On this day, June 7, 2004, a school board member in a small town in Pennsylvania raised objections to the biology textbook before the board for adoption.

And for the next year and a half, little Dover, PA made headlines in the nation’s biggest newspapers and magazines. 

The textbook in question was coauthored by the man in the photo with me, Dr. Kenneth Miller. Board member Bill Buckingham rejected the proposed textbook because it was “laced” with “Darwinism”.

(Note: there is no such thing in science as “Darwinism”, but that’s a post for another day)

Buckingham and his allies wanted creationism taught in the high school alongside evolution. Reminded that the U.S. Supreme Court had barred creationism in public schools almost two decades before, the board sought a work-around.

The work-around included a re-vamped creationist textbook and a verbal warning to be read to students prior to teaching about evolution. Oh, and the term “creationism” was not to be used. In addition to evolution theory, students were to be taught a fairly new (at the time) “alternative theory” called “intelligent design.”

Intelligent design says that a supernatural designer placed various forms of life on earth, fully formed.

Dover biology teachers, in a unified front, refused to read the required statement. Instead, an assistant superintendent read the statement to each ninth-grade biology class. 

The board’s mandate required that students be taught, IN SCIENCE CLASS, about a supernatural designer.

The case ended up in a federal court in what has been dubbed the “Scopes trial of the twenty-first century.”

Judge John E. Jones III, a conservative appointed to the bench by George W. Bush, minced no words in his decision: intelligent design is a religious view, simply a re-labeling of creationism.

Here’s Judge Jones: “In an era where we are trying to cure cancer, where we are trying to prevent pandemics, where we are trying to keep science and math education on the cutting edge . . . to introduce and teach bad science to ninth-grade students makes very little sense to me . . . .”

The author of the disputed textbook, Kenneth Miller, was the star witness defending science in the Dover trial. 

Dr. Miller is a leader in research and in science education and he makes no secret of his Christian faith. He’s a science rock star.

Check out the NOVA documentary about the Dover case – interviews with all the major players and reenactments of the court proceedings. It’s fascinating.

NOVA’S “Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” is available on YouTube.