Scientists trying to prevent US schoolchildren from being taught to doubt the theory of evolution are seeking to recruit mainstream churches to back them up.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is concerned at moves by evangelical churches to have the dogma of "intelligent design" forced onto the science curriculum in several American states.

"The faith community needs to step up to the plate," said Eugenie Scott, the director of the National Centre for Science Education, during a news conference at the AAAS's annual meeting in Missouri.

She said that the idea that you were either a Christian creationist or a "bad guy atheist" was toxic, but continued to be believed by many people.

Gilbert Omenn, the president of the AAAS, said that it was time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against one another.

Intelligent design encourages children to question the scientific theory of evolution, and offers instead the religious creed of the divine creation. Proponents of intelligent design say that life is too complex to be random, so the hand of God must be behind it.

The board of education in the state of Ohio last week backed down on plans to include in its science curriculum a model lesson plan teaching intelligent design.

A similar controversy in Pennsylvania last year resulted in a school board in Dover, which had approved the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution in biology lessons, being voted out after 11 parents brought a federal court case. The judge ruled that the lesson plan violated the principle of separation between religion and state.

Fourteen other US states are nonetheless preparing to consider Bills which scientists fear would compromise the teaching of evolution.

Some pastors of mainstream Christian churches, both Protestant and Catholic, have already showed themselves willing to line themselves up on the side of the scientists.

"The intelligent design movement belittles evolution. It makes God a designer - an engineer," said George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory. "Intelligent design concentrates on a designer who they do not really identify - but who's kidding whom?"

Warren Eschbach, a retired Church of the Brethren pastor and professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, helped sponsor a letter signed by more than 10,000 other clergy, according to the Reuters news agency.

"We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests," the clergy wrote.

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