TV Program Description
Original PBS Broadcast Date: November 13, 2007
In this program, NOVA captures the
turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the
latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools. Featuring trial
reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants,
including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers, and town officials,
"Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" follows the celebrated
federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District. This two-hour special was coproduced
with Paul G. Allen's Vulcan Productions, Inc.
In 2004, the Dover school board
ordered science teachers to read a statement to high school biology students
suggesting that there is an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution
called intelligent design—the idea that life is too complex to have
evolved naturally and therefore must have been designed by an intelligent
agent. The teachers refused to comply. (For more on this, see Board vs.
Teachers.) Later, parents opposed to intelligent design filed a lawsuit in
federal court accusing the school board of violating the constitutional
separation of church and state.
"There was a blow-up like you
couldn't believe," Bill Buckingham, head of the school
board's curriculum committee, tells NOVA. Buckingham helped formulate the
intelligent-design policy when he noticed that the biology textbook chosen by
teachers for classroom use was, in his words, "laced with Darwinism."
NOVA presents the arguments by lawyers
and expert witnesses in riveting detail and provides an eye-opening crash course on questions such
as "What is evolution?" and "Is intelligent
design a scientifically valid alternative?" Kitzmiller v. Dover was the first legal test of
intelligent design as a scientific theory, with the plaintiffs arguing that it
is a thinly veiled form of creationism, the view that a literal interpretation
of the Bible accounts for all observed facts about nature. (See Defining
Science and arguments for and against evolution.)
During the trial, lawyers for the
plaintiffs showed that evolution is one of the best-tested and most thoroughly
confirmed theories in the history of science, and that its unresolved questions
are normal research problems—the type that arise in any flourishing
scientific field.
U.S. District Court Judge John E.
Jones III ultimately decided for the plaintiffs, writing in his decision that
intelligent design "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus
religious, antecedents." As part of his decision, Judge Jones ordered the
Dover school board to pay legal fees and damages, which were eventually set at
$1 million. (Hear Judge Jones read excerpts from his historic decision.)
"Judgment Day captures on film a landmark court case
with a powerful scientific message at its core," says Paula Apsell,
NOVA's Senior Executive Producer. "Evolution is one of the most
essential yet, for many people, least understood of all scientific theories,
the foundation of biological science. We felt it was important for NOVA to do
this program to heighten the public understanding of what constitutes science
and what does not, and therefore, what is acceptable for inclusion in the
science curriculum in our public schools." (Hear more from Paula Apsell
on why NOVA took on this controversial subject.)
For years to come, the lessons from
Dover will continue to have a profound impact on how science is viewed in our
society and how it is taught in the classroom.
Program Transcript
Program Credits
