[Music] Dover Pennsylvania like much of the United States Dover has become a town divided I personally don't believe in Darwin's theory of evolution saying that you don't believe in evolution is almost saying for us well we don't believe that the civil war ever took place in the United States Dover is split between those who accept Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and those who reject it and that rift between science and scripture nearly destroyed the community signs of trouble first appeared after a Dover High School student painted a mural showing the evolution of humans from ape-like
ancestors it was a lovely piece of artwork very well done artistically and it did not offend me in any way but some in Dover were offended by the idea that humans and apes are related and that mural was removed from the classroom and destroyed flame soon spread to the local school board angry that only Darwin's theory of evolution was being taught the board required students here about a controversial idea at odds with Darwin called intelligent design to just talk about Darwin to the exclusion of anything else perpetrates our fraud but many say intelligent design is
the fraud intelligent design is a science stopper it makes people stupid 11 Dover residents sued their school board to keep intelligent design out of the classroom and almost overnight Dover was catapulted to the front pages of the nation's newspapers and the front lines in the war on evolution trials tear communities apart they set neighbor against neighbor nobody wants to do this you do it when you have to with Dover split down the middle a federal court would decide if intelligent design is legitimate science or religion in disguise and the verdict would have consequences that reach
far beyond the classrooms of Dover it's about religion politics and power up next on Nova Judgment Day intelligent design on trial major funding for Nova is provided by the following [Music] in October 2004 a war broke out in the small town of Dover Pennsylvania today the teachers in a rural Pennsylvania town became the first in the country required to tell students that evolution is not the only theory it started when the Dover Area School Board passed a policy requiring that its high school science classes include a controversial subject called intelligent design proponents of intelligent design
claimed that many features of living organisms are too complex to have evolved entirely through the natural process of evolution as Charles Darwin proposed instead they claimed some aspects of those organisms must have been created fully formed by a so-called intelligent designer and advocates contend intelligent design is a bold new scientific theory with the power to overthrow the theory of evolution its scientists debating science based on the evidence not based on any religious text Authority and it's clearly properly the subject of a science class it's in fact opening the path of inquiry to new ways of
thinking about things the evolution by natural selection is a scientific doctrine than a critique of that a doctrine is a legitimate part of science as well the Dover school board demanded that science teachers read their students a one-minute statement claiming that gaps in the theory of evolution exist and putting forward intelligent design as an alternative the statement also directed students to an intelligent design textbook called of pandas and people that would be made available but many Dover residents and an overwhelming number of scientists throughout the country were outraged they say intelligent design is nothing but
religion in disguise the latest front in the war on evolution the goal of intelligent design is to try to recrystallize American society intelligent design is not anywhere a scientific concept it's not a field of science it's not being actively researched by anyone it's a violation of everything we mean and everything we understand by science the stage was set for a battle that would pit friend against friend and neighbor against neighbor it was like we shot somebody's dog I mean there was a blow-up like you couldn't believe it's like a civil war within the community there's
no question before it was over this battle would land the school board in federal court no cameras were allowed in the courtroom so to bring this historic showdown between evolution and intelligent design to light Nova has dramatized key scenes from court transcripts it was a six-week trial in which modern biology was Exhibit A and hanging in the balance was not just the dover biology curriculum the future of science education in america the separation of church and state and the very nature of scientific inquiry were all on trial [Music] in Dover Pennsylvania the debate over religion
and evolution has long been personal we live in a community that has a great many fundamentalist churches I've never appreciated the fact that my children are being taught to believe in evolution as opposed to creationism in the beginning God created to me that's all I need to know located in the southeastern part of the state about 20 miles from the capital it's a quiet rural place home to about 20,000 people more than a dozen churches and one high school one of the first people in Dover to sense that trouble was brewing was Bertha spar she
had been teaching science at Dover High School for almost 40 years in the spring of 2003 she received some disturbing news from the school district's assistant superintendent he actually came to my classroom one evening after school and said Burt I think I need to give you a heads up there is a school board member who is talking about equal time whether it be 50% but certainly equal time for creationism and I think you need to be aware of this that's when the red flag went up another science teacher brian ream heard this too I had
actually laughed at him as I thought as the first thing I'd heard I mean creationism was ruled out as public education in science when I was in junior high school when Bertha spar asked which school board member was interested in creationism being taught alongside evolution she was told it was a local businessman named Allan Bonsall who had recently joined the school board my family and I've been very blessed here and I've had that lived in the door area for a hundred years so there's something that to give back and I thought I could help try
to make Dover you know the school district a better place when Bonzo had questions about how evolution was taught at Dover High School Bertha spar and her biology teachers agreed to meet with him I had a meeting with some of the science teachers in the high school just to see what they talk or didn't teach in the high school science class and creationism really didn't come up at that meeting it was more how do we teach evolution and he seemed very satisfied he was okay with how we taught we thought everything was good we went
on our merry way if you recall he did enlighten us at that time that he did not well yes his belief is that's evolution was how things came up right it's correct he thought they were earth was about much more than four thousand years old I personally don't believe in Darwin's theory of evolution I'm a creationist I make no bones about that [Music] creationists like Bonzo reject much of modern science in favor of a literal reading of the Bible they believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old and that God created everything fully formed
including humans in just six days [Music] although most mainstream religions made P
