A who's who of players in the battle of biology class

In the long battle over the teaching of evolution in American public schools, activists Eugenie Scott and Bruce Chapman both like to claim the role of underdog.

Ms. Scott feels outgunned by the hefty financial resources of her opponents and worries about "frightening" budget cuts on her own front. Mr. Chapman, meanwhile, argues that his troops are vastly outnumbered in some important areas. "We're up against a whole ... establishment," he says.

Two peas in a pod? Not quite. While they both claim to face entrenched and powerful foes, Scott and Chapman are on the opposite sides of the evolution debate. Scott is the country's leading advocate for the teaching of evolution in the classroom, while Chapman's Seattle-based institute promotes an "intelligent design" theory that suggests that only an all-powerful force - not the randomness of natural selection - could have created the incredible complexity of life.

Besides a desire to be seen as soldiers in a challenging and important war, the two leaders and other activists on various sides of the debate over evolution in public schools share other similarities: They're fully committed and, in some cases, well-funded.

Armed with millions of dollars in donations, dozens of people are devoting their lives to ensuring that their beliefs are the ones kids learn in school. As a series of new battles over evolution erupts in the South, Midwest, and Northeast, just about everyone claims to be dedicated to the principles of science.

Adherents of the theory of evolution, of course, include many scientists, possibly the wide majority of them. Proponents of teaching biblical creation and intelligent design boast their own scientists, too, some at prestigious universities and others at places like the Institute for Creation Research, which runs a museum and center in the San Diego suburb of Santee, Calif. "I'm a scientist, and I love science," says its president, John Morris, a geologic engineer. "But I'm also truth-driven. If I see error that needs to be confronted, truth needs to be taught and spread."

Mr. Morris and others are watching closely as public schools in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin wrangle over the teaching of evolution.

In perhaps the most far-ranging move, a tiny, one-high-school district in southern Pennsylvania mandated instruction in the theory of intelligent design, which has appeared over the last couple of decades as an alternative to both Darwinian evolution and a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. The theory doesn't specify the identity of the creator of the universe, and its proponents include people of faiths other than Christianity.

The budgets of the evolution critics are large, according to recent financial documents.

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