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The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA

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I am a person who closely follows the evolution- creationist (or ID, if you prefer)wars. The court case of Kitzmiller vs Dover Board of Education gained national attention while it was underway in 2005. I read almost all of the 139 page decision handed down by Judge Jones after the trial ended, and it made me want to find out more about the trial testimony. At this point I would like to make it clear that my approach to this book review is to convey to you the contents of the book. Unfortunately many reviews of books on controversial subjects turn into one sided rants. I will try and keep my personal viewpoint out of this review.

The first part of the book details the discussions that took place at Dover Board of Education meetings. Various members felt that creationism (as the members originally referred to it) should be part of science education. These members were also of a mind that religion should also play a role in education. Then we meet the dissidents, those who formed the nucleus of people siding with the Kitzmillers who felt that creationism had no place in the classroom. Organizations sympathetic to the board's creationist views quickly instructed the board to substitute the term Intelligent Design for Creationism. During the trial, however, board members who testified stated that they had not discussed anything about the religious aspects of ID in their meetings. This turnabout prompted Judge Jones to actually call Board members liars in his decision.

Mr. Slack unfortunately provides only brief summaries of much of the courtroom testimony. He does focus in on a debate over the word "theory". The layman's use of this term differs from the scientific meaning of the word. A scientific theory is not akin to a hypothesis or a guess. It is used to summarize a well established body of facts into a meaningful whole such as when referring to the theory of relativity.

Another body of testimony was concerned with the difference between philosophical materialism (PM) and methodological materialism (MM). MM refers to scientific research to examine the natural world. PM is a philosophy about the natural world. Plaintiff testimony described Intelligent Design as being a philosophy about the natural world, and science as being a methodological approach to determining facts about the natural world. Thus, in their opinion, ID is not science.

I won't detail more of the evidence. My purpose here is to give you a few details so that you can decide if this is the type of book that you want to read. As I said, I wished that the book was about 100 pages longer, and contained a lot more of the testimony. I assume the author might have felt that too much of such detail would eliminate a significant amount of potential readers.

Judge Jones' decision came down harshly on the defendants, essentially stating that Intelligent Design is pure religion and not science. He also points out an interesting logical fallacy in ID's reasoning. He considers it a false dichotomy (false choice)to reason that if evolution is wrong then ID is the only other alternative. The author spends some time discussing Judge Jones decision, but again I was eager for even more.

The author has an interesting final chapter where he discusses Kuhn's concept of scientific paradigms. Kuhn believed that scientists work in a rather circumscribed area, or paradigm, on various scientific issues. Newtonian physics was one such paradigm, and when unanswered questions began to crop up a new paradigm, that of relativity, more or less superseded Newton. The point expressed here by author Slack is that Science and Intelligent Design occupy totally different paradigms without any overlap. I guess that's a pretty good way of putting it. Neither side accepts or will ever accept the other's viewpoint.

This is a good book for anyone who wants a reasonably brief, very understandable summary of a very important trial. Those of us on either side of the issue who are looking for more detail will just have to wait for another book to come along. By the way, the author sides with the evolutionists, but, for the most part, does not preach his viewpoint (although he does name one chapter "Liars for Christ").

Mark Twain, that 19th Century freethinker, wrote in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" that "every time the magic of folderol tried conclusions with the magic of science, the magic of folderol got left." Yes, the magic of folderol lost in Dover, but as the book opens, it hardly seems inevitable.

Well, Twain didn't live in 21st Century rural America. Slack's book highlights how the "Intelligent Design" movement is another battle between those who find neither meaning nor morality nor knowledge attainable except in the context of intimate relationship to the Christian Deity, and those who don't. Not all of the latter are atheists, of course, but they include all scientists who prefer not to organize the history of the natural world around 3000-year-old writings.

There are many books on the Dover trial out now. What Slack's does better than any other is peer into divisions on the anti-scientific side. The members of the Dover School Board, one of whom had completed only the eighth grade herself, are willfully ignorant. They couldn't explain or define the scientific or pseudo-scientific issues. All they saw in Intelligent Design and its pet textbook "Of Pandas and People" (entitled "Creation Science" in its original edition!) was something closer to their brain-dead reading of Genesis 1 than the traditional biology textbooks. They were also "Liars for Christ", in Slack's colorful description, swearing falsely at their depositions. (This book hints more clearly than the others that the Superintendent also lied.) But there were more sophisticated ID champions, including the author's own father. They adhere to the same need to support their faith from natural evidence: a sort of self-directed apologetics. Slack illuminates how the scientifically literate and illiterate subscribers to ID/creationism are willing to make common cause against non-theistic epistemology, but also the tensions between them.

I recommend this book for its insights into a lamentably large segment of American society. Humes' Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul is still the best of breed.

I should also point out that it has been edited just as sloppily as the other books on Dover. Friedrich Dürrenmatt was certainly not a Dutch playwright (he was Swiss), Kennedy does not have three consecutive ns, and the attempt to typeset circumflexes is somehow, even in this day of computerized publishing, bungled.

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.

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.

Gordy Slack, a science writer with a gift for narrative flow, clarity, and a nifty mix of the personal and the general, observed and thoroughly grasped the subject matter, the issues, and the implications of the Dover, PA trial on evolution vs. intelligent design. He announces his bias (evolution) right away and does a fine job of being as objective as he can in laying out the opposing arguments, the views and commitments of the people on both sides, the nature of the evidence, and what the parties believed was at stake in this trial. This is one of those books one can wish there were more of, where a smart guy and fine writer takes on an issue that concerns us all and the principles that, no pun intended, have evolved from the Enlightenment forward.

This book is a great read. More than ever I could see how two sides could both use English and yet underneath be speaking in completely different languages.

Slack respects the reader and doesn't try to push his own point of view. Still, he keeps a warm human touch to the whole book, managing to tell the story in both objective and intensely personal terms at the same time. This guy is a fantastic writer, IMHO.

Don't read this book if you just want to pat yourself on the back that you've chosen the "right side". Do read it if you really want to learn something about the culture war that is now dividing this country. I already know which side I sit on - I don't need another book to help me with that - but I couldn't put this book down.

The author covered the trial for Salon.com, which is known for having a politcally liberal outlook. The author occasionally expresses his frustration with religious conservatives. He also takes some unnecessary shots at conservatives and Republicans in general.

On the other hand, he made a mostly successful effort to try and understand the mind of his enemy, as it were. As an intellectual exercise, he wants to see if he can fairly represent the view of the other side, although it's a view which he personally sees as intellectually backward.

The book is a reasonable length, and doesn't quote much of the trial testimony. He generally gives summaries of the main witnesses. A lot of the book consists of his own thoughts on evolution, religion, and science. I found his ideas interesting to read, although like most writers to cannot resist the temptation to make broad philosphical conclusions.

The real problem is that school boards see themselves as expressing the desires of the community. They don't see themselves as "the state". I somewhat sympathize with people who don't want their tax money used for teaching ideas which they see as competition for their religious beliefs. That's the problem with public schools, and why freedom of education should mean supporting private schools, with vouchers if needed.

It it clear from the book that ID proponents just don't like idea of purposelessness that is inhert in any natural mechanism for evolution. They start with the presumption of ID, and the burden of proof, as they see it, is on those suggesting a natural mechanism. The book relates how Michael Behe testified that in essense, he doesn't think evolutionary biolgists could ever come up with evolutionary explanations for complex cellular level adapations that would ever satifsy him. I think Mr. Behe is right about this. The ID crowd is so stubborn that they will accept nothing less than a complete historical explanation of every adaptation before conceding that an explanation using natural selection is at least possible.

I loved this book, and didn't want to put it down. I stayed up too late & neglected my responsibilities in order to finish it. Mr. Slack's book is written with great clarity and with respect - respect for all the characters involved as well as for the complexity of the issues. There is a lovely and powerful balance in the writing - between broad, big-picture implications and personal, individual details that ground the story in it's specific place & time. The author's reflection on aspects of his own family history adds another dimension & enriches his analysis.

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.)

In The Battle over the Meaning of Everything, Gordy Slack skillfully illuminates the complexities of the Intelligent Design/ Evolution debate, bringing to light the many social, political, scientific, and moral ramifications. As well, Slack personalizes the debate through frank examination of his own belief system, in contrast to that of his father, a born-again Christian. The result of these many strands of inquiry is a multi-layered, probing, and engaging book. Slack guides us through each step of the Dover trial, deftly describing and providing insight into many of the participants. He elucidates the debate from a variety of angles, from the legal to the historical, the biological to the religious, and never loses sight of the underlying issues at stake. Slack's intelligence, curiosity, and compassion pervade these pages. It is a captivating book - either an excellent introduction to those who may have hesitated to enter the seeming morass of the ID debate, or a means of deepening one's already existing knowledge. I heartily recommend this book as a thought-provoking exploration into one of the most important trials, and issues, of our times.