pennsylvania State University to scout through new resource the HapMap. This free database lists genetic variations in the human genome as they're discovered. Shriver zeroed in on SLC24A5 when he found that the same slight variation in the gene was carried by fair people in European populations.

While this gene may cause skin-color differences between West Africans and Europeans, it doesn't seem to play a role in determining the fairer skin tones of Asian people. Cheng, who is ethnic Chinese, says he's now scouting for that gene.

"I have a personal interest," he said, since it would explain his own skin color.

'Race Is Not Skin Color'

Shriver argues that because this newly found gene doesn't explain Asians' fairer skin color, there is a lot yet to learn about skin-color genetics.

"The fact that Europeans and East Asians are similar [in] skin color for different reasons tells us that we still don't know much," he said. "There are more genes to locate."

Finding a gene behind skin pigmentation may be a big step in science, but researchers caution it has no implications for understanding race. Skin color may lie near the root of much controversy and unrest — such as the recent violence in Sydney, Australia, where white youths attacked people they believed to be of Middle Eastern descent. Still, Barsh of Stanford cautions this work is just about deciphering pigmentation.

"Skin color is not race," Barsh said. "Race is a much more complicated concept that involves culture, religion and where your parents are from. It's an important part of society, but it's not about pigment alone."
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1408890