"There is an attempt to integrate a religious view into the curriculum," said Jim Lowery, a desert survival guide. "People can have a religious view but they can't say it's science."
Institutions of learning and religious institutions coexisted peacefully for years in the mountains that separate the San Joaquin Valley from the more shambolic Los Angeles Basin. However, when the religious alternative to evolution was presented to the high school students in Levek by the wife of the local pastor, the debate moved from the classroom to the court.
"There is an attempt to integrate a religious view into the curriculum," said Jim Lowery, a desert survival guide. "People can have a religious view but they can't say it's science." The subject discussed is whether a lesson called "Philosophy of Planning" crosses the constitutional line separating religion and state by giving credibility to the theory of "Intelligent Design", a theory according to which life is so complex that it had to be created by a higher being.
A federal court in Pennsylvania recently blocked Dover County's requirement to teach creationism in science classes.
