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Classroom evolution.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Jeff Wright The Register-Guard

The controversial concept of "intelligent design" continues to have its day in court, thanks to eight families in Pennsylvania who've sued to have it removed from their local school district's biology curriculum.

But while often viewed as a recent wrinkle in the evolution vs. creation debate, intelligent design is no newcomer notion - just ask the folks in Reedsport who lobbied to have it added to the local high school science curriculum back in 1995.

That's the same year the Springfield School Board balked at approving four new science textbooks because they failed to treat creationism as a legitimate scientific theory alongside evolution.

The Reedsport School Board ultimately heeded a legal opinion that teaching intelligent design in a public school science class would be unconstitutional, and the Springfield board voted 3-2 to adopt the science textbooks.

But 10 years later, the issue hasn't gone away - nationally or locally. In addition to the court dispute in Dover, Penn., the debate rages in Kansas, where the state school board has adopted preliminary science standards that require a disclaimer about the merits of evolution, and other communities across the country.

In Oregon, the issue has surfaced in school board races in Bend, Salem, Portland and elsewhere, and could come into play when the state Department of Education's scientific standards come up for review in 2008, spokesman Gene Evans says.

A flurry of inquiries prompted the Education Department in August to send letters...

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