Dover, Pa. ? When talk at the high school here turns to evolution, biology teachers have to make time for Charles Darwin as well as his detractors.

With a vote last month, the school board in this rural south-central Pennsylvania community is believed to have become the first in the nation to mandate the teaching of “intelligent design,” which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by an unspecified higher power.

Critics call the change in the ninth-grade biology curriculum a veiled attempt to require public schoolchildren to learn creationism, a biblical-based view that credits the origin of species to God. Schools typically teach evolution, the theory that Earth is billions of years old and that life forms developed over millions of years.

The state American Civil Liberties Union chapter is reviewing the Dover Area School District case. Its Georgia counterpart, meanwhile, is fighting a suburban Atlanta district’s decision to include a warning sticker in biology textbooks that says evolution is “a theory, not a fact.”

In 1999 the Kansas State Board of Education voted to make teaching evolution optional, but reversed that decision in 2001.

“What Dover has done goes much further than what’s happened in Georgia,” said Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU. “As far as we can tell, Dover is the first school district that has actually mandated intelligent design.”

The district enrolls about 2,800 students. It encompasses the rural community of Dover borough, about 20 miles south of Harrisburg, and a patchwork of farmland and newer suburban developments in several surrounding townships.

‘Balanced presentation’

Katie Froman, left, and Brittany Cook are sophomores at Dover Area High School in Dover, Pa. While several states and school districts have debated how to teach evolution, Dover is the only one to mandate the teaching of intelligent design, which holds that a higher power designed the universe.

The revision was spearheaded by school board member William Buckingham, who heads the board’s curriculum committee.

“I think it’s a downright fraud to perpetrate on the students of this district, to portray one theory over and over,” Buckingham said. “What we wanted was a balanced presentation.”

Although Buckingham describes himself as a born-again Christian and believes in creationism, “This is not an attempt to impose my views on anyone else,” he said.

Two of the dissenting board members, Carol Brown and her husband, Jeff, were so upset that they resigned after the 6-3 vote on Oct. 18.

“We have a vocal group within the community who feel very strongly in an evangelical Christian way that there is no separation of church and state,” Carol Brown said. “Our responsibility to is to represent the viewpoints of all members of the community.”

Statewide science-curriculum standards approved by Pennsylvania’s state Education Board merely ask students to “analyze data … that are relevant to the theory of evolution.”

When the standards were revised three years ago, the board considered language that would have required students to consider evidence that did not support evolution, but the board dropped the idea after critics alleged it would have led to the widespread teaching of creationism in public schools.

Uncertain instruction

Critics of intelligent design contend it is creationism repackaged in more secular-sounding language.

“Creationism in a cheap tuxedo,” said Nicholas Matzke, project information specialist for the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif., which advocates for the teaching of evolution.

Even the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports scientists studying intelligent-design theory, opposes mandating it in schools because it is a relatively new concept, said John West, associate director of the institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

“We’re completely against anyone who says you should downgrade or limit the teaching of evolution,” West said.

Dover biology teacher Jennifer Miller said the curriculum changes had left her uncertain about how to approach her evolution lesson.

“If you put the words ‘intelligent design’ into my curriculum, then I have to teach it,” said Miller, a 12-year veteran. “I’m not sure what that means as to how in-depth we have to go. … I’m looking for more direction from the school board.”