| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (1 hr. 5 min.) ; 339881820 bytes |
| Summary |
In 2004, the board of the public school in Dover, Pennsylvania ordered science teachers to read a statement to high school biology students suggesting that that is an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution called intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have evolved naturally and therefore must have been designed by an intelligent agent. The teachers refused to comply. Later, parents opposed to intelligent design filed a lawsuit in US federal court accusing the school board of violating the constitutional separation of church and state.Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial follows the federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District and features trial re-enactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants, including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers, and town officials.The town of Dover is a quiet, rural place with a population of about 20,000 people, more than a dozen churches, and one high school.One of the first people at the school to sense that rouble was brewing was Bertha Spahr, who had been teaching science at Dover High School for almost 40 years. The school district's assistant superintendent advises her that a school board member was talking about equal time for creationism. The board member was a local business man named Alan Bonsell, who had recently joined the school. "I personally don't believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. I'm a creationist. I make no bones about that." As a creationist, Bonsell rejects much of modern science in favour of a literal reading of the Bible. Thus the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, and that God created everything fully-formed, including humans, in just six days.Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial presents the arguments by lawyers and expert witnesses in riveting details and provides an eye-opening crash course on questions such as "What is evolution?" and "Is intelligent design a scientifically valid alternative?" Kitzmiller v. Dover was the first legal test of intelligent design as a scientific theory, with the plaintiffs arguing that it is a thinly veiled form of creationism, the view that a literal interpretation of the Bible accounts for all observed facts about nature. (From the US, in English) (Documentary Series) (Part 1 of 2) |
| Event |
Broadcast 2009-12-07 at 14:25:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: PG |
| Subject |
Evolution (Biology) -- Study and teaching.
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Natural selection -- Philosophy.
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Science -- Philosophy.
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Science -- Religious aspects.
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Teachers -- Legal status, laws, etc.
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Pennsylvania -- Dover.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Fuller, Steve, contributor
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Muise, Robert, contributor
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