After the ruling, authors deleted more than 250 references to "creationism" and the "creator" from draft versions of the book, "Of Pandas and People," and replaced them with "intelligent design" and "intelligent designer," said Barbara Forrest, philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University and author of the book "Creationism's Trojan Horse -- The Wedge of Intelligent Design."
"The substitution was made throughout" the book, Forrest said. Gesturing to a chart on a courtroom screen, she said a computer word search showed how creationism and similar words were eliminated from the "Pandas" text after the Supreme Court ruling.
"You just saw the smoking gun," Nick Matzke, spokesman for the National Center of Science Education, said in an interview after hearing Forrest's testimony. "This proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that intelligent design is creationism."
The book is mentioned as a reference in a four-paragraph statement read to ninth-grade science students in the Dover Area School District. The statement and the reasons why the school board approved it last fall are central to the legal dispute in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg.
Lawyers for the Thomas More Law Center, a nonprofit Christian law firm representing the district, repeatedly objected to Forrest's credentials, saying she has no background in science.
Judge John E. Jones III allowed her to testify as an expert witness and said the defense could object to any questions it deemed to be outside her realm of expertise.
Proponents of intelligent design believe the universe and humans are too complex to be explained through evolution, and therefore must be the work of an unspecified intelligent designer.
Opponents say the statement, which refers students to "Pandas" and intelligent design as an alternative to evolution, injects religion into the high school science curriculum. Supporters of intelligent design say the statement represents a minor curriculum change that does not result in less instruction on evolution.
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