21St CENTURY SCOPES TRIAL: DARWIN: 40 INTELLIGENT DESIGN: 0 (ID STRIKES OUT) - Rated 
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.
Painless learning - Rated
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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