It's hard to overstress the importance of the "intelligent design" trial going on now in Dover, Pa. Science is watching. So are teachers, judges, students, believers, lawyers and political leaders all over the world.

The result of Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District et al. could change how science is taught in schools throughout the land.

In October 2004, the board of the Dover Area School District voted 6-3 to reword the ninth-grade biology curriculum. Before beginning to teach evolution, science teachers must now read students a four-paragraph statement on a theory called "intelligent design" or ID.

Questioning Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, ID asserts that the complexity of living things could not have come about by random mutation, as in the Darwinian view. There must be an intelligence behind the design of the universe - a designer. Eleven parents have sued in federal court, claiming the board's decision amounts to teaching public school students a particular religious viewpoint and thus violates the constitutional separation of church and state. ID proponents say their theory isn't religious because it does not mention God. Now Judge John E. Jones 3d must decide who's right.

There's an easy, dignified fix to all this. But there's been such zeal on the ID side and such horror on the pro-Darwin side that it is seldom mentioned.

There's nothing evil about mentioning belief in a creator in a science class. No, it's not science - but that doesn't make it toxic. If the topic comes up when evolution is discussed (and it very well might), teachers should be prepared to allow discussion - while making clear that the focus of the class will be science.

Same thing in textbooks. Nothing wrong with a "blue-boxing" mention of belief in a creator. How about a sidebar that says: "Many religious traditions have a different approach to explaining human origins, and they are worthy of study and respect"? Many science texts already do this.

True, many pro-Darwinists would say even this dignified, easy fix would be too much. They are afraid of ceding any ground whatsoever to people they consider "creationists." In 2005, the 80th anniversary of the Scopes Trial, they feel the chilling effect of fundamentalist politics.

At any rate, such a judicious fix is not what the Dover board voted to do. And it surely is not the limit of what proponents of intelligent design want. The Dover board ordered teachers to read something to their students that called into doubt one of the fundamental ideas in science - which is the exact opposite of what science educators should do.

Big guns are arrayed on both sides. What's at stake? Plenty. If Judge Jones finds for the Dover board, it would set a bad precedent of letting special-interest groups - not scientists - define what "science" means in our classrooms. That might hinder learning and dissuade coming generations of would-be scientists and science teachers. Around the world, people will scratch their heads at the war between American conservatives and science, a war in which the White House has taken sides.

The hearings so far have been impassioned. Among the expert witnesses for the plaintiffs was Kenneth R. Miller, Brown University biologist, Roman Catholic, and author of Finding Darwin's God, a remarkable book that censures both fundamentalist creationism and the dismissive atheism of some scientists. Miller sees, as do millions of others, that evolution and Christian faith are compatible.

Miller said all the right things. He stood firm that evolution is not "only a theory," as ID's devious semantic dodge would have it. Evolution is a scientific-theory-with-the-status-of-fact, abundantly demonstrated in the lab, the field, and everyday experience. The mandated statement, he said, "falsely undermines the scientific status of evolutionary theory."

As Miller rightly told the court, ID is not science. It involves no experiments, no lab work, no direct testing. Proponents simply grandstand and take potshots at Darwin."

Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University and an author on intelligent design, said on Oct. 7 that ID was "right out of the creationist's playbook." Many of the people behind "creation science" (which the Supreme Court barred from public schools in 1987) are now pushing intelligent design; in fact, as Forrest showed, they often use almost the exact same language and arguments.

Part of the problem here is that some advocates of science - not all by any means, but some - tend to conflate their personal agnosticism with the methods and achievements of science. They dismiss with airy disdain the billions of people who have beheld the cosmos with awe and reverence, and found in it the signs of a divine hand. They go too far.

But so did the Dover school board.

Alas, the lines are drawn. The Dover lawyers say that, if they lose here, it's off to the Supreme Court.

Jones probably will not hand down his decision until around wintertime. Here's hoping that he will see what neither pro-Darwinists nor ID proponents will acknowledge: that by turning issues like this into an all-or-nothing war, they are putting us - and our children - in a blue box.