So he coined the terms “Bible Belt” for that area of the country and “Monkey Trial” for the forthcoming event.
These neologisms still are in the lexicon to this day.
Sad Look at Society
It is an incredibly regrettable commentary on the appalling ignorance of science on the part of most Americans that in 2005, 80 years and a new millennium later, evolution was once again on trial in Dover, PA.
Two of the parents opposing the introduction of ID (Intelligent Design) into the high school curriculum had a daughter who was taunted and ridiculed by her classmates who called her “monkey girl’ in anticipation of the start of Monkey Trial II.
Many of the plaintiffs in the controversy were even labeled atheists although many of them were devout Christians who simply rejected any attempt to inject religion into their public school classrooms.
A Closer Look
Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes meticulously dissects the courtroom proceedings.
With the precision of a neurosurgeon, he lucidly unmasks the features of ID which belie its fundamentalist roots by substituting “design” for creation and “designer” for God.
Flood of Examples
With a spellbinding prose style, Humes offers bonus chapters on the history of other challenges to evolution (most notably in Kansas and Ohio) as well as a mini-biography of Darwin and a fascinating look at the personages most responsible for the ID movement as fringe science invoking the supernatural.
In the aftermath of Judge John E. Jones III’s ruling against ID, which resulted in the ouster of all eight school board members.
So many serious death threats were made that the U.S. Marshal’s Office placed him under 24-hour guard.
A Time for Piercing Humor
The infectious sense of humor of this genial judge came through most notably when a lawyer pointed out that the trial had lasted exactly 40 days and 40 nights (corresponding to the identical time period of the mythical Noah’s flood).
The jurist wryly replied, “That is an interesting coincidence. But it was not by design.”
Correcting a Misjudgment
His only regret about Kitzmiller v. Dover was that he had not allowed TV coverage for all the world to observe the triumph of science and reason over the forces of superstition and ignorance.
But he later compensated for that lapse of judgment by posting all 139 pages of the trial transcript on the Internet
