Religious activists first pushed for the teaching of creationism, the literal word of the Bible, to explain the origins of the planet and its organisms. When that was struck down in firm tones by the U.S. Supreme Court, the movement plastered a thin veneer of pseudoscience over creationism, substituted the words "higher intelligence" for "God," and went back to the school boards claiming that it had a new scientific theory, at least as valid as evolution.