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Editorial Review Product Description
A compelling eyewitness account of the recent courtroom drama in Dover, Pennsylvania that put evolution on trial.Journalist Gordy Slack offers a riveting, personal, and often amusing first-hand account that details six weeks of some of the most widely ranging, fascinating, and just plain surreal testimony in U.S. legal history—a battle between hard science and religious conservatives wishing to promote a new version of creationism in schools. During the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Areas School Board trial, the members of the local school board defended their decision to require teachers to present intelligent design alongside evolution as an explanation for the origins and diversity of life on earth. The trial revealed much more than a disagreement about how to approach science education. It showed two essentially different and conflicting views of the world and the lengths some people will go to promote their own. The ruling by George W. Bush-appointed Judge John Jones III was unexpected in its stridency: Not only did he conclude that intelligent design was religion and not science and therefore had no place in a science classroom, he scolded the school board for wasting public time and money. A sophisticated examination of the deep cultural, religious, and political tensions that continue to divide America, The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything is also journalist Gordy Slack’s personal and engaging story of the high drama and unforgettable characters on both sides of the courtroom controversy.
Gordy Slack (Oakland, CA) has been writing about science and evolutionary biology for 15 years. He is a regular commentator on KQED, an affiliate of NPR, and his articles have appeared in Mother Jones, Salon.com, Wired, California Wild, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other publications.
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Excellent overview of both the Dover trial and of Intelligent Design vs. Natural Selection
What a great book.Not only does the author provide a highly readable account of the Dover (PA) trial (Kitzmiller vs. Dover area school district) but in doing so he also provides an excellent overview of the key points in the Intelligent Design vs. Natural Selection "debate."Although supporters of ID might disagree, I feel the author does a great job of reporting evenly on the relevant scientific testimony and providing just enough background into the science and the history of the ID movement to let the reader understand the implications of the various points being made by the witnesses for the defense and for the plaintiffs.Highly recommended.
Breathtaking Inanity
Ibecame fascinated with the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial nearly three years after Judge Jones issued his ruling. From a number of Internet sites, I read a great deal about the trial including many pages of testimony and 35 to 40 pages of the 139-page ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.
But much of that information, while fascinating, lacked the narrative quality that I sought.I decided to buy this book along with Matthew Chapman's "40 Days and 40 Nights" to fill in some gaps in my knowledge and to try and understand the roles played by the Thomas More Law Center, the Discovery Institute, and the members of the Dover Board of Education. I was very happy that I did.
Although I enjoyed Chapman's book a bit more due to his writing style, there is much to like in this book.His chapter on "Assembling Goliath", the pooling of elite resources by the plaintiffs' team, made me feel like I was watching Eisenhower discuss the invasion plans with his staff.The chapter "Liars for Christ" will spin the head of the Christian and that of the skeptic alike!By the end of this book you will not wonder why Judge Jones described the actions of the Board of Education by using the phrase "breathtaking inanity".
Read in tandem, Slack's and Chapman's books give you a good sense of the trial, the outcome, the implications for years to come. Each is a very well-told tale.
All about flagellum
Back in 2006, I remember watching news of the election coverage, and hearing about a little town in Dover overturning nearly its entire school board, which, being a teacher, knows what a dramatic impact that can have on a district. The announcer went on to say that the reason the board was kicked out was the board's insistence on the teaching of "intelligent design" in the high school, and the community responded. I was impressed. This little book is one science reporters coverage of the trial that ensued after the school board acted. Is it really all about flagellum? Not really, but bacteria and their flagellum play an integral part in this quick, masterful read, "The Battle over theMeaning of Everything" by Gordy Slack.
The Dover, Pennsylvania school board began to grumble about "intelligent design" (ID) based on a couple of board members' interest in the subject. Supported by conservative, religious organizations whose mission is to introduction ID into American education, the board went crazy, wrote up a paragraph to be read in high school biology courses, delayed buying textbooks that were "laced with Darwinism", and one board member even passed a hat at his church to purchase alternative textbooks. Raising the ire of the ALCU, and the First Amendment to the Constitution, parents in the community began to fight back, and a case was born.
Slack does several things in this remarkable book that I appreciate. As a science writer, he is able to explain some of the more "sciencey" aspects of the case clearly and concisely, without dwelling too much on a single concept. One of the trickiest aspects of the case, the concept of materialism in science, was probably the heaviest he got, and I left that chapter understanding the concept. Also, Slack works tirelessly to make sure the ID side is understood and represented from their point of view, although Slack states upfront he doesn't believe in it. He allows both sides to present their ideas. It isn't until the court case begins, and it's clear that the ID side has some 'splaining to do, when their defense flops.
I first heard about this book from reading Charles Pierce's brilliantly funny and slicing book [[ASIN:0767926145 Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free]. In it, he features the judge in the case, John Jones, a Republican Bush appointee who's ruling evicerates the ID side with tenaciousness. I'm glad that I read it.
You might agree with ID, or disagree with it. Several of the people testifying against it are Christians and have very strong faiths. But to have that spill into a public school is simply wrong. If I had kids, I would want to be the one to control their own religious upbringing, not any public school that I send them. The Battle over the Meaning of Everything is cautious warning to America that we must defend vigorously the First Amendment, the separation of church and state, from people so wanting to smash down that wall.
A pretty good introduction to both Dover and the broader worldview clash it represents
Most people are familiar with the issue involved in the 2005 Dover case--whether or not ID deserves equal time with evolution in the public school classroom--but probably have only a vague notion of case's particulars.Gordy Slack's The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything offers a decent rundown of the ideological bones of contention.I'm not sure that his book offers any new information about the trial that can't be found in Lauri Lebo's The Devil in Dover or Edward Humes' Monkey Girl. I also found it puzzling that he left out a couple of really important points made by witnesses for the plaintiffs.But his book does offer an interesting and entertaining account.
The culprits in the Dover case are undoubtedly Alan Bonsell and Bill Buckingham, members of the Dover School Board who pushed ID with a clear fundamentalist Christian agenda.Nine families filed suit, claiming that the School Board violated the separation clause.Their attorneys, which included ACLU lawyers (defendant Bonsell, by the way, claimed he feared the ACLU more than the Taliban! [page 50]), wanted to establish a clear definition of science that distinguished it from religion, to show that ID was just creationism readorned, and that the defendants lied when they disavowed creationist intent.
Forty days later, Judge John Jones ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on all three counts, and came close to throwing perjury charges at Bonsell.By that time, witnesses for both plaintiffs and defendants had engaged in a forty day public debate about ID vs evolution which really, as Slack's title suggests, involved a worldview clash.Luminaries lined up on both sides:Robert Pennock, Barbara Forrest, and Kenneth Miller for the plaintiffs, and Robert Behe for the plaintiffs.ID's irreducible complexity category, as evidenced particularly in the bacterial flagellum and blood-clotting systems, was thoroughly examined, as was the evolutionist counter-claim of exaptation.In the end, Judge Jones declared that ID wasn't a science because it appealed to supernatural causation, was disguised creationism, and had failed in its attacks on evolutionary theory.Because ID was creationism, he ruled, it violated the separation clause.
Slack nicely narrates this story, but he fails, somewhat strangely, to describe Kenneth Miller's telling evidence involving the missing human chromosome, nor the "intermediate" species Tiktaalik.Additionally, he doesn't really flesh out his (correct) claim that the Dover case was symptomatic of a worldview clash, although he throws in a bit of Kuhn toward the end of the book.
Outstanding summary of the Kitzmiller trial
This is a fascinating book about the courtroom battle between evolution and intelligent design, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board.
I've read two other books about the case, Edward Humes' "Monkey Girl" and Matthew Chapman's "40 Days and 40 Nights," both of which were also very good.Slack's book is significantly different from the other two, in that it spends relatively less time discussing the personalities involved in the case and the background events that led up to the trial, but has relatively more information about and analysis of the actual trial testimony specifically related to the science vs. creationism issue.
In particular, Slack does a good job summarizing the pro-evolution testimony of Ken Miller, Robert Pennock, and Barbara Forrest, and the pro-ID testimony of Michael Behe and Scott Minnich.Slack hits all four of the points that are the keys to the controversy:
1)ID's "positive arguments" are actually nothing more than a feeble analogy and do not generate any scientific, i.e., testable, hypotheses;
2)ID's negative attacks against evolution are either wrong, trivial, or both;
3)Using negative attacks against evolution as positive evidence for ID falls into the false dichotomy fallacy (see my review of "What`s Darwin Got To Do With It?" for an explanation of that fallacy, which is pervasive in creationist propaganda);
4)ID is being promoted for religious, not scientific, reasons.
If I had to come up with a complaint about the book, it would probably be that Slack doesn't spend more time fleshing out exactly why points 1 and 3, above, are so important.But at least he does mention them, and, to be fair to Slack, I thought the witness testimony on those points could have been a bit better too.Obviously Slack can't be faulted too much for not highlighting an issue, if the witnesses whose testimony he's summarizing didn't really highlight it either.
One issue that Slack did highlight was the appalling dishonesty of some of the so-called "Christians" who were promoting ID.The information about the apparent perjury committed by Buckingham and Bonsall, two of the leading creationist agitators on the Dover School Board, is also available from other sources; but some of the information that Slack reports -- which I don't recall seeing anywhere else -- also raises a strong suspicion that the lawyers from the Thomas More Law Center who represented the School Board were willing participants in Buckingham's and Bonsall's dishonesty.What a black eye for Christianity in general and the TMLC in particular.
Another highlight is Slack's description of the appalling ignorance displayed by the evangelical Christians on the School Board, one of whom, for example, voted for teaching ID, even though she had no idea what it even meant.Repeat -- she didn't even know what it meant, but she still voted to have it taught!How stupid could she possibly be???No wonder the judge in the case characterized what the ID-iots did as "breathtaking inanity."
In short, this book is a great way to learn about the Kitzmiller trial, without having to slog through the thousands of pages of trial transcripts.
****
Actually, there's also a fourth book about the case that I've read."Traipsing Into Evolution" was the Dishonesty Institute's response to Judge Jones' opinion.Obviously, that book is mostly just propaganda. (See my review.)
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