This month marks the fifteenth anniversary of the conclusion of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, a significant event in the history of the conflict between creationism and science. In 2004, Young Earth Creationist members of Pennsylvania’s Dover Area School District were engaged in efforts to alter the school curriculum to suggest that there were serious weaknesses to the theory of evolution and that creationism was a legitimate alternative. Their efforts eventually culminated in the board passing a resolution that required biology teachers to read a statement to their class that said, in part:
Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations. Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book Of Pandas and People, is available for students to see if they would like to explore this view in an effort to gain an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.
In response, eleven parents of students in the District filed suit, claiming that the actions of the board violated the Constitutional requirement that public schools, as representatives of the state, remain neutral on matters of religion.
At the time, the Discovery Institute, the most prominent organization dedicated to the promotion Intelligent Design, was engaged in efforts on multiple fronts get their ideas included in school curricula. While it is not disputed that members of the Discovery Institute were in contact with the creationist school board members and even provided them with reference material, there remains disagreement over the degree to which the DI was supportive of the Board’s efforts. Initially, it appeared that the trial would feature a showdown between leaders of the ID movement and prominent defenders of science. However, in the end the DI had no formal involvement in the case and only some of its members, including Michael Behe, ended up appearing.
The DI might have recognized the dangers this case posed for their attempts to misleadingly portray ID as a legitimate scientific hypothesis rather than merely another form of creationism. The school board members had made little effort prior to the trial to hide their religious motivations. And, indeed, the testimony from those board members was crucial to the final decision of the court. Their lies were so transparent that the judge ended up recommending that they be investigated for perjury. Nonetheless, the importance of the evidence derived from the textbook Of Panda’s and People itself, and of Behe’s at times comically inept attempts to defend the scientific legitimacy of ID, cannot be disregarded.
The trial attracted widespread international attention, and featured a number of episodes that remain profoundly embarrassing for the Intelligent Design movement. In the end, the presiding Judge John E. Jones III (left) found for the plaintiffs and ruled that “ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.”[1]https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District, p.31 (Many creationists were likely again annoyed by Jones when he recently ruled against one of Donald Trump’s efforts to nullify his election loss.)
The above summary of the trial is rather cursory, in part because I expect that most readers will already be familiar with the story. But there are several options which I recommend for anyone wanting a more detailed account. PBS produced a documentary on the trial which can be watched here:
The New Yorker published an article by Margaret Talbot in its December 5, 2005, issue which can be found by clicking the image below (although you may also need a subscription to the magazine to read it):
Finally, Matthew Chapman’s 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania is a book length account by a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin who had previously authored a book on the Scopes Monkey Trial:
After the verdict, other attempts that were in the works to incorporate ID ideology into school curricula disappeared without a trace, and there can be little doubt that the costly embarrassment suffered by the Dover School Board was a major, if not decisive, factor in this. The trial also marked a turning point for ID as a whole. The trial provided ID with a degree of publicity that was unprecedented for the movement, whether or not its proponents wanted this. While the odds were never great that the ID movement would succeed in its grandiose plan to remake our secular society into one based on fundamentalist religious principles, at the time of the trial it did appear plausible that their legal maneuvering could succeed in hindering the teaching of evolution at the high school and university levels. Instead, Intelligent Design today finds itself in a much diminished state and has been reduced to mostly fighting a rear guard action against theistic evolutionists in attempt to maintain intellectual respect among Christians, and not even that battle is going well for them.
As evidence of the continued interest in this trial, several of its participants have recently given interviews describing their experiences, and my next few posts will discuss these.
References