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One important point made by the plaintiffs' legal team in Kitzmiller v. Dover was that intelligent design was simply another form of creationism and creation science and that, more specifically, the strategies taken by creationists to weaken evolution education followed a systematic path in response to previous court rulings. In this activity, you will investigate this connection and legal decisions against incorporating creationism and creation science into the biology curriculum.
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Video
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The legal history relating to the teaching of evolution in the public school science classroom in the U.S. dates back to the early 1920s with a ban on the teaching of human evolution. Watch the following video from the Evolution program about the Scopes trial of 1925 that put the debate over teaching evolution on front pages across the country.
Scopes Trial
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Interactive
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Review the events from 1930 to 1987 on this interactive timeline. Note that you are going to be reading more specific details about the major court cases later in this session, so you can choose to spend less time on these events now if your time is limited.
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Reading
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Now read an excerpt from the article "10 Significant Court Decisions Regarding Evolution/Creationism" by Molleen Matsumura and Louise Mead.
10 Significant Court Decisions Regarding Evolution/Creationism
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Notebook
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What was the significance of Epperson v. Arkansas, McLean v. Arkansas, and Edwards v. Aguillard? Explain how these court cases influenced the teaching of evolution and creationist attempts to get creationism and creation science into the curriculum. How might this have led to the advocacy of intelligent design?
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