Does Intelligent Design Violate The Constitution?

In October 2004, the Dover Area School District of York County, Pennsylvania, changed its biology teaching curriculum to require intelligent design presented as an alternative to the evolution theory. An alternative textbook advocating intelligent design, was to be used as a reference book. The judge found intelligent design as a form of creationism and ruled it violated the First Amendment of the Constitution. The ruling caused an uproar in different opinions and remarks from both sides. The whole argument could have could have been solved if the school had decided to teach both evolution and intelligent design. By teaching both intelligent design and evolutions schools would allow students to reach their full academic potential and they would not violate the Constitution.
Schools should spend equal time on both ideas to allow students to reach their …show more content…
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”. Since the amendment says that Congress should not establish a religion or abridge freedom of speech, by only supporting one idea that would be similar to establishing a “religion” because they are favoring one idea and not talking about the other. Many argue that intelligent design violates the constitution because of its religion base but according to the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center, “Intelligent design is a bona fide scientific theory, and there is nothing stopping it from being taught for the purpose of enhancing the scientific learning of students.” This means that intelligent design is different from creationism because it is based on scientific and empirical data. The facts above state that teaching only one idea would violate the Constitution as well limit the level of scientific learning students