One can not but be impressed with Lauri Lebo. Small town reporter in Dover, Pennsylvania, in the midst of one of the more impressive trials in state history, weighing not only the merit of a new brand of scientific creationism, intelligent design, as it pertains to public education, but also the merit of her own town. “Dover”, she says “is like every small town. It has stories of startling beauty and secrets of profound ugliness” (p. 88). In The Devil in Dover, the reader witnesses both.
In 2004, the Dover School Board District, an elected group, decided to incorporate their version of religious doctrine, their brand of fundamentalist Christianity, into the local public education system. Of contention was the attempt to utilize “Of Panda's and People”, a religious text dressed up as science. Making matters worse was the public exclamation by some of its members (later to be denied despite the recorded evidence) to incorporate scientific creationism into the classroom. A nation defined, in part, by the separation of Church and State, upset the apple cart of small town relations; that casual howdy, passive existence paced by a sun dial rather than the digital clock.
Lebo takes as much personal risk as the local journalist documenting the affairs. Daughter to a myopic born-again Christian radio station owner, her own travails are on the table. “The truth is” she says, despite my religious ambivalence, I envy people of faith. I picture their sleep so different from my own – secure, uninterrupted by fear and doubt, unspoiled by images of our mortality” (p. 32). Her theological/scientific fights with her father only exasberated the situation further. Even as a reporter, pressure mounted, as the case unfolded, the deceit unveiled, that the exploitation of “fair and balanced treatment” also was challenged. “[S]omewhere along the line, we as journalists have gotten confused by a misguided notion of objectivity. It is our job to inform readers of the truth, not just regurgitate lies, even if it means the stories are no longer “balanced.” “(p. 158).
The idea of intelligent design goes back further than these recent legal events. Whereas some books only accumulate dust on the shelves, William Paley (1743-1805) does not have this disservice. My own copy of his Natural Theology is in a four volume collection, leather bound, published in 1819. His central thesis is:
“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there. I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever...”
“But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given...”
“...the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch much have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer: who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.”
In other words....the complexity of life could only be motioned through the hand of designer. The premise, dressed up in 21st century scientific lingo, becomes “intelligent design”, fostered by the Seattle based Discovery Institute, and used as a wedge by all those in favor of a creator, literalists, or not.
Lebo's story, is her personal journey (unlike, I presume, Gordon Slack's The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA). She discovers the sincerity and grounding by those who search in reality, and those who are committed to intelligent design as an “airy confection, ultimately no more substantial or satisfying than cotton candy” (p. 153). She also wonders “What would it be like to go a week without being judged?” (p. 185), a product of living in a small community, enhanced by those who practice judgement as an action of belief. Of the parents who fought, the plaintiffs, she finds them a motley consortium, some more concerned with the private practice of religion, others not so, but together, united by a vast team of legals who see this clearly as not only a case of the intrusion of fundamentalist Christianity on the state, but simply anti-science (intelligent designers, failing their science, try to redefined what science is; if you can't beat them, change the ground rules).
The eventual outcome of the trial was brutal on the school board. “The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident” Judge Jones states in his ruling “...which has now been fully revealed through this trial.” [The Memorandum Opinion can be found in full at http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/educate/ktzmllrdvr122005opn.pdf] Further “The Board brazenly chose not to follow the advice of their only science-education resources as the teachers were not included in the process of drafting the language adopted by the Board Curriculum Committee.” The school board lost on both counts: intelligent design is a theological argument; and as such, it infringes on the guardian of the U. S. Establishment Clause.
For the many months while arguments were laid in court as well as across Dover's picket fences, Lebo understood that “this was about this country”, not just Dover. This is between “The believers and nonbelievers.” Meanwhile “Neighbors turned their backs on each other, pretending not to see each other from across their backyards. Others stopped taking evening walks to avoid the cold stares and unreturned waves. People learned to keep their heads down at the grocer store” (p. 92-93). And then came the hate letters. And who can forget preacher Pat Robertson's proclamation after the ruling was announced: "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city" (quoted from P. 180).
The Devil in Dover provides a rare glimpse of a small community, bereft with tension and religious bigotry mixed with the sincerity and kindness of those living in the here and now. Lebo and the others survive, move on. The sun rises and sun sets, for this is certain, just as the scientists over the centuries were able to explain, despite what the Bible says.
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