Pennsylvania is about to become ground zero in the national debate about teaching "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution in public schools.

In a first-of-its-kind case set for trial in U.S. District Court Monday in Harrisburg, parents from Dover in York County will challenge a local school board order introducing intelligent design into high school biology courses. Parents charge -- correctly, in our view -- that the board is putting religion into the classroom in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Similar conflicts have been flaring around the country, as fundamentalist believers wage a new battle against Charles Darwin. President Bush even weighed in on the national debate a few weeks ago, suggesting that schools should teach both topics, "so people can understand what the debate is about."

The debate is about perhaps the longest and most serious conflict in modern times between science and religion. The Dover case comes 80 years after the famous Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tenn., first tested the legality of teaching evolution.

Make no mistake. Intelligent design is old-time, Bible-thumping creationism given a new name. It maintains that living things are far too complex to have arisen through natural selection and other tools of evolution. That demands the biblical version of the origin of the universe and life.

Scientists can roil, scoff and point to massive amounts of evidence that the first true humans appeared at least 1.2 million years ago, but some people believe otherwise. Opinion polls show that about half of the American population rejects evolution. More than half believe that God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

The debate has festered, in part, because of a fundamental failure of the scientific community to accept the magnitude of public uneasiness with evolution, and respond effectively. What response is needed?

Education, of course, to better inform the public about a bedrock concept of modern science. Ironically, the debate itself is distracting school boards from badly needed efforts to improve science teaching.

Research is also essential to resolve minor uncertainties about evolution that creationists exploit with skill. Science should close those gaps, however small or seemingly unimportant.

Scientists also must get out more -- into their own communities -- and speak up on critical issues like intelligent design. Most importantly, they must seek positions on school boards and other offices that fall into the hands of individuals who exploit public misunderstanding of science to advance their personal religious agendas.