The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA Hardcover – May 18, 2007

The Kitzmiller trial in Pennsylvannia in 2005 spawned several books. Some like Gordy Slack's were written by journalists who covered the trial and some were written by scientists and philosophers like Kenneth Miller's "Only a Theory" and Forrest & Gross's "Creationism's Trojan Horse". The other books similar to Slack's are Chapman's "40 Days and 40 Nights", Humes' "Monkey Girl", and Lebo's "The Devil in Dover". I would recommend every one of them as they were all very comprehensive and well written, but if you have time for only one book, it would be a tough choice between Humes' and Slack's. I would go for Slack only because I enjoyed his wit and humour a little more. Remarking on fellow writer Matthew Chapman who is a great grandson of Charles Darwin, Slack wrote "He (Chapman) was not only a Darwinian, he's a Darwin". Slack brings us from the early history of creationism versus science in the classrooms of America to the trial in Dover. His coverage of the trial was a lucid account that reports the exposure of the fraud perpetuated by the proponents of intelligent design. Is this comment too harsh? The evidence showed that the ID proponents, including their chief guru Michael Behe, advanced ID as a scientific theory, and denied that it had anything to do with creationism - until the plaintiffs uncovered evidence to show that the ID "textbook" "Of Pandas and People" was quickly edited after the Supreme Court decision in the Epperson case to replace every reference to "creationism" with "Intelligent Design" and "creator" with Intelligent designer". This book is great for teaching lawyers how to use and cross-examine expert witnesses. It is also the most up-to-date book and probably the last useful book on "Intelligent Design" because it will be obvious after the Dover trial that the ID movement had lost all credibility and should properly be consigned to history. Creationists, however, will probably be back with a new trick to replace the idea of ID. It was written, like the other books, very professionally. If it appeared to have been bashing ID from start to end it is only because the ID proponents had given the writer (and the judge) all the evidence he required. This book reads like a piece of well-plotted novel, but fact, as they say, is stranger than fiction. My only other recommendation after this book is that the reader might wish to download Judge Jones' judgment and read that 139-page judgment. Neither the trial nor the book was about Christians versus atheists.The judge and several of the plaintiffs were Christians. It was a case of science versus pseudo science. Pseudo lost.

A few nights ago, my fiancee asked me what I was so engrossed in reading. When I told her that I was "reading a book about the Kitzmiller case," she paused and apologetically said: "never heard or it." I clarified by explaining that I was reading a book about the "Dover Intelligent Design trial." "Oh, yeah," she said, nodding her head in recognition: "Cool."Cool, indeed.For those still unfamiliar, the action-packed subject of Gordy Slack's book is the 2007 case Kitzmiller v. Dover School District where Tammy Kitzmiller and nine other parents charged the Dover School District with violating their, and their children's, religious rights. Earlier, the school board voted to let students hear a several-minute statement in biology class, promoting the "creationist" theory of Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution. What ensued was a battle over science education, religion, ideology, and what Gordy Slack calls "the meaning of everything."Like Laurie Lebo's book about the trial (Devil in Dover), the agnostic Slack uses his strained relationship with his evangelical father as a metaphor for Dover, PA and the trial. Dover is a small town with a big division; one part is deeply religious and conservative, while the other part is deeply religious and liberal (no, none of the plaintiff's were atheists). At the time of offense, the school board was squarely in the clutches of the former, refusing to renew the then-used biology text book they saw as "laced with Darwinism." To "balance" the Darwinistic picture, the board saw to it that creationism would be mentioned in biology class, and thus the Dover trial began.This book's facinating recount of the trial in Dover Pennsylvania (some sasy Pennsyltucky) correctly recognizes the trial as a public relations disaster that quickly and heedlessly spiraled out of control. In the end, the theory of intelligent design lost and lost big, embarrasing itself seemingly before it could even get off the ground. Slack skillfully summarizes both the in- and out-of-court happenings well, although it is obivous that he was much more privy to the pro-evolution team (being a science writer).As a science writer, Slack also has his biases for the "evolution side" of the argument and though he treats all sides with fairness and courtesy, some will accuse him of presenting a very one-sided story. To this objection, one can only reply that the trial itself WAS a one-sided story almost to a repetitive degree: the "evolution camp" explained their case well and proved too much for the defense attorneys, while the "ID camp" defended very poorly. The former proved well that (and why) it was a well-established science, while the latter could not get far beyond showing itself as a science wanna-be. (Change the defintion of science too far and anything could become a science.) So, I suppose that Slack's is a biased account, but I am not sure that his bias is not a tad justified.The only real criticism I can offer about Slack's book is that it doesn't offer anything that other books on the trial don't offer. As a journalistic accuont, I put his book on equal par with Edward Humes's "Monkey Girl" (though the latter has many fewer personal reflections, sticking mostly to strict journalism). As already mentioned, the parellell drawn between the trial and Slack's fractured relationship with a believing father was just as aptly done by Laurie Lebo's "Devil in Dover." And while this book may be a more serious account that of Graham Chapman's "40 Days and 40 Nights," it a much less personal account.In the end, though, this is a very good book about a very interesting case. Slack does a good job of telling the story of "the batter over the meaning of everything" and in so doing, explaining why it was exactly such a battle. If you value science, religion, and the virtue of keeping the two seperate, this will be a highly entertaining and prescient read.

An intellectually honest and unpedantic look at what is still/again a major faultline in American culture. The Battle over the Meaning of Everything doesn't bridge this gap, but it strives to map out some of its features in detail. Gordy Slack does a good job in taking in the vast scope of the issues (hence the title) and also a magnifier's view of the court case and the cast of individuals around which it turns. A great read.

Gordy Slack’s book is an engaging, and I think accurate account of the events of the Dover PA Kitzmiller v. Dover School District trial. He details well the brazen, lying arrogance of the defendants, and the skill with which the prosecution exposed them as a creationist-inspired movement. He delivers some compelling analysis, asking if we can have a stable and healthy polity where basic facts, or facts of science, are simply ignored. Readers would also do well to read Lauri Lebo’s book – it covers much the same terrain. Slack is weak, however in some points of analysis. He too sharply dichotomizes the conflict as between “materialist and theists”, as if there were no other view, and only one type of theology. He belittles and dismisses the liberal theology that most of the plaintiffs actually endorse. He fails to understand a liberal theology or its importance. This is plainly evident in the fact that he concedes the very empty term “super Christians” to Fundamentalists, as if they had the only correct and true monopoly on Christian theology. Slack give no credit to a liberal theology, such as Haught or Miller espoused, some of the key witnesses to the trial. So – factually, this book is fairly good and offers some sober warning about Fundamentalism. As an exercise in the more nuanced understanding of religion and science, however, it just falls very short.