1. War on Science
Aired: 11/19/2007
Intelligent Design takes on Darwinism in a sleepy Pennsylvania town.
One hundred and fifty years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, an unprecedented legal battle has gripped America over an illegal attempt to teach Intelligent Design, a theory that stipulates that nature is so complicated and existence so improbable that it cannot be accounted for by the processes of evolution. It is an essentially Creationist theory which claims a legitimate challenge to Evolution. As the world's media descended on a small U.S. town, even the President took an active interest.
The trial was Kitmiller et al vs. Dover District School in Harris, Pennsylvania. At stake was the question of how life began, and a group of highly educated scientists and professors fought to prove that the world was designed by God. The plaintiffs consisted largely of parents fighting for their kids' education. The Dover District School Board, an elected body of local notorieties, became the first in the USA to demand the teaching of the controversial theory of Intelligent Design.
Since the Dover School Board's fateful decision, the town has become the battleground for the latest skirmish in the war between religion and secularism. A War on Science asks: Is the argument of the prosecution merely Creationism in disguise? Has science been committing fraud on a massive scale? And can the gaps in evolutionary theory finally be resolved?