With apologies to other brief histories. Court cases: Scopes v. State, 289 S.W. 363 (Tenn. 1927). The 'Monkey Trial' Epperson v. State of Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), which struck down a similar Arkansas prohibition of the teaching of evolution. In Epperson, the Supreme Court held the Arkansas law unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because its purpose was the advancement of a religious belief in the creation account found in the Book of Genesis, and the protection of such religious belief against a contrary scientific theory. (Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987)). The Supreme Court noted that parents entrust their children to the schools “on the understanding that the classroom will not purposely be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and his or her family.” Further the court noted that because children are impressionable and public school attendance is mandatory, the courts are especially vigilant of Establishment Clause violations. from http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html "Launched by Phillip E. Johnson's book Darwin on Trial (1991), the intelligent-design movement crystallized in 1996 as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), sponsored by the Discovery Institute, a conservative Seattle think tank. Johnson, a law professor whose religious conversion catalyzed his antievolution efforts, assembled a group of supporters who promote design theory through their writings, financed by CRSC fellowships. According to an early mission statement, the CRSC seeks "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies." "Johnson refers to the CRSC members and their strategy as the Wedge, analogous to a wedge that splits a log -- meaning that intelligent design will liberate science from the grip of "atheistic naturalism." Ten years of Wedge history reveal its most salient features: Wedge scientists have no empirical research program and, consequently, have published no data in peer-reviewed journals (or elsewhere) to support their intelligent-design claims. But they do have an aggressive public relations program, which includes conferences that they or their supporters organize, popular books and articles, recruitment of students through university lectures sponsored by campus ministries, and cultivation of alliances with conservative Christians and influential political figures." "The Wedge aims to "renew" American culture by grounding society's major institutions, especially education, in evangelical religion. In 1996, Johnson declared: "This isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." According to Dembski, intelligent design "is just the Logos of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." Wedge strategists seek to unify Christians through a shared belief in "mere" creation, aiming -- in Dembski's words -- "at defeating naturalism and its consequences." This enables intelligent-design proponents to coexist in a big tent with other creationists who explicitly base their beliefs on a literal interpretation of Genesis." "As Christians," writes Dembski, "we know naturalism is false. Nature is not self-sufficient. … Nonetheless neither theology nor philosophy can answer the evidential question whether God's interaction with the world is empirically detectable. To answer this question we must look to science." Jonathan Wells, a biologist, and Michael J. Behe, a biochemist, seem just the CRSC fellows to give intelligent design the ticket to credibility. Yet neither has actually done research to test the theory, much less produced data that challenges the massive evidence accumulated by biologists, geologists, and other evolutionary scientists. Wells, influenced in part by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, earned Ph.D.'s in religious studies and biology specifically "to devote my life to destroying Darwinism." Behe sees the relevant question as whether "science can make room for religion." At heart, proponents of intelligent design are not motivated to improve science but to transform it into a theistic enterprise that supports religious faith." "Wedge supporters are at present trying to insert intelligent design into Ohio public-school science standards through state legislation. Earlier the CRSC advertised its science education site by assuring teachers that its "Web curriculum can be appropriated without textbook adoption wars" -- in effect encouraging teachers to do an end run around standard procedures. Anticipating a test case, the Wedge published in the Utah Law Review a legal strategy for winning judicial sanction. Recently the group almost succeeded in inserting into the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 a "sense of the Senate" that supported the teaching of intelligent design. So the movement is advancing, but its tactics are no substitute for real science." "If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work." quoting CRSC doocuments.