The Devil in Dover: An Insider's Story of Dogma V. Darwin in Small-town America
by Lauri Lebo
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Book Summary Information
Author: Lauri LeboEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-03-24
ISBN: 159558451X
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: New Press, The
Book Reviews of The Devil in Dover: An Insider's Story of Dogma V. Darwin in Small-town America
Book Review: Magnificent because personal
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a book about the school board in a small Pennsylvania town which decided to foist the entirely nonsensical concept of "intelligent design" onto its students and also its science teachers. The author has produced a ripping good yarn about how people in the town took sides, how the school board defended its plans, who came to help the two sides, and how the subsequent trial proceeded. But the book is even more a triumph because the author has put a lot of herself into it, and in two respects. First of all, she is a journalist, and she mulls the issue of so-called journalistic objectivity -- the idea that both sides to a story must be presented. The issue in this case is what to do when one of the "sides" is patently stupid. Secondly, her own father is an evangelical Christian who is not happy with his daughter for not being on the same page with him, so to speak. The author's description of her relationship with him is very touching, indeed. And yet the central element in this book is what the judge in the trial called the breathtaking inanity of people who push this idea of "intelligent design." The book shows them to be liars, and it calls them out for having people who can talk the scientific talk, but when pressed to explain exactly what the mechanism of "intelligent design" is ... cannot. It also shows how many people are willing to put their own brains out to pasture because someone has told them that if they are proper Christians, then they must believe in what began as creationism, was ruled by the Supreme Court not to be a science, and then was transformed part and parcel into "intelligent design." Among other things, "proper" Christians must believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old because "the Bible says so." That in itself is an idea which can be described as breathtakingly inane. For those who would now suggest that I am being "anti-Christian," I would say two things. First, I am a lay worship leader in my Anglican (i.e., Christian) church. And, second, do you really think that 99.9% of the world's scientists have been trying to pull a fast one on you for hundreds and hundreds of years now? It is not just Charles Darwin, it is every geologist, astronomer, chemist, physicist, etc., who has walked the Earth and, as is shown vividly in "The Devil in Dover," understand that science means testing that which is evident and provable. It goes back to Galileo and da Vinci. And you know what? God created them, too. And gave them a brain for a purpose. Thank you very much to the author of this book not just for showing up the inane nature of "intelligent design," but also for producing a truly intelligent discussion of how she herself, the daughter of a fundie, but also an experienced journalist, went through the process. Brava!
Summary of The Devil in Dover: An Insider's Story of Dogma V. Darwin in Small-town America
The page-turning story behind the 2005 intelligent design case in Dover, Pennsylvania?the case that made front-page news around the world. "What happened in Dover is a tiny sliver, a broken shard of glass mirroring what plays out across the country. A war of fundamentalist Christian values versus secularism. A battle between evangelical fanaticism and tolerance."?from The Devil in Dover
In December 2004, following the Dover area school board's decision to teach intelligent design in ninth-grade biology classrooms, eleven parents sued, sparking a federal constitutional challenge. Lauri Lebo, a small-town reporter who covered the trial, knows not just the legal case and science, but the people on all sides of the divisive battle. In The Devil in Dover, Lebo traces the compelling backstory of this pivotal case described by some as a perfect storm of religious intolerance, First Amendment violations, and an assault on American science education. In a community divided across unexpected lines, the so-called activist judge, a George Bush-appointed Republican, eventually condemned the school board's decision as one of "breathtaking inanity." Lebo follows the story through its surprising twists, pondering whether this was a national war playing out in a small town or a small-town political battle playing out on the national stage. As a "local girl" with a fundamentalist Christian father, Lebo provides an account that is both fascinating and moving, as she thoughtfully probes one of America's most divisive cultural conflicts?and the responsibility journalists have when covering such a controversial storyState & Local Books
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