Theory of intelligent design enters Blount Co. high schools

Theory of intelligent design enters Blount Co. high schools

January 20, 2005

By TEARSA SMITH
6 News Anchor/Reporter

BLOUNT COUNTY (WATE) -- If you have high schoolers in Blount County and you haven't heard of intelligent design, you'll hear plenty about it in the future. It's an alternative to teaching evolution.

Currently, biology text books in Blount County high schools include several theories on evolution, but not the theory of intelligent design.

However, the school board recently approved the theory for teachers to introduce.

"Biology teachers in particular would be able to teach the controversies perhaps within the evolutionary theory. That would be the major thing," says board member Dr. Don McNelly.

The intelligent design theory says that human biology and evolution are so complex it has to require the creative hand of an intelligent force.

"Encouraging our teachers to teach the controversies with respect to biological origin, within a secular content, not relying on anything other than the research," McNelly says.

The move comes on the heals of a national debate and controversy. Some parents in Dover, Pennsylvania are outraged with their school system's adoption of intelligent design. They're even suing the town, calling the move unconstitutional because it favors creationism.

Blount County officials hope to avoid that. "We haven't relied on any religious background, any religious theory. It's secular and it says in essence it's life that has been designed, has to have been designed," McNelly explains.

To the best of the school boards' knowledge, there isn't a current text book that teaches intelligent design. For now, teachers will have to design their own curriculums.