Intelligent design simply says that "we believe there's no way that you can start from nothing and by accident, life appears," the state senator said. Evolutionists like to criticize faith, he said, but believing in the accidental appearance of life is "the greatest leap of faith I've ever heard of."

The attack against human evolution is supported by John Morris, a national advocate of intelligent design, who will come to Utah in November to discuss the issue. The president of the Institute for Creation Research, North Santee, Calif., he will be at Calvary Chapel of Salt Lake City, 460 W. Century Drive, Nov. 18-19. The chapel's Web site says his visit is part of "Creation Weekend."

"I feel that evolution has become a state religion, and it is being taught in the public schools at taxpayer expense, to the exclusion of religious ideas," said Morris, contacted at the institute. "This is a problem."

Schoolchildren should be taught evolution because it is the dominant belief of scientists, he said. "But they need to be taught all about evolution, including the evidence which does not support evolution."

Intelligent design "is not a religious movement," he said. "There are individuals in that movement of every stripe, from atheist to agnostic to Christian to whatever."

Whether intelligent design is taught in school depends on the approach, said Tom McClenahan, academic dean and professor of Old Testament Studies at Salt Lake Theological Seminary. If it is expressed as a form of Creationism, it has philosophical and religious assumptions, and those should be made clear and specific in any discussion, he said.

On the other hand, intelligent design could be discussed as a theory that says certain aspects of the universe are best explained by a directed cause rather than random events.

"That seems to be to be just two alternative theories," McClenahan said, "and they could be presented as two scientific hypotheses."

According to Goldsmith, the intelligent design argument is an insult to both religion and science.

Even if there were not a well-established biological theory of evolution — and there is — intelligent design still would not be the way to go, he said. "It's just bad science.

"Science relies on testability, which intelligent design doesn't have," Goldsmith added.

"People who advocate for intelligent design claim that it's not a religious theory because it does not explicitly mention God. But it relies on some unknowable, all-powerful intelligence," Goldsmith said.

"The fact that you do not call that intelligence 'God' does not mean it is not a religious theory."