CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A growing number of scientists are saying that the complexity of nature suggests that there must be an intelligent designer behind it all.

But don't tell schoolchildren in Kanawha County, W.Va., that. You're not allowed to.

Public school teachers and school board members were thwarted last month in their efforts to add a book based on the latest intelligent-design theories to school science curricula.

School board members say the American Civil Liberties Union intimidated them into dropping the 1996 book Of Pandas and People by threatening a lawsuit if the text were adopted.

The ACLU has called the book “religion masquerading as science.”

Hillary Chiz, director of the group's West Virginia chapter, said, “The ACLU maintains that anti-evolution material should not be adopted for science texts.

“This is an attempt by the people who believe in creationism to move their agenda forward. The ACLU believes that the only books that should be taught in classes should be science textbooks and not religious books parading around as science textbooks. That would be illegal.”

The ACLU cites the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on a federally established religion to argue its case.

But supporters of the book call it a widely respected alternative to evolutionary theory that should be available to teachers working with an already evolution-heavy curriculum.

David DeWolf, a law professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., has followed the West Virginia controversy closely. He said the ACLU will have a hard time demonstrating that Of Pandas and People is a religious text. The real issue, he said, is whether the courts will continue to allow competing scientific theories into the classroom.

“Intelligent Design Theory does not fit the Supreme Court's definition of religion,” DeWolf wrote in a legal analysis of the controversy. “Rather, it seeks to answer the same question raised by Darwin as well as contemporary biologists — that is, how do biological organisms acquire their appearance of design?”

DeWolf told the Register, “The Supreme Court has approved teaching alternate scientific theories. What the ACLU wants to say is that anything that supports a religious view is unscientific.

“The ACLU is saying that [Of Pandas and People] might lead some people to consider religious explanations as compelling or persuasive. We are saying that you can't foreclose scientific inquiry just because you don't like where it leads.”

Betty Jarvis agreed. The Kanawha County School Board member has three granddaughters in the schools. A believer in creationism, Jarvis said that as a board member she's more interested in education than indoctrination.

“I would never ask anyone to accept creationism based on my faith — that's ludicrous,” Jarvis said. “But you should be exposed to all theories so you can make an intelligent and reasonable decision. If I only teach you one thing then I am indoctrinating you.”

Jarvis explained that the conflict over creationism began in her county months ago when a high school science teacher came before the school board asking if teachers had a right to teach something that was contrary to evolution. The board drew up a resolution and submitted it to an attorney, who said it passed constitutional muster. The ACLU reacted by publicly threatening a lawsuit and the resolution fell by a vote of 4-to-1.

“We had support for it, but several board members folded because they didn't want to put the county at risk” of a lawsuit, said Jarvis, the only vote in favor of the resolution.

The issue was resurrected in March, when a committee of teachers teamed up with a committee of citizens to select new science texts. A member of the citizens committee selected Of Pandas and People as a supplementary text for science teachers.

“Both committees looked at it and we thought it was an excellent book,” Jarvis said. “It had been reviewed by top scientists and science educators around the world and they had positive remarks about it. Everyone was in agreement.”

But within in a matter of days after the book was approved, Jarvis said, two people from the state Department of Education scheduled a meeting with the science supervisor Bob Seymour. Citing three court cases, they told the book selection committee it would be illegal to distribute Of Pandas and People to Kanawha teachers. The panel quickly dropped the book.

Steve McBride, in charge of textbooks for the Department of Education, said he didn't pressure anyone on his March 17 visit to Kanawha County school officials.

“We did not communicate that there was a danger of being sued. He may have deduced that after reading the information that we had given him,” McBride told the Register.

Jarvis said that one board member who supported Of Pandas and People told her he wouldn't fight to keep it. “He said a lawsuit would tie up our resources forever,” Jarvis recalled.

One teacher has filed a grievance against the school district for dropping the book. Also involved is the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, a research organization with strong ties to the intelligent-design movement. A March 27 press release issued by the institute said bluntly:

“The West Virginia chapter of the ACLU is calling for Kanawha County school board members to ban the availability to teachers of a science textbook, promoting censorship and trampling academic freedom.”