'Design' ruling doesn't alter Buttars' plan
He says Utah schools need to revise way they teach evolution
But that won't affect a Utah legislator's plans to challenge how evolution is approached in public schools here.
"That ruling won't affect my bill at all. . . . My bill isn't written in that manner," Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said. "Never did I say I thought we ought to teach any other faith-based program in a science class."
Last fall, Buttars did propose teaching intelligent design — the concept that life is too complex to be explained by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution alone — in a separate class, such as philosophy or humanities.
But he said even that idea will not be contained in his bill, which he revealed in a private Senate Republican caucus meeting Tuesday but declined to discuss publicly.
"It does challenge the school board, that they're going to have to rewrite their position on evolution to some degree," Buttars said. "Let me put it this way: There is no consensus in the scientific community regarding how life began . . . (so) to have a teacher teaching how life began and calling it fact really offends me. . . . I'm going to stop that. That's all I'm going to say right now."
The policy was believed to have been the first of its kind in the nation.
But Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled "it is unconstitutional to teach (intelligent design) as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."
"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the board who voted for the ID policy," Jones wrote, calling the board's decision "breathtaking inanity."
"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."
In a six-week trial, the board's attorneys had said members wanted to improve science education by exposing students to alternatives to Darwin's theory. Plaintiffs argued intelligent design is repackaging of biblical creationism, which courts have ruled cannot be taught in public schools.
The idea of intelligent design in Utah classrooms sprung up last summer, when Buttars said parents complained their children were being taught that they evolved from apes.
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