80 years later, nothing has changed

This year will be the 80th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial. As this anniversary approaches this summer, Salon.com has a detailed report on how the Dover Board of Education in Pennsylvania has mandated the teaching of intelligent design in its schools (you'll need to watch a brief commercial to read the article--just hit the "Free Day Pass" button). I had heard about it before but had not until now read about it in such detail. I find it utterly depressing that apparently nothing has changed in this country in the 80 years or so since the Scopes Trial that religious fundamentalists are foisting their religion on. If a religion as conservative as the Catholic Church can find a way to accept evolution (Pope John Paul II has explicitly said－albeit grudgingly－that evolution is not incompatible with Church doctrine, although he did piss off Catholic fundamentalists by doing so), why is it that in the U.S. so many people can't differentiate religion from science?

Intelligent design is just another means of disguising creationism to make it sound a little less religious, but it still relies upon the assumption that there is a higher being guiding evolution. One does not have to be an atheist or agnostic to see how intelligent design is religion, rather than science. (Although I might be approaching borderline agnosticism, I am definitely not an atheist. However, even when my level of belief was higher, I could still see the difference between religion disguised as science and actual science.) Science requires testable, falsifiable hypotheses. Intelligent design contains none, as there is no way of ever proving or (more importantly) of disproving the existence of this "higher" force that is supposedly guiding evolution. (Just as an intelligent design advocate what piece of evidence it would take to prove intelligent design false, and you'll see what I mean.) Intelligent design starts with a hypothesis and then seeks to line up evidence to support it, rather than being a hypothesis that derives from scientific observation and experimentation and then can be tested. Belief in such a higher being or force is a matter of faith, not science, and should not be passed off as science. Teaching intelligent design is just another way for fundamentalists to force public schools to teach children their specific religious beliefs, which are not even shared by all (or probably even most) Christians.