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Immunology in the spotlight at the Dover 'Intelligent Design' trial

Nature Immunology volume 7, pages 433–435 (2006)Cite this article

Immunology had an unexpected and decisive part in challenging the claims of 'Intelligent Design' proponents at the US trial on the teaching of evolution in public schools in Dover, Pennsylvania.

Although the magnitude of the win for science education was a surprise to some, the actual outcome of the trial was in very little doubt, for many reasons. Board members had made clear, through public declarations at board meetings and to the media, their intention to have some form of religious creationism taught in biology classes alongside evolution, which they considered akin to atheism. US Supreme Court rulings have established and repeatedly reaffirmed that governmental policies with the purpose or effect of establishing religion are inadmissible because they violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution. It also did not help their cause that Judge Jones found that some of the board members “either testified inconsistently, or lied outright under oath” about some statements and about the source of the donated Of Pandas and People books, the money for which was raised by one of the board members at his own church.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the authors of the articles and books on the evolution of the immune system presented during the trial (http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/exhibits/immune/index.html) and contributors to Panda's Thumb (http://www.pandasthumb.org) and Talkorigins Archive (http://www.talkorigins.org) for suggestions during the trial and for comments on this manuscript. The decision, trial transcripts and all court documents are available through the National Center for Science Education (http://www2.ncseweb.org/wp/).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, 14642, New York, USA

    Andrea Bottaro

  2. Department of Pathology, Beckman Center, Stanford University, Stanford, 94305, California, USA

    Matt A Inlay

  3. National Center for Science Education, Oakland, 94609, California, USA

    Nicholas J Matzke

Authors
  1. Andrea Bottaro
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  2. Matt A Inlay
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  3. Nicholas J Matzke
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Correspondence to Andrea Bottaro.

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Bottaro, A., Inlay, M. & Matzke, N. Immunology in the spotlight at the Dover 'Intelligent Design' trial. Nat Immunol 7, 433–435 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni0506-433

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