Intelligent design an option.

High school students in the Dover Area (Penn.) School District have a choice of hearing a statement about "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution in their biology classes.

At one time, the district required the evolution theory be mentioned in teaching biology. Early this year, the district had required science teachers to mention intelligent design in class, which essentially states that the universe is so complex that a higher force, or God, is responsible for creating it.

Now, the district allows a choice, after seven science teachers signed a letter in January objecting to the policy on grounds that it would violate the state's professional standards and practices code for teachers. Many teachers had objected to reading the statement about intelligent design because it is "not science," according to Tom Scott, an attorney for the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

Students were allowed to be excused from listening to the statement about evolution, before starting the evolution series in biology earlier this year, if their parents objected.