Intelligent Design and Academic Freedom

In a Volokh Conspiracy post, Jonathan Adler addresses those bills that purport to grant academic freedom to high school teachers who wish to present alternatives to the theory of evolution. Citing a Wall Street Journal article on the subject of various bills wending their way through state legislatures, Professor Adler concludes,

Unlike some critics of "Intelligent Design" and other creationist theories, I am not convinced that teaching alternatives to evolution necessarily violates the Establishment Clause. That said, these bills make for horrible public policy, as there is nothing scientific about these "alternatives" to evolution. Encouraging attacks on evolution in high school science classes promotes academic fraud not “academic freedom.” If school boards or state legislatures want public school students to be exposed to competing theories about the origins of life — a question evolutionary theory does not address — they should do it in a world religion or social studies class and leave science alone.