FIRST AMENDMENT LAW REVIEW Volume 5 | Issue 1 Article 6 9-1-2006 Why It Mattered to Dover That Intelligent Design Isn't Science Richard B. Katskee Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/falr Part of the First Amendment Commons Recommended Citation Richard B. Katskee, Why It Mattered to Dover That Intelligent Design Isn't Science, 5 First Amend. L. Rev. 112 (2006). Available at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/falr/vol5/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in First Amendment Law Review by an authorized editor of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. WHY IT MATTERED TO DOVER THAT INTELLIGENT DESIGN ISN'T- SCIENCE RIcHARD B. KATSKEE * INTRODUCTION What if you were a consumer concerned about the wholesomeness of a product you were contemplating buying, and, in the highest profile consumer-fraud case in two decades, a court hearing claims against the product's manufacturer issued a decision without looking at the item being sold or the marketing strategy being used? Would you conclude that the court was adequately enforcing the law to protect the public interest? Or what if you were that manufacturer, and the court held you liable for fraud without even considering your proffered defenses? Would you feel that the court had treated you justly? In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District,' the Dover school board and the intelligent-design movement as a whole stood trial on the claim that they were trying to pass off a religious view as though it were a scientific theory, so that they could market it to students in public- school science classrooms.