If "intelligent design" supporters weren't so quick to rebuke those who connect their mission to the Bible, it would be tempting to borrow from the Old Testament and describe the upcoming federal trial over the issue as a legal version of David vs. Goliath.

Instead, we'll let the defendants in this case, which pits Dover Area School District against parent plaintiffs, to describe the trial in their own words.

"It's almost David vs. Goliath," says Richard Thompson, of Michigan's Thomas More Law Center, which is defending the York County, Pa., district.

Hmmm. So much for the gag order on all things biblical.

Last autumn, Dover's school board instructed its ninth-grade biology teachers to tell students the theory of evolution is an incomplete one, and that intelligent design, which says biology's minutia presents evidence of an intelligent creator, is an alternative argument to evolution.

Evolution says that life developed subtly, unpredictably and randomly through mutation and, through natural selection, preserved the changes most likely to ensure a species' continued existence on Earth.

Intelligent design is gaining popularity, if not among biologists, then at least among politicians. The top politician himself, President Bush, told reporters last month that schools should teach both evolution and intelligent design "so people can understand what the debate is about."

Supporters of intelligent design say the argument has nothing to do with the Bible, God or the Judeo-Christian account of life's origins found in Genesis. But a group of doubting parents sued the district in December, saying intelligent design amounts to a religious belief, and has no place in a biology course.

The three-paragraph statement read to students is unconstitutional, they say, because it implicitly endorses a superhuman creator, and that breeches the church-state separation wall. Thompson argues it's ironic that a group advocating civil liberties would endorse the censorship of a particular idea.

The trial, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, begins tomorrow in Harrisburg, under the supervision of U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III. Media from around the globe are expected to attend, anticipating that this will be the latest episode in America's longest-running cultural soap-opera: Should public school students be taught, along with evolution, other ideas about how life and humanity came to be?

In the view of Thompson's law center, a firm that litigates on behalf of "Christians and time-honored family values," Dover is David in this real-life parable, and the group of parents, represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, is Goliath.

"It's an attempt by the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to intimidate this tiny school district in Pennsylvania," he said. "They want to make an example of this small school district."

The parents, their attorneys and most scientists and educators see it the other way around.

Intelligent design is pseudo-science, they say, but a well-orchestrated one, funded by Christian literalists who oppose the theory of evolution and promoted slickly during the past 10 years by religious groups. They say intelligent design supporters are disingenuous when they claim their argument has no religious implications, because intelligent design's top advocates have already let the cat out of the bag. Intelligent design opponents point to the words of Phillip Johnson, devout Presbyterian and father of the theory:

"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."

The supporters, despite their religious roots, are then able to suggest scientific legitimacy by pointing to the work of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, home of the design movement. The Discovery Institute itself, however, is not a direct player in the Dover case, and is not supporting the school district.

It's clear that, in Dover, "the board acted with the purpose of promoting religious view," says Pepper Hamilton attorney Stephen G. Harvey. "One board member said, 'Two thousand years ago, a man died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?' " Harvey is repeating an account of a school board meeting published in both of York's daily newspapers. But the board member reported to have made the comment has since said the quotes were fabricated.

An audio tape of the meeting has been destroyed. Harvey and his team are asking the judge for a permanent injunction, striking down the school board's mandate that the intelligent design statement be read to students.

The statement says: "The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's theory of evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part. Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations. Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, 'Of Pandas and People,' is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves. With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments."

The Harrisburg trial is not the first to consider the ideas of evolution and religion. There's the 80-year-old Scopes "Monkey Trial," during which defendant John Scopes was found guilty of a state law that banned the teaching of evolution. In 1968's Epperson v. Arkansas, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an Arkansas statute which prohibited the teaching of evolution. In the 1980s came McLean vs. Arkansas and Edwards vs. Aguillard, which overturned acts demanding schools give equal time to the evolution and "creation science." And in Georgia, a suburban Atlanta district is still fighting a judge's order to remove stickers in science textbooks which say evolution is "a theory, not a fact."

The "theory, not a fact" line is just one of several used by intelligent design proponents in attempts to gin up the appearance of a scientific controversy, ACLU attorney Witold Walczak said.

"That is an old creationist ploy." In truth, he said, "there is simply no controversy in the scientific community." Just because evolution is "just a theory" doesn't make it scientifically suspect. Gravity, too, is a theory.

One of the star witnesses for the plaintiffs is expected to be Kenneth Miller, a biology professor from Brown University and a Roman Catholic, a religious affiliation which gives him "strong propaganda value" as a defender of evolution, according to one of his colleagues, because he shows it's possible to be both a Christian and a supporter of evolution.

Reporters for the York Dispatch and the York Daily Record who wrote about the school board meetings also might testify.

For the defendants, Michael Behe, a biochemist from Lehigh University, and Scott Minnich, a biologist from Idaho, will testify that intelligent design is legitimate science. They also will say that intelligent design concerns itself not with the identity of the intelligent designer, but only with evidence that points to the designer.

Attempts to connect intelligent design to its religious supporters is a smokescreen, meant to obscure real faults in evolutionary theory, said Thompson, the Thomas More center attorney.

The warring parties seem to agree on one thing, that the winner will set a huge legal precedent, although the likelihood of an appeal is high. And if Dover wins the case, "then you will see intelligent design popping up all over the country," Thompson said.