Expert Witness in Kitzmiller v. Dover Says Intelligent Design is Disguised Creationism

Author Barbara Forrest Provides Crucial History in Development of Intelligent Design

HARRISBURG, PA - Testimony today in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the first legal challenge to teaching intelligent design, traced the historical progression from creationism to intelligent design and revealed the true nature of the design theory: that it is creationism in disguise.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs presented testimony from Barbara Forrest, Ph.D., an expert on intelligent design and co-author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design . Forrest traced the development of the book Of Pandas and People , an intelligent design-focused textbook that is at the center of the Kitzmiller case.

Pandas systematically introduced the term "intelligent design" when it was first printed in 1989, two years after teaching creationism was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. In Kitzmiller v. Dover , 11 parents are suing the Dover Area School Board for requiring biology teachers to read a statement that presents intelligent design as an alternative theory to evolution and refers students to Pandas textbooks in the school's library. The parents are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the law firm of Pepper Hamilton.

Forrest discussed drafts of Pandas, received after the plaintiffs subpoenaed the book's authors, and testified that the book's authors changed explicit creationist language to intelligent design terminology after the 1987 Supreme Court decision against teaching creationism. Forrest used a graph to chart the decline in the use of the words "creation" and "creationism" and increase in the use of "design" in the drafts of Pandas after the high court's ruling. Her testimony showed that this change in terminology coincided with very little change in the content of the book.

Forrest also discussed the "Wedge Strategy," which is embodied in a document from the intelligent design think tank, the Discovery Institute, which states as their objective the development of Christian and theistic science.

Kitzmiller v. Dover is being argued in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.