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[Previous entry: ""] [Archive Index] [Next entry: " " 01/31/2009
About the Book In a springtime ritual repeated in thousands of communities across the country, the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, convened for the seemingly innocuous task of adopting new science texts. Instead, Dover became the first school district in America to mandate the teaching of a new and controversial blend of science and the supernatural known as “intelligent design.” This 21st century take on creationism attempts to poke holes in evolutionary theory with a vision of a universe designed by a guiding intelligence – while avoiding any mention of God or the Bible. Could this new approach pass constitutional muster? Was it legitimate science or artful sham? The maelstrom that followed became the subject of a media fixation, a sensational trial, a town torn down the middle, and a still-raging national debate over a seemingly eternal conflict: What happens when science and religion collide? In Monkey Girl: Education, Evolution, and the Battle for America’s Soul, bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes tells this science vs. faith story through the eyes of characters on both sides of the conflict, and through the rich history behind the epic Kitzmiller vs. Dover case, billed as the “second coming” of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. Each side in the bitterly divided town of Dover felt certain it was right, with the future of science education and religious freedom on the line for all Americans. Discussion
2. The character of Bill Buckingham is introduced early in the book, as both catalyst and lightning rod for Dover’s entry into the Evolution Wars. He is a person who wants to make a difference — an admirable quality — but he acknowledges no distinctions between belief, opinion and knowledge. How do you perceive Buckingham? As a well–intentioned true believer? As a man who manipulated his office for his own purposes? Or as a man who was manipulated by others to achieve their own agenda? Have you ever encountered other men or women like Buckingham? 3. Bryan and Christy Rehm took as strong a position as Buckingham’s, but they, like the other plaintiffs and Dover High School’s science faculty, encountered far more negative reactions than he did for standing by their principles. Discuss how the Rehms conducted themselves and why their treatment within the Dover community was so markedly different than Buckingham’s. Why was a science teacher defending science (or a student who opted out of the intelligent design session) treated differently than a public school board member defending religious ideas? 4. The Scopes Monkey Trial set the pattern for America’s Evolution Wars, and is the most recognizable of the many cases that have arisen in this conflict — in name, if not in substance. Before reading Monkey Girl, were you aware that Scopes was a “put–up” job invented to garner publicity and income for the city of Dayton; that the case came about because the state of Tennessee had mandated Genesis as the only teachable theory of biological origins in public school science classes; and that the unintended result of Scopes was a virtual banishment of evolutionary theory from public schools for nearly four decades? In what ways were Scopes and Kitzmiller similar? How did they differ? Where might we be today if the ACLU had succeeded in getting the Scopes case to the Supreme Court in 1925, and won? Would there have even been a Kitzmiller case? 5. Consider the attorney Phillip Johnson’s role in developing the evolution alternative of intelligent design. Do you think ID’s origins as a “wedge” to attack the dominant scientific and legal principles of our age undermines its proponents claims that ID is a legitimate scientific idea? Or should ID be considered on its merits, apart from its “origin story?” 6. Why is the intelligent design idea so appealing as an alternative to evolutionary theory? What does it offer that evolution does not? Does its appeal rest, as proponents maintain, on common sense and rigorous scientific inquiry? Or does its appeal depend upon widespread ignorance about the real science of evolution as a natural explanation for natural phenomena? How does Americans’ simultaneous distrust of science and love of the fruits of science — from iPhones to plasma TVs — play into this? 7. Discuss the Discovery Institute’s position that public schools ought to “teach the controversy.” Why would that be a good or bad principal to adopt in public high school science classes? How about in college classes? What about requiring rigorous evolutionary science instruction in fundamentalist religious schools and to the home–schooled as conditions for accreditation, so students in those venues could get both sides of the “controversy,” too? Why is questioning established and widely accepted scientific principles deemed acceptable by supporters of “teach the controversy,” but not similar questioning of religious principles and creation stories? Which position is most protective of religious freedom and constitutional rights? Explain. 8. How did the proceedings in Kansas before the state school board differ from those in Pennsylvania in federal court? Why were the outcomes so different, and what lessons should be drawn from them? What if there is a new, similar controversy in a few years? In an ideal world, assuming that all parties were to act in good faith and were open–minded in weighing ideas and evidence, what would be the better forum to examine and possibly resolve the controversy: a legislative inquiry, such as Kansas’s, or a courtroom inquiry such as the one employed in the Kitzmiller case? Explain. How would you design a fair process to resolve the conflict? 9. What evidence, line of questioning, cross–examination, or witness did you find most compelling or persuasive in the Kitzmiller trial? Were there witnesses or questions you wished had been considered that were not? What information most challenged, and most supported, your own views? Explain. 10. The lead attorney for the school board, Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center, sought especially hard to discredit the testimony of Barbara Forrest. Why did he consider that so critical? How effective was he? How significant was Forrest’s analysis of the “evolution” of the ID textbook, Of Pandas and People? 11. Molecular biologist Ken Miller testified that evolutionary theory is among the best–supported scientific theories in all of science and a pivotal part of modern biology, but also that he believes “God is the author of all things seen and unseen.” He presented the first point as a matter of scientific inquiry, for which there is considerable evidence and observation to substantiate it; he described the second point as a matter of faith, which by definition cannot be proved in a scientific manner. Together, these two ideas form the cornerstone of “theistic evolution.” This is the notion that it is possible to believe in God as a creator of the universe, yet also accept that natural forces such as evolution and natural selection govern that same universe without need of divine intervention, and that such processes can be understood and explained by science. Thus Miller and like–minded scientists assert that no scientific theory, such as evolution, requires or encourages atheism. Supporters of creationism and intelligent design vehemently disagree; so does a small but vocal group of atheistic scientists, Richard Dawkins being the most prominent. What do you think? Has you thinking on this “evolved” since learning the details of the Kitzmiller case and the particulars of modern evolutionary theory and intelligent design? 12. Discuss ID advocates’ claim that evolutionary theory is a kind of secular faith that must be balanced with alternative views, or omitted entirely, from public school classrooms. Compare this position to the views advanced by witnesses for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller: that science is completely different from faith and religion, in that science limits itself to natural explanations for nature, while faith and religion focus on supernatural explanations, not only of origins, but of purpose and meaning. 13. Testimony from school board members in Dover revealed that they embraced many myths about evolution, and that their deepest objections centered on these myths (their incorrect beliefs that the theory asserts life originated through random chance or accident, that man descended from monkeys, that natural selection is fundamentally immoral, that Charles Darwin inspired Hitler and the Holocaust, etc.). What is the source of these false beliefs? How do you think the public schools ought to handle the teaching of evolutionary theory as part of the larger subject of high school biology? Would more and better instruction lead to less misunderstanding and conflict, or more? 14. The reaction to the Kitzmiller verdict suggests that the conflict at its root still runs deep and is likely to erupt again in other forms and venues, and that discomfort over longstanding case law on the separation of church and state continues to grow in some quarters. What developments do you anticipate in the future? What would you like to see happen? 15. Suggested additional activity: look online for Judge John E. Jones III’s written opinion in the Kitzmiller case, as well as for his speeches on the subject of the importance of judicial independence — a response to death threats he received after deciding the case. Visit my Monkey Girl Blog. |
