The American Heritage Dictionary defines religion as “the belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.” This religion, regardless of its virtues it may have for some, has no place in our public schools.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” mandating the separation of church and state. In such cases as Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), in which the state of Louisiana tried to call for “balanced treatment” of creationism and evolution, the Supreme Court held that teaching religion in public schools violates the Establishment Clause and shall not be allowed.

However, in states like Pennsylvania and Kansas, advocates of intelligent design are posing a threat to the precious principle of the separation of church and state, which, coupled with freedom of religion, ensures that Americans can pursue their own religions and live harmoniously side-by-side. Gunn, as a microcosm of the United States, represents a multitude of religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and atheism, to name a few. Given this multicultural reality, favoring one religion over another in the form of intelligent design education would neither wise nor just, even if it were allowed.

Nonetheless, religious extremists are still attempting to sneak religion into the classroom, claiming that their version of creationism is science, not religion. They challenge the validity of the overwhelmingly widely accepted evolutionary theory and argue that some aspects of living things, such as the complexity and diversity of life, are best explained by an intelligent cause or being—a code name for the Christian God—rather than through Darwin’s theory of evolution.

But most scientists, such as Brian Alters, who teaches science education at Harvard University, maintain that the teaching of intelligent design is not science. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), “science is a search for natural explanations of observable phenomena,” and to qualify as science, a theory must be verifiable by external evidence. The theory of intelligent design is not verifiable and thus cannot be considered science.

According to Time magazine, almost one-third of 1,050 teachers who participated in the March 2005 National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) online survey reportedly felt pressured to include the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in their curriculum, while 30 percent felt pressured even to omit evolution altogether. These alarmingly high statistics show the increasingly widespread influence of intelligent design advocates trying to redefine science.

Last year, Pennsylvania’s Dover Area School District (DASD) directed teachers to refer students to textbooks teaching intelligent design in addition to evolution, prompting 11 angry parents to sue the district this past September.

Also, NSTA and NAS issued a joint statement on Oct. 27 criticizing the Kansas State Board of Education’s (KSBE) science curriculum standards as an attempt “to redefine what constitutes science” with a biased emphasis on controversy in the theory of evolution and as “confusing to students and the public and is entirely misleading.” Kansas’s curriculum standards had previously received a flunking grade of F- in a 2000 report by the Fordham Foundation for deleting Darwin as well as all references to the age of Earth and the universe.

Like KSBE and DASD, proponents of intelligent design are trying to circumvent the constitutional ban on teaching religion at publicly supported schools by calling creationism a science. Yet it is little more than a thinly veiled attempt to bring Christian fundamentalists’ creationism doctrine to the classroom. A rose by any other name is a rose, and if the substance of the teaching constitutes religious beliefs, it is religion and does not belong in the classroom—even if it is washed over with the term “science.”

Religion can thrive at churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and other houses of worship. But keep it out of our classrooms.