Evolution Battles Hits Dover, PA School

From the wire:

On opposite sides of town, two billboards for competing slates of school board candidates illustrate the deep divide here over the teaching of evolution and the origin of life.

One sign shouts, "It's time for a new school board in Dover!" The other describes the seven sitting board members as "the INTELLIGENT choice" — a reference to the board's decision last fall to require the mention of "intelligent design" in class.

In what is believed to be a first in the United States, the school board voted 6-3 in October to require that ninth-grade students be told about intelligent design when they learn about evolution in biology class. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex, it must have been created by some kind of guiding force.

Tuesday's primary election promises to be a battle royal among 18 candidates evenly divided over the intelligent-design mandate in this 3,400-student school system about 20 miles from Harrisburg.

"We would have no interest this year if not for the intelligent-design issue. It is the overriding concern," said school board president Sheila Harkins, who is up for re-election.

The intelligent-policy is being challenged in a federal lawsuit scheduled to go to trial in September. The plaintiffs are eight families who claim that intelligent design is merely biblical creationism disguised in secular language, and has no place in a science classroom.