What should we teach our children about where we come from?

Is evolution good science? Is it a lie? Is it incompatible with faith?

Did Charles Darwin really say man came from monkeys?

Have scientists really detected “intelligent design” — evidence of a creator — in nature? Inside our DNA? Inside amazing molecular “machines” inside our very cells? Or are those concepts nothing more than scientific fools gold, tricks designed to sneak religious ideas into public school classrooms?

What happens when a town school board in Dover, Penna., decides to confront such questions head-on, thrusting its students, then an entire community, onto the front lines of America’s culture wars?

From bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize­winning journalist Edward Humes comes a dramatic story of faith, science, and courage unlike any since the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. Monkey Girl takes you to the front lines of America’s war on evolution, the epic court case on teaching "intelligent design" it spawned, and the national struggle over what we believe ­ and should teach our children -- about our origins.

Told from the perspectives of all sides of this battle, Monkey Girl is about what happens when science and religion collide.

 

“Inherit the Wind collides with the Woodstock Generation and true believers out of Babbitt, with strange — and highly readable — results… Wondrously titled chapters such as ‘Paleozoic Roadkill, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Bad Frog Beer” provide plenty of sound and fury as they show some very angry people arguing the merits and necessity of science. An illuminating blend of science, religion and politics.”

— Kirkus Reviews

“Monkey Girl is compelling and unsettling — and a Rosetta Stone for understanding the frightened and oftentimes frightening subculture of Darwin Deniers.”

— Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times columnist, NPR host, and author of Rio LA

“A compelling, page-turning narrative… A must read for anyone who cares about science, education, and liberty. ”

— Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of Why Darwin Matters

“A riveting account of the modern ‘Holy War’ being waged by American fundamentalists in the schoolyard battle over Darwin's dangerous idea. Humes brings this modern American story to life through the richly-drawn portrayals of the citizen-members of the Dover Township school board, as their battle over what our children should be taught moves from one small Pennsylvania town to the country at large.”

— Lee M. Silver, Professor of Molecular Biology & Public Affairs, Princeton University

“Ed Humes' remarkable and balanced narrative has captured the essence of this complex and emotional dispute. When discussing the trial I have frequently found myself saying that to truly understand it, you had to be there. Humes' compelling book accomplishes just that, in that it explains this controversy to the reader in detail. In the face of the many inaccuracies and distortions promulgated by the punditry and others, we happily now have a definitive and thorough account of what really happened both before and during the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial.”

— US District Judge John E. Jones III, who presided over the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution ‘Scopes II’ trial

“Unusually deft analysis... extensive behind-the-scenes interviews... well-illuminated by this skilled writer... highly recommended read”

— Eugenie Scott, executive director, National. Center for Science Education and author of Evolution Vs. Creationism: An Introduction

Prologue

One Thing’s for Sure, We Didn’t Come From Any Monkey

The Reverend Jim Grove is a wiry and intense man, his eyes burning and birdlike as he takes the measure of each person entering the ninth-floor federal courtroom in downtown Harrisburg. He is among the first people whom visitors encounter (other than the extra squadron of courthouse security guards manning the x-ray and metal detector stations) as they arrive to watch the trial billed in the media as the second coming of the legendary Scopes Monkey Trial. (“Yes,” Grove says, “it’s a monkey trial all right. And the evolutionists are the monkeys.” He does not smile when he says this.)

Now and then, whenever he feels the moment is right (generally whenever someone initiates eye contact), the reverend unfolds himself from one of the old wood and leather chairs in the courthouse hallway and offers a small green flyer. This is an invitation to an event in the modest confines of the Dover, Pennsylvania, fire hall entitled, “Why Evolution is Stupid,” featuring a presentation from a creationism superstar who bills himself as “Dr. Dino.” Dr. Dino firmly believes that the world is only six thousand years old and that, consequently, men and dinosaurs once lived together quite happily. This view causes him to be in great demand in the thriving industry of “biblically correct science” – he crisscrosses the nation for more than two hundred paid speaking engagements a year, and the Reverend Grove sees the Evolution-is-Stupid presentation as a critical counter to the “devil’s work” going on just beyond the big wooden doors of Courtroom 2.

“Come to the meeting: You really need to hear the truth,” Grove tells one of the legion of reporters headed into court. “You’re sure not going to hear it in there.” He turns to a young woman and hands her a flyer, his eyes locked on the courtroom doors, where some of the top lawyers and law firms in the nation have congregated to pit science against faith. “All you’ll hear in there are the babblers,” Grove promises. Then he launches into a complicated monologue on Genesis flood geology and why the absence of feathered fish and finned birds proves that Darwin’s notion about common ancestry is so much bunk. Soon a bubble of solitude has formed around Grove as almost everyone within hearing distance shies away, but the preacher, who has gained local notoriety for his militantly gory anti-abortion billboards and parade floats, is not easily deterred.

He has come to bear witness to a trial that began as an obscure dispute over science textbooks in the rural, Pennsylvania township of Dover. Now pastoral Dover sits firmly astride the front lines of America’s culture war, occupying the uneasy space between America’s religious faith and its longstanding fondness for scientific progress, between an idealized past and an uncertain future, between education and indoctrination, between the natural and the supernatural. For the next several months, the ninth floor courtroom in the Ronald Reagan Federal Building will belong to Kitzmiller et al versus Dover Area School District, an unintentionally epic lawsuit filed by a group of parents against their evolution-doubting school board. The case does indeed have much in common with the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial, a public spectacle in which Clarence Darrow and the American Civil Liberties Union unsuccessfully challenged a Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution. But unlike its illustrious predecessor (which, popular imagination and classic films notwithstanding, had exactly no impact on the law or educational practice at the time), the Dover case is positioned to define (or redefine) for decades just what children are taught about where we come from.

Reverend Grove, on the other hand, seems more interested in where we’re going, which is the true bottom line of this battle, at least for the side that most reviles evolution. He appears to be keeping a mental list of all those he meets in the courthouse hallway, as well as those who testify in the case – a list of who will be headed to heaven when Judgment Day arrives, and who will, in Grove’s estimation, be taking a more southerly direction. The reverend’s world is a comfortingly (or terrifyingly) straightforward place. Either you believe in the literal truth of the Bible – that God created heavens, earth and man in six literal days, or you are damned. “Those Darwinists won’t know what hit them,” Grove says quietly as the voluble head of the National Center for Science Education stands a few feet away. A crowd of reporters listens intently as she presents evolutionary theory as the most verified, fulsome and mature theory in all of science, the very cornerstone of modern biology, as well as the key to all sorts of life-saving medical and pharmaceutical research. Grove shakes his head, astonished that anyone could buy such talk. As he espouses a theology that predicts the eternal damnation of this spokeswoman for science, along with dozens of people around him, his tone is not nearly as sorrowful as he intends. He juts his bearded chin forward and brings his cowboy boots down on the hard courthouse floor and sounds more triumphant than sad; after all, he says, his God is a vengeful God.

He also knows that America is largely on his side, at least according to opinion polls: Nearly half the citizenry accepts the idea that man was created by God in his present form, just as the Bible holds. Only a third believe that there is valid scientific evidence to support the theory of evolution. And an overwhelming majority support what the Dover School Board purportedly sought to do: teach evolutionary theory while also taking pains to point out what critics call its “flaws” and “gaps.” In Dover, this was to be accomplished by informing biology students of “scientific” alternatives, namely the new kid on the origins theory block, “Intelligent Design.” Accepting ID, as it has come to be known, requires a belief that empirical evidence – real, hard science -- shows that the complexity of life on Earth cannot be explained without the intervention of some sort of master designer. The designer is not identified as God – or identified at all – by IDers; they insist that all they can do as scientists is point to evidence that life is intelligently “designed,” a distinction proponents believe should make all the difference when courts weigh issues of church and state. There is a bit of a nod and a wink to this, as everyone involved knows that they’re talking about – or, more precisely, -not talking about – God, which is why such a large segment of Americans approve when ID is explained to them. America, alone among Western nations, is overwhelmingly God’s country. “Majority should rule,” Grove says. “Isn’t that the way America is supposed to work?” The parents who filed suit beg to differ.

An auburn-haired woman, pale and erect, walks stiffly past the reverend, looking straight ahead as she plunges through the doors into court. She is a former member and past president of the Dover school board, but Grove does not offer her a green flyer or any sort of greeting; he just purses his thin lips and once again shakes his head slightly. It appears Casey Brown is on the Reverend Grove’s second list. That she has done good works, serving her community and her church for many years, doesn’t much matter. She has, in Grove’s and many other Dover citizens’ view, betrayed her own, taking the side of the godless ACLU, the evolutionists, the poisoners of young minds.

“Evolution is the road to atheism,” Grove explains. “Our children’s future is at stake.”

Our children’s future is at stake: This is probably the only statement Reverend Grove will make during the course of the Dover trial with which Carol Honor “Casey” Brown can unequivocally agree.

As she comes to court to testify about her long tenure on and rancorous departure from the Dover school board, she can still scarcely believe it has come to this: A community divided, families divided, friends divided. Children have been ridiculed in the schoolyard for being open to the concept of evolution, taunted and mocked for being related to monkeys. A Dover High School student’s senior project, a sixteen-foot mural depicting the ascent of man from lower forms, which had been donated to the school and displayed in a science classroom, was taken down and burned – not by vandals, but by a school district official, with the tacit and even gleeful approval of school board members. Casey, meanwhile, having expressed her opposition to introducing religious ideas into public school science classes, has received hate mail and crank calls and angry stares in the street. And now she sees it as all spinning out of control: Dover has stopped being a small town, a small school district, a tightly woven community. Instead, it has become a cause.

It is a cause for the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, progenitor of the Intelligent Design Movement and the seductively reasonable argument that schools should of course teach evolution, but that they also should “teach the controversy.” It is a cause for the Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union, which has fought every significant evolution battle in the country since (and including) Scopes, and is facing dozens more across the country. It’s a cause for the massive Pepper Hamilton law firm of Philadelphia, which has donated the manpower and monetary muscle to champion the view of parents who sued, and who see “teach the controversy” as a stealthy method of injecting religion into the classroom instead of keeping it at home and in church. And it’s a cause for the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center, launched by the billionaire founder of Domino’s Pizza with a mission to return religion “to the public square,” billing itself, rather immodestly, as “the sword and shield for people of faith.” Together, these outside forces have lined up experts in science, philosophy, history and religion prepared to deliver several months worth of testimony. Massive legal teams have descended on the community, millions of dollars are being expended, the media glare is relentless. Even Casey’s husband, Jeff Brown, who also once served on the Dover school board, landed on the cable comedy channel’s Daily Show in an episode entitled, “Evolution Schmevolution.” The expenditure of energy and time and resources staggers Casey, and yet she knows it is a battle neither side feels it can afford to lose. Casey is one of the few who seem to realize that everyone in Dover has already lost.

This had been building for years. It began with the annual school board “retreat” – a fancy name for what amounted to a cafeteria-catered, help-yourself buffet at one of the elementary school teacher lounges, where board members were supposed to feel free to air their thoughts and concerns in an informal setting, without nosey reporters or members of the public listening in. That’s where the local version of an ancient conflict took root, in January 2002, when a new board member Alan Bonsell, an auto and radiator repair shop owner with whom Casey had campaigned, announced that he was very concerned with issues of morality. He wanted to bring prayer and faith back into the public schools. We need the Bible in the classroom again, he argued strenuously, and we need to teach creationism to achieve a “fair and balanced curriculum.” More than budget cuts, more than textbooks, more than school construction or any of the other mundane but critical issues facing the district that they had all campaigned on, Bonsell seemed to care about creationism. That, he said, was his number one issue. School prayer was second on his list.

Casey shrugged off these comments as the concerns of someone new to running a school district and new to public office, someone with deep religious convictions who meant well, but somehow remained unaware of Supreme Court rulings and constitutional separation of government and religion that made his ideas untenable for public school. He’d learn, she figured.

But at the following year’s retreat, Bonsell, by then in line to become board president (a position traditionally rotated among board members) again voiced his concerns. And he now had a solid majority on the board joining him – one that left Casey out on the margins. It was wrong to teach evolution without even mentioning the alternatives in biology classes, Bonsell announced. They should be taught fifty-fifty. Anything less would be unfair to families and school children.

As Casey haltingly testifies about her recollections of these times, her voice quavers. She sips water and sits almost painfully erect. In the gallery, sitting on the hard wooden benches that looked almost indistinguishable from church pews, Alan Bonsell watches, a thickly handsome man with a bushy mustache and the hint of a grin on his face, as if he knows something most others don’t know. Occasionally, the back of his neck turns red at some bit of testimony, but he almost never loses that small grin. It turns out, he, too, kept a list, of the same sort Reverend Grove kept.

“He told me,” Casey Brown testifies in her shaking voice, “that I would be going to hell.”

She had long considered Bonsell a friend, and recalling this moment still has the power to crush her even after two years have passed. When she speaks of it later that evening, away from the intimidating ritual of the witness dock and ensconced at the kitchen table in the Brown’s eclectic country home, she can only recall her friend’s prediction of eternal damnation in a whisper. But though Casey Brown may be easily wounded, she is nobody’s pushover. She has always been her own person, strong in her beliefs, a military brat, former educator, former journalist, mother and volunteer. She even went through a hippie phase that, as luck would have it, has been preserved for posterity: Open an old copy of the Woodstock record album and there inside, that photo of a lithe young woman skinny dipping is Casey of thirty-seven years past. She is not the least embarrassed, and neither is her husband Jeff, who likes to pull out the venerable LP to show off like a trophy. Today her convictions about religion are just as strong and unyielding as her school board compatriots’, but with a critical difference: Casey argues fervently that it is wrong – morally, legally, spiritually -- to impose one’s beliefs on others. Even as her fellow board members repeatedly cajoled her about whether she had been “born again” -- making it clear that answering no would render her suspect, or worse -- she felt compelled to demur, responding instead that their sworn duty as elected officials was to serve every member of the public equally, and to take pains to avoid marginalizing those of different faiths or those who have no religion at all. “However, it has become increasingly evident that it is the direction the board has now chosen to go,” she scolded her colleagues in her last official act as a Dover school board member. “Holding a certain religious belief is of paramount importance.”

For that, Casey heard herself pronounced an atheist, after which the school board proceeded to put previously obscure Dover, Pennsylvania, on the national map by voting six to three in favor of a remarkable new biology curriculum. By then the board members had received advice (along with videos, DVDs and books critical of evolutionary theory) from the Discovery Institute and Thomas More, after which the board decided to take the legally prudent course of avoiding overtly creationist or religious teachings, much to the consternation of Bonsell’s chief ally on the board, William Buckingham, who railed darkly about those “liberals in black robes” driving God from public institutions. Instead, the board adopted a more subtle three-fold strategy designed to pass constitutional muster: They would alter the curriculum to inform students that there were problems with evolution, which was, after all, “just a theory;” they would introduce (but not actually teach, as they saw it) the new “science” of Intelligent Design with its claims that the blind and random forces of nature could never have built such complex structures as a man or a bacteria or a strand of DNA without outside help; and they would explain that, as a result of the first two points, there was a genuine and growing scientific controversy about the validity of evolutionary theory. Thus, evolution would be dissed in the classroom (much to the satisfaction of Biblical literalists on the board and in the community), while students would be exposed to the notion that there could be scientific, as opposed to religious, evidence of a “designer” of all life on Earth. And this would be accomplished, the school board promised, without any of the religious or biblical classroom references that in the past had been ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. As the board majority saw it, all this would do was improve science education in Dover -- an inclusion of new and exciting theories, a commitment to accuracy and fairness by referencing “both sides” of the evolution question, and a lesson in critical thought added to all that tired, materialistic Darwinian dogma. Who, the board majority maintained, could argue with that?

They might have had a point, too, but for two big problems: Their own in-house experts – the entire science faculty – informed them that Intelligent Design was hooey in their considered opinion, that it was creationism in all but name, and that they adamantly opposed its introduction into the curriculum. And then there were the official discussions leading up to the new policy that seemed to belie the board’s bland insistence that it had no religious agenda – discussion and debate that featured extensive references to God, creationism, the “myth” of church-state separation, and board member Buckingham’s outraged attempt to shout down critics by saying, “Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross. Can we have the courage to stand up for him?”

The lawsuit from parents that followed wasn’t just predictable, it was anticipated. The Thomas More Law Center had been searching the nation for just such a test case, which is why it offered to represent the cash-strapped school board for free should it decide to make Pennsylvania the first state in the country to introduce Intelligent Design into its curriculum. And the Dover School Board was happy to oblige.

In the courtroom, Casey Brown finishes her testimony and Bonsell continues to smile. Later, during a break, David Napierski, who was appointed to the Dover school board after the evolution vote, stands, stretches, and expresses his support for Intelligent Design and a teach-the-controversy approach. Like other members of the school board, he says his support for “balance” is not based on any extensive knowledge of what Intelligent Design is all about, or evolution for that matter. Indeed, he clearly fails to grasp that evolutionary theory in no way claims that man descended from apes, but only that today’s men and today’s apes share a common ancestor in the distant, prehistoric past. “I’ve discussed this with my daughter,” Napierski says, “and one things’ for sure, we didn’t come from any monkey. She knows that as well as I do.” What Napierski and his colleagues still do not seem to understand is that Charles Darwin would agree entirely with that statement.

“This country wasn’t founded on Muslim beliefs or evolution,” Buckingham exhorted the citizens of Dover during the pivotal school board meeting. “This country was founded on Christianity and our students should be taught as such.”

That was the moment when Casey began to be afraid. Not of Buckingham or of any one individual. She was afraid of what this controversy would do to a community that she loved.

“I was afraid Dover would never be the same,” she says after court, finally relaxing in her own home, away from the glare and the attention.

“And I was right.”

Monkey Girl Links and Docs

Harper Collins Author Tracker for Monkey Girl

Harper Collins’ Monkey Girl Page

Order Monkey Girl From Amazon

The Monkey Girl Evolution/Intelligent Design FAQ — Think you know all about evolution and its alternatives? Check out some popular misconceptions in the Monkey Girl FAQ.

The Wedge Document — A once-secret plan to advance the anti-evolution origins explanation know as Intelligent Design. Critics of Intelligent Design say the Wedge Document exposes the movement’s religious, anti-scientific roots, while proponents argue the document is a misunderstood fund-raising proposal with little significance. This document became important evidence in the Monkey Girl trial.

The Dover Newsletter — This newsletter was sent to every family with a child in the school district to explain the new Intelligent Design policy. This copy was annotated and admitted as an exhibit in the Monkey Girl trial by the attorneys representing parents who sued the school board for introducing religious ideas into the public schools. The newsletter was important evidence in the case; the scientific claims in it have been widely criticized, including the newsletter’s claim that there is a scientific controversy over the theory of evolution (as opposed to a cultural or religious controversy.)

Good Science, Bad Science: Teaching Evolution in the States — How does your state handle the subject of origins? This study by California State University Professor of Astronomy and Physics Lawrence S. Lerner, for the Thomas Fordham Foundation, was published in 2000 and analyzes state by state the standards for teaching evolution. An article summarizing his findings can be found here.

How the states rate in teaching evolution A scale was developed to rate state science standards. It gave positive credit for the unbiased and scientifically accepted teaching of evolution and negative credit for the incursion of creationist notions. The numerical scores were reduced to letter grades A through F; Kansas was unique in earning a negative score and was rated F-minus. The table below gives the distribution of grades. (Source: Thomas Fordham Foundation)

Grade	A	B	C	D	F	F-
Number of States	10	14	7	6	12	1
States	CA, CT, IN, NJ, NC, RI, SC, DE, HI, PA	CO, MN, VT, WA, MI, AZ, ID, MA, MO, MT, OR, SD, UT, DC	MD, NM, NV, NY, NE, LA, TX	AR, KY, WI, VA, AK, IL	WY, ME, OH, OK, NH, FL, AL, ND, GA, MS, TN, WV	KY

 

Information on Evolution

Understanding Evolution — Resources on all aspects of evolutionary biology, courtesy of the University of California (Berkeley) Museum of Paleontology.

The TalkOrigins Archive — A complete compendium, featuring an Evidence for Evolution list and explanation, a list of Creationist Claims and Rebuttals about evolutionary theory, a thorough examination of views on the Age of the Earth, and much more.

The Evolution Controversy — A compact history of evolution and the law in the U.S.

The Scopes Monkey Trial overview. And a very nice history, with links, at National Public Radio.

The PandasThumb — The leading evolution (and Intelligent Design criticism) blog.

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online — Did you know that in The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin never used the word evolution? Read firsthand what the father of evolutionary biology had to say.

Ken Miller’s Evolution Page — Professor Kenneth Miller of Brown University is coauthor of the science textbook used in Dover, Penna., the principal setting for Monkey Girl, where the school board decided to introduce intelligent design into the high school, and parents sued, alleging a violation of church–state separation. Miller, a theistic evolutionist (meaning he believes in evolution and in God as “the author of all things seen and unseen,”

Pharyngula — Evolutionary Biologist and University of Minnesota professor PZ Myers’ popular blog focuses on evolution and Intelligent Design criticism. And octopi.

 

Information on Intelligent Design

The Discovery Institute — The leader of the intelligent design movement.

EvolutionNews — Discovery’s lively anti-evolution, pro-intelligent design blog, the opposite number of the PandasThumb.

Intelligent Design Network

Uncommon Descent — The web blog of a leading intelligent design proponent, William Dembski, research professor in philosophy at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Wikipedia Intelligent Design Page — This is a particularly thorough and well-referenced Wikipedia page.

Web Page of Barbara Forrest of professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University, author of Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, and star witness in the Monkey Girl trial. Read the first Chapter of Trojan Horse, and an article by Forrest on her experience in the Monkey Girl case here.

Discovery Institute’s 10-part rebuttal to Barbara Forrest’s testimony.

 

Information on Creationism

Answers in Genesis — This is the leading creationism information web site. A huge number of FAQs and informational articles. The Arguments Creationists Should NOT Use page is a handy reference to information that evolutionists and creationists both agree upon.

Center for Scientific Creation

Institute for Creation Research

 

The Case in Dover

The National Center for Science Education has created a complete archive of documents in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case (the central conflict in Monkey Girl. This includes transcripts, expert reports, the works.

The official court website for Kitzmiller vs. Dover. Download the original opinion of the court, by US District Court Judge John E. Jones III, here.

Science Wars: Should Schools Teach Intelligent Design — This is a fascinating debate that took place at the American Enterprise Institute during the Kitzmiller trial, and features several players in the case and an illuminating exchange between representatives of the Discovery Institute and the chief defense counsel for the Dover school district, Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center.