Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
21St CENTURY SCOPES TRIAL: DARWIN: 40 INTELLIGENT DESIGN: 0 (ID STRIKES OUT), 8 Aug 2008
Not since early Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe have I had as much fun reading a witty, provocative piece of journalistic writing as I've had in screenwriter Matthew Chapman's "40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, GOD, OxyContin AND OTHER Oddities ON TRIAL IN Pennsylvania". It's an enthralling, often humorous tome, that owes more to the mordant humor of Frank McCourt, in his bestselling memoirs "Angela's Ashes" and "Teacher Man", than it does to the rather dry, but never dull, prose of Chapman's great-great-grandfather, Charles Darwin, in his scientific classic, "Origin of Species". In the fall of 2005, Chapman attended the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District Trial, as an accredited journalist and filmmaker, intent on making a documentary film on the trial, the town and its people. However, this would soon become a personal trek of self-reflection and discovery, in which he would make a most remarkable conclusion on the teaching of creationism in science classrooms. A trek which took him back to Dover, PA often, holding substantive conversations with the key players on both sides of the issue. And while Chapman truly strives for a cinematic narrative, fading in and out between brief discussions of the 20th Century Scopes Trial, the Discovery Institute, and his illustrious ancestor's revolutionary scientific research, the book's emphasis remains focused upon himself and his conversations with the people of Dover. So those in search of an extensive, truly profound, overview of the trial's origins and history might be best served elsewhere, most notably by reading Edward Humes' definitive, well-written account of the trial in his book "Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul", but they would miss much of the personal drama that Chapman has vividly recorded, using his prose as though it was his video camera lens, exquisitely recording all of the detail present.
Chapman's narrative is more linear in focus than Humes' comprehensive account, and adheres more closely to a chronological perspective. One that starts with the Dover Area School District board's decision in the fall of 2004 to teach Intelligent Design alongside evolution, unexpectedly starting a civil war within the town itself, led by the ardent Fundamentalist Christians on the board, against those in the Dover community who were appalled by the board's decision. Among the most sympathetic figures is unexpectedly the board's firebrand, Bill Buckingham, who ruefully admits to Chapman that he's addicted to the painkiller OxyContin, and blames it, not himself, for some of his most outlandish comments, at the board's meetings, that were reported accurately by the local press. Chapman's truly moving, poignant portrayal of him strongly hints that he is, indeed, a lost soul afflicted by drug addiction. It is through moving portraits like those of Buckingham, and his arch-nemesis, former board member Barrie Callahan, that we get a strong sense of the political and religious strife which embroiled the people of Dover for more than a year, beginning in the summer of 2004, when the board left the Dover High School science teachers twisting in the wind, simply because Buckingham had objected to the teaching of "Darwinism" - and that mentioned only briefly - in the newest edition of a popular high school textbook co-authored by Brown University cell biologist Kenneth R. Miller, who, himself, is the subject of a sympathetic portrayal by Chapman in which he explains the rationale for science's faithful adherence against "dealing with issues of meaning or purpose" during his court testimony.
However, it isn't Kenneth R. Miller who emerges as the hero of Chapman's vividly told tale. Instead, the honors rest upon the attorneys for the plaintiffs, most notably, lead attorney Eric Rothschild, and, quite unexpectedly, philosopher of science Barbara Forrest. Rothschild is depicted as a most congenial, yet still quite, astute, legal warrior in the courtroom, who is able to pry gently from leading Intelligent Design advocate - and star defense witness - Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe a surprising admission that astrology could be viewed as scientific, based on Behe's own broad definition of what science is, one that includes the potential study of supernatural phenomena; a definition which runs counter to the one subscribed to by the National Academy of Sciences and mainstream science: a rational enterprise that is completely divorced from the supernatural realm (During this memorable "duel" of a cross-examination between Rothschild and Behe, Chapman observes Behe "smiling defiantly" as Rothschild reads the infamous disclaimer posted on the website of Lehigh University biological sciences department acknowledging evolution's scientific validity, but noting too Behe's academic freedom to pursue "research" on Intelligent Design. He draws the conclusion that Behe feels intense pain from this rejection by his own departmental colleagues.). Chapman demonstrates why philosopher Barbara Forrest may have been the plaintiffs' most effective witness. Led on by attorney Rothschild, she begins her testimony with an elegant overview of the history of the creationism, especially during the last two decades of the 20th Century, emphasizing the origins and early history of the "Intelligent Design" movement. And then she reveals the pivotal "smoking gun" in an accurate, yet dramatic fashion, documenting the text changes made in the early drafts of the Intelligent Design textbook "Of Pandas and People", noting the ample instances in which "creation" was substituted with "design", not scores of times, but at least more than one hundred different instances in the text itself. Later, she ends her testimony in a memorably tedious cross-examination by lead defense attorney Richard Thompson that drags on for nearly a day and a half.
Chapman concludes "40 Days and 40 Nights" on a most idiosyncratic, personal note, and one that he has alluded to ever since the very first page of his memoir. He contends that we should allow creationism into the science classroom, so that it can be "dissected", in much the same fashion as it was during the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial, by allowing teachers to "explore the limitations of faith through the revelatory methods of science", and resulting in "verdicts" identical to Republican Federal Judge Jones' conclusion that Intelligent Design wasn't scientific. Emotionally, it is a sentiment that I found myself quite unexpectedly, at first, to be in complete agreement. However, on second thought, I concur with Ken Miller's observation that introducing Intelligent Design into science classrooms would be a "science stopper". It would conflate most students' understanding of what exactly is the difference between religious faith and science, though I suppose that some truly gifted students, like those attending prominent American high schools such as Alexandria, Virginia's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, and New York City's Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School, might readily understand and appreciate these distinctions. And yet I am inclined to agree more with the harsh view articulated by distinguished British paleontologist Richard Fortey in his essay published in the January 30, 2007 issue of the British newspaper Telegraph, contending that it is an absolute waste of time arguing with Intelligent Design advocates, and that they ought to be dismissed as "IDiots"; by extension, so would be the teaching of Intelligent Design alongside evolution in a science classroom. I would rather see talented students from Thomas Jefferson, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant engage themselves fruitfully in genuine scientific research of the highest caliber, than in trying to understand the metaphysical, religious nonsense known as Intelligent Design and other flavors of creationism. I think, in hindsight, so would Charles Darwin.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Painless learning, 13 Sep 2007
The suthor begins by telling the reader that he is a high school drop-out, the blows your socks off with his incredible understanding of: fundamentalism in the US, genetics, evolution vs intelligent design, legal procedures, science, human nature - I could go on and on. This book is a page-turner while requiring re-reading of technical information to truly absorb. I feel I truly have a better understanding of the debate between fundamentalists and scientists. This is a timely subject for us in the US.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Christians who can't help blurting out the "c" word and lying for God, 6 April 2009
In the middle of the Bush presidency, a Bush appointee sat in judgment in Dover, Pennsylvania, to decide whether a school board could make reference to intelligent design in a science class. Those who wanted to "balance" evolution with intelligent design all denied that it had anything to do with religion. Judge John E. Jones not only "concluded that the purpose of the intelligent design movement was religious" but also "determined that intelligent design failed to qualify as science". That in itself would have constituted a crushing defeat for the Christians defending the case, but the judge went on to say: "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks... The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial."
Who were the people involved? Why did it end up in court? What were the arguments for and against? Matthew Chapman's superb account of the trial provides many of the facts that you'd expect from any good reporter. Having met and interviewed many of the main actors, he also has the space to include character sketches and to tell a wider human story beyond the legal wrangle. Being descended from Darwin was one reason for his presence in Dover. An abiding interest in the gap "between evidence and belief, between rationality and faith" was another. Although there is no doubt which side he takes, he finds it hard to loathe anyone once he's met them (except, perhaps, Heather Geesey, "grinning throughout as if her ignorance was just the cutest thing", who "fell squarely into the repellant category").
"You're not going to tell me that I came from apes... which side of your family came from apes?" Not Bishop Wilberforce in 1860 but Bill Buckingham in 2004. He and Alan Bonsell were two of the school board members most responsible for the Dover debacle. Their own words and actions are telling. "I don't know how teachers who have professed to me that they're Christians... can go to church, support the bible, and then go to school and support Darwin. It can't be both ways". Everything was black and white in Buckingham's world. America was founded by Christians under Christianity. Not happy in a Christian country? Then "go somewhere else". Iraq? "I'd nuke that place." He also called a fellow board member Carol Brown an atheist (she wasn't), which in some places is as provocative as calling a single man living on a council estate a paedophile. And when Carol ran into Bonsell, he told her she would be going to hell. In the hostile and ignorant environment of a school board full of creationists, Buckingham and Bonsell were top dogs, hard to face down by people like the lead plaintiff, Tammy Kitzmiller, a single mother of two. A local teacher summed up the frustration felt by many: "The fact that we have a school board of people who really hate education is just beyond belief."
Within the courtroom, however, even the Christians had to behave. They could not intimidate the well-prepared team of lawyers for the plaintiffs, and the expert witnesses for the defence could not so easily evade the calm and reasonable questions put to them. Chapman includes enough detail for us to follow some of the main scientific arguments, but he is no scientist and this is not a textbook. At one point he sympathizes with the judge's wry comment that "We've certainly absorbed a lot, haven't we?" A lot from Michael Behe, in this instance, the defence's star witness, capable of droning on at length and to poor effect. Chapman identifies one of the absurdities of the case: "Here was Behe advocating that his theory be taught in high schools across America - and yet he could not be bothered to... test it." What kind of science was this? Behe admits, "I have been so well satisfied with the Christian religion that I have spent no time trying to find arguments against it." Chapman points out that Darwin "had spent twenty years testing his ideas before presenting them."
One surprise is that, in Chapman's opinion, "the most beautiful mind in the whole trial belonged to a Catholic theologian", John Haught, whose line is that science and religion "deal with two completely different or distinct realms" and that science works at "one level of investigation, religion at another". Haught also mistakenly implies that the reason we turn to science is because it is "authoritative", when of course we turn to science because it is true. On this evidence, beauty is not the word that comes to my mind.
Chapman makes his own position clear: "I was not an atheist but an agnostic, because having faith, even in nothing, was too much faith for my taste." He's in good company (with, for example, William James), but still wrong to think that the refusal to believe something is a kind of faith. Where he is spot on is in fingering Darwin as the chief villain of the piece, the "author of the most comprehensive eviction notice" ever written for God. This book is an oblique celebration of how he did it: the "scientific method proposes a simple and humble means by which, through the examination of evidence, we distinguish what is true from what is not, what is the cause and what the cure." It is also a more direct celebration of those eleven ordinary citizens in Dover who "bravely rejected the intrusion of fundamentalism into their lives and won."
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by Christopher Hitchens
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by Christopher Hitchens
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