Timeline of Intelligent Design - Creationism

Creationism

• 1920s: Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy – in an upsurge of fundamentalist religious fervor, anti-evolutionary sentiment stopped U.S. public schools from teaching evolution, through state laws such as Tennessee's 1925 Butler Act, and by getting evolution removed from biology textbooks nationwide.
• 1959 National Defense Education Act, responding to fears of backwardness raised by the 1957 Sputnik, promoted science and Biological Sciences Curriculum Study textbooks teaching evolution were used in almost half of high schools, though the prohibitions were still in place and a 1961 attempt to repeal the Butler Act failed.
• 1961 publication of The Genesis Flood.
• 1965 The term "scientific creationism" gained currency.
• 1967 Michael Polanyi article argued that "machines are irreducible to physics and chemistry" and that "mechanistic structures of living beings appear to be likewise irreducible."
• 1968 Epperson v. Arkansas ruled against state laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution, concluding that they violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which prohibits state aid to religion. States may not alter the curriculum to conform to the beliefs of particular religious sects.
• 1975 Daniel v. Waters rules that a state law requiring biology textbooks discussing "origins or creation of man and his world" to give equal treatment to creation as per Genesis is unconstitutional, creationists change to Creation science omitting explicit biblical references.
• 1977 Hendren v. Campbell rules that use of the 1970 Creation Research Society textbook Biology: A Search For Order In Complexity, though claimed to present a balanced view of evolution and Biblical Creation, promotes a specific sectarian religious view, and is unconstitutional in public schools. "We may note that with each new decision of the courts religious proponents have attempted to modify or tailor their approach to active lobbying in state legislatures and agencies. Softening positions and amending language, these groups have, time and again, forced the courts to reassert and redefine the prohibitions of the First Amendment. Despite new and continued attempts by such groups, however, the courts are bound to determine, if possible, the purpose of the approach."