Legal fears halt intelligent design move

SHICKSHINNY, Pa., Jan. 23 (UPI) -- A local school board member in Pennsylvania who is an intelligent design advocate says this is not the right time to introduce ID into classrooms.

Randy Tomasacci, a member of the Northwest Area School Board in Shickshinny, Pa., says he's dropped the idea of introducing intelligent design. "If we do it at all, in any classroom, anywhere, we'll have a lawsuit," he told the Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Times.

Intelligent design holds that life is too complex to have occurred randomly and an unspecified "intelligent designer" had to be involved.

Citing recent court decisions in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, Tomasacci, a former minister, said while he still believes in intelligent design, he doubts it can legally get into classrooms through any action local school boards take.

"The change has to come from higher up," he told the newspaper. "To try to do it on a local school board level is nearly impossible."

Pennsylvania's Northwest Area School Board covers 117 square miles in an area located about 100 miles northwest of Philadelphia.