The Devil in Dover
It has been just over a year since U.S. District Judge John Jones III in Harrisburg, Pa., demolished so-called "intelligent design" in his ruling in a lawsuit brought by parents against the Dover Area School Board. The school board, if you recall, tried to put intelligent design--the idea that a complex world "must have had" an intelligent designer, i.e., God, on an equal footing with Darwinian evolution. Jones ruled that it was not science, and that the religious right-dominated school board had pretty much perpetrated a fraud at taxpayer expense (and oh, the expense). For those of us who want real science taught in schools and real religion taught in churches, it was a moment of triumph.
Four books on this seminal case--the most historically important event in central Pennsylvania since the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979--are either out or will soon hit the stores. Matthew Chapman, a great-great-grandson of Darwin who attended part of the trial, has written "40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania." Gordy Slack, a writer with Salon.com, has written "The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA". The third, already out, is "Monkey Girl" by Edward Humes, a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Last in line--it was only just signed by a publisher, so it's a minimum 8 months to a year away--is former York Daily Record reporter Lauri Lebo's "The Devil in Dover: Dogma vs. Darwin in Small-Town America." She covered the intelligent design trial for her newspaper, but brings a unique perspective to her book. Lebo comes from an evangelical family, and has an insider's view on the beliefs and emotions that led to the intelligent design showdown. I may not read all these books, but I'll definitely read her's for that special local insight.