Summary
The documentary combines real-life interviews with those involved in the controversy with reenactments of events in the trial. The school board of Dover, a small rural town in Pennsylvania, passed a policy in which biology teachers in Dover Area High School must read a disclaimer regarding evolution, stating that it is not fact and contains gaps in evidence. It then pointed them to a set of books advocating intelligent design, called Of Pandas and People. Several biology teachers, including featured interviewees Brian and Christy Rehm, refused to read the statement and a lawsuit, Kitzmiller v Dover, was eventually filed to stop the school district from mandating the teaching of intelligent design. The documentary presents the resulting trial as revolving around the validity of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory. The defendants, members of the Dover County school board, argued that ID was a scientific theory and thus deserved to be taught in schools alongside evolution. The plaintiffs argued that Intelligent Design was a religious doctrine. Also at issue in the trial was whether the board members who had pushed the teaching of Intelligent Design had knowingly done so in order to inject creationism into the public schools. Previous court rulings had explicitly ruled the teaching of creationism unconstitutional as a violation of the separation of church and state. After hearing testimony from scientists in favor of and opposed to Intelligent Design, Judge John E Jones III rules that Intelligent Design is an inherently religious theory and therefore the teaching of it is not permitted as part of a science curriculum.
Read more about this topic: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design On Trial
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