After the Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court ruling that creationism is religion and not science, these were changed to refer to "intelligent design".

The book argues that the origin of new organisms is "in an immaterial cause: in a blueprint, a plan, a pattern, devised by an intelligent agent".

In 1989 the National Center for Science Education published three reviews of the book: Kevin Padian, a biologist at University of California, Berkeley, called it "a wholesale distortion of modern biology".

[10] In the third of these reviews, Gerald Skoog, Professor of Education at Texas Tech University, wrote that the book reflected a creationist strategy to focus their "attack on evolution", interpreting the Edwards v. Aguillard ruling as though it legitimized "teaching a variety of scientific theories", but the book did not contain a scientific theory or model to "balance" against evolution, and was "being used as a vehicle to advance sectarian tenets and not to improve science education".

[13][14][15] The book is published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), a non-profit organization founded by ordained minister Jon Buell in Richardson, Texas, in 1980 as a tax-exempt charitable and educational organization, with articles of incorporation which stated that its purpose includes "proclaiming, publishing, preaching [and] teaching…the Christian Gospel and understanding of the Bible and the light it sheds on the academic and social issues of the day".

In the original Internal Revenue Service tax-exemption submission, Buell described the foundation as a "Christian think-tank" and stated that the organization's first activity would be the editing of a book "showing the scientific evidence for creation".

"[17][c] In 1981, the FTE advertised in a creationist newspaper, seeking authors for a textbook that would be "sensitively written to present both evolution and creation".

[19] Their first production was Unlocking the secrets: The Mystery of Life's Origin by creationist Charles Thaxton (a chemist), Walter L. Bradley, and Roger L.

When Mystery was ready to go to the printers late in 1982, work began on the textbook, written by Kenyon and Percival Davis with Thaxton as editor.

If creationist teaching in schools was explicitly permitted by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Louisiana "Balanced Treatment Act" case that was then ongoing, the FTE's founder Jon Buell wrote that "you can throw out these projections, the nationwide market would be explosive!

The court determined that teaching creationism in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution, but that alternative scientific theories could be taught.

In 1987 a further draft of the book was produced with the new title Of Pandas and People, which still had the definition "creation means that various forms of life began abruptly",[23] and used the term "creationists": The basic metabolic pathways (reaction chains) of nearly all organisms are the same.

Dean H. Kenyon had presented an affidavit to the court in which he defined "creation science" as meaning "origin through abrupt appearance in complex form", which did "not include as essential parts... catastrophism, a world-wide flood, a recent inception of the earth or life,... the concept of kinds, or any concepts from Genesis or other religious texts",[29] but this attempt to re-define creation science did not succeed in the Edwards case.

[30] According to the Discovery Institute's account published in December 2005, Charles Thaxton as editor of the Pandas book needed a new term after the Supreme Court case, and found it in a phrase he "picked up from a NASA scientist – intelligent design".

Printing costs were met by donations to the FTE, whose members were told in a December 1988 fundraising letter that donors would receive an enameled box with a panda on the lid as a gift.

Previous creationist efforts to dilute or overturn the teaching of evolutionary theory had relied largely on a "top-down" approach of pro-creationist legislators passing laws to regulate science education in schools.

For instance, on the controversial issue of ID's perceived overlap with religion, the FTE's suggested response read:[27] I agree that personal beliefs should not be taught in science classrooms, but intelligent design is not a personal belief; it is accepted science, a view that is held by many highly qualified scientists.The FTE was aided in this effort by "traditional" creationist organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research, which sells Of Pandas and People through its own online shop and catalogue.

[34] Discovery Institute Senior Fellows William A. Dembski and Jonathan Wells are the listed authors of this edition, presented as a sequel.

"[44] A review of Of Pandas and People by paleontologist Kevin Padian of the University of California at Berkeley for the National Center for Science Education's Bookwatch Reviews in 1989 called the book a "wholesale distortion of modern biology", and says that FTE's writers had misrepresented such topics as the Cambrian explosion, the history of birds, and the concept of homology.

This has caused several notable controversies, culminating in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case in Pennsylvania in which the contents and antecedents of the book came under scrutiny.

In March 1990, the school board in Pinellas County, Florida, rejected an appeal by a retired minister "to adopt the textbook Of Pandas and People that would offer a creationist's view".

[52] The Wall Street Journal reported in November that according to the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, 22,500 copies of the book had been printed and teachers and curriculum buyers in 48 states had bought it.

[27] In January 1995, conservative members of the Plano, Texas, school trust proposed to adopt Of Pandas and People as a supplement to the existing curriculum course materials.

[57] In June 1999, the school district in Burlington, Washington, approved a local science teacher's proposal to use extracts from Of Pandas and People in the classroom "so long as he balances it with enough support for teachings on evolution which he always included in his courses but about which he says he has doubts – especially in terms of the origin of the human race".

The decision followed an earlier demand by the American Civil Liberties Union, that the teacher, Roger DeHart, should cease his years-long practice of teaching intelligent design in his classes.

A committee of science teachers unanimously voted to purchase copies of the book, but ultimately decided to abandon the idea for fear of litigation.

[61] In August 1999, the local school board in Pratt, Kansas, voted to remove any mention of macroevolution, the age of the Earth, and the origin of the Universe from science curriculum, but rejected a bid to adopt Of Pandas and People for educational purposes.

[65] Amid an international controversy, the board also became the first in the US to promote the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom, sparking a lawsuit, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, by the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs.

[66] Had the motion been granted, the FTE would have become a co-defendant with the Dover Area School Board, and able to bring its own lawyers and expert witnesses to the case.

The weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates, as noted, that the systemic change from "creation" to "intelligent design" occurred sometime in 1987, after the Supreme Court's important Edwards decision.The newly elected board unanimously rescinded the policy on January 3, 2006.