40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania

Not since early Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe have I had as much fun reading a witty, provocative piece of journalistic writing as I've had in screenwriter Matthew Chapman's "40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, GOD, OxyContin AND OTHER Oddities ON TRIAL IN Pennsylvania". It's an enthralling, often humorous tome, that owes more to the mordant humor of Frank McCourt, in his bestselling memoirs "Angela's Ashes" and "Teacher Man", than it does to the rather dry, but never dull, prose of Chapman's great-great-grandfather, Charles Darwin, in his scientific classic, "Origin of Species". In the fall of 2005, Chapman attended the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District Trial, as an accredited journalist and filmmaker, intent on making a documentary film on the trial, the town and its people. However, this would soon become a personal trek of self-reflection and discovery, in which he would make a most remarkable conclusion on the teaching of creationism in science classrooms. A trek which took him back to Dover, PA often, holding substantive conversations with the key players on both sides of the issue. And while Chapman truly strives for a cinematic narrative, fading in and out between brief discussions of the 20th Century Scopes Trial, the Discovery Institute, and his illustrious ancestor's revolutionary scientific research, the book's emphasis remains focused upon himself and his conversations with the people of Dover. So those in search of an extensive, truly profound, overview of the trial's origins and history might be best served elsewhere, most notably by reading Edward Humes' definitive, well-written account of the trial in his book "Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul", but they would miss much of the personal drama that Chapman has vividly recorded, using his prose as though it was his video camera lens, exquisitely recording all of the detail present. Chapman's narrative is more linear in focus than Humes' comprehensive account, and adheres more closely to a chronological perspective. One that starts with the Dover Area School District board's decision in the fall of 2004 to teach Intelligent Design alongside evolution, unexpectedly starting a civil war within the town itself, led by the ardent Fundamentalist Christians on the board, against those in the Dover community who were appalled by the board's decision. Among the most sympathetic figures is unexpectedly the board's firebrand, Bill Buckingham, who ruefully admits to Chapman that he's addicted to the painkiller OxyContin, and blames it, not himself, for some of his most outlandish comments, at the board's meetings, that were reported accurately by the local press. Chapman's truly moving, poignant portrayal of him strongly hints that he is, indeed, a lost soul afflicted by drug addiction. It is through moving portraits like those of Buckingham, and his arch-nemesis, former board member Barrie Callahan, that we get a strong

This book is about the famous Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board case. The school board, controlled by science-illiterate, religious fanatics and following the advice of other, science-illiterate, religious fanatics at the Thomas More Law Center, overruled Dover High's own science faculty and forced through a policy mandating that the freshman biology course include a statement that misrepresented and criticized evolutionary theory and provided information about an untested creationist alternative called "intelligent design." (Intelligent design is a "scientific" theory whose primary advocates are yet another bunch of religious kooks at the Discovery Institute.) After the school board passed that policy, several parents sued, alleging that the policy violated the First Amendment's provision regarding separation of church and state. After a full trial, the court eventually ruled that, duh, ID was a religious theory and had no place in science class. The book has three main ingredients. The trial itself serves as the unifying theme for the book, so the first ingredient, of course, is a description of the courtroom action, including very brief summaries of some of the testimony of the experts for both plaintiffs and defendants on the main points of the trial. Chapman does comment on some of the technical aspects of the trial, but only occasionally and very briefly. In general there is very little analysis of the merits of the scientific, legal, or philosophical arguments that both sides presented, so if you're looking for detailed information about those issues, you may want to look elsewhere. The second ingredient is a brief summary chapter in which Chapman argues in favor of teaching creationism/ID in science classes. The book's third and most important ingredient is the "human interest" or background stories about many of the characters on both sides of the tragicomedy of the trial; and it is this ingredient that makes the book such a tasty read. The anecdotes and revealing glimpses into the personalities, backgrounds, and motivations of the main actors are generally presented with warmth, sensitivity, and, frequently, with a great deal of humor. Many of the anecdotes were downright hilarious. Unfortunately, several anecdotes were of a more disturbing nature. The anecdotes revealing the dishonesty of the board members and the hypocrisy of the Thomas More Law Center will probably not be surprising to anyone who has followed the evo/crevo dispute in any detail, but the reports about the school board's arrogant, religious bigotry may be shocking simply for how open and public it was. The cowardice of the Discovery Institute's William Dembski and Stephen Meyer in failing to testify was also interesting, and Dick Carpenter's unexplained disappearance was simply mystifying. (Carpenter is associated with Focus on the Family, another group of religious cranks.) Other anecdotes report on the school board members' appalling

Honesty and wit, when paired together, can produce astonishing results. Throw in a heated religious, scientific, and legal debate and a dash of rare coincidence, and what you get is this terrific book, 40 Days and 40 Nights. Matthew Chapman, the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin and self-proclaimed high school drop-out, covers the Kitzmiller v. Dover Board of Education trial, in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2005. Technically, the trial concerned whether or not it was constitutional for the local high school to teach Intelligent Design alongside Evolution in a freshman science class, but Chapman seems far more interested in the individual personalities and over-arching historical trends which converged in that Pennsylvania courtroom. Chapman covers the trial well enough for an average reader to understand, but, unlike the majority of law proceedings, which can feel like a big game of hurry up and wait, his account is propelled along by the personal stories behind all parties involved. What is most impressive about this is Chapman's compassion and humor towards the people he observes, even those he seems to almost despise. He interviews many of them in their homes and at their jobs, not simply portraying them as plaintiffs or defendants. For the most part, this approach creates lively portraits that imprint themselves in the minds of readers, but at times it can bring so many names into the story that some of the minor players aren't easily identified when they pop up in later chapters. In either case, Chapman doesn't hesitate to speak his mind in playful, unassuming eloquence (his slight British accent can almost be heard in the prose) nor does he hide his beliefs from the reader. Even though I believe myself to be far more spiritual than Chapman sounds, I couldn't help but laugh at and ponder over some of his insights. Chapman may openly state his extreme agnosticism, but he refrains from piling all of the religious believers into one deprecating heap. He doles out mockery proportionate to the absurdity of the situation, but he also gives respect where respect is due. For instance, Chapman's most respected expert witness is not a scientist, as a harsh rationalist might expect, but instead is John Haught, a Catholic theologian, who summarizes the issue at hand profoundly yet concisely on p.106. On the other hand, Chapman creates a humane portrait of possibly the most detestable person in the trial, Bill Buckingham. Startlingly close-minded and hot-tempered, Buckingham blurts out fundamental riff-raff throughout the story and possibly takes part in the theft and arson of a piece of student art depicting the evolution of man. Nevertheless, Chapman finds personal parallels between this estranged old man and himself on p.225. The story is essentially about characters, and, being that Chapman's chief expertise is in screen-writing and documentary film-making, the story has a sort of feature feel to it. Except now this film-maker gets to in

A lot of people, like me, knew that an important trial was happening in Pennsylvania, but found the issues involved both challenging and confusing. Christian fundamentalists were trying to stop the basic scientific facts of evolution from being taught in their school system. Words like creationism and intelligent design were being thrown around. Sinister-sounding groups and individuals hovered in the background. We were concerned, we were worried, but the complexities as they emerged in the media seemed too complicated to grasp. Then I read Matthew Chapman's 40 Days and 40 Nights. Turning its pages I was carried along effortlessly by clear prose, simple language, and a narrative so gripping that I simply forgot the difficulties I had anticipated before. The story itself was compelling, but the scientific, religious and political issues were all there, understood by the author and presented accurately and - above all - fairly. When I finished the book, I realized it had done much more than just take me effortlessly and pleasurably through this highly significant trial. It had given me a portrait of present-day, small-town America, its people, their daily life, their work, their feelings. To anyone who finds the big political stories and so much else coming out of that country puzzling or hard to grasp, take my advice. Read this book.

What Matthew Chapman has written is an account of a trial and a report of an America suffering from a widening cultural gap between the secular protections of the constitution and a segment of the population who want to press a Christian agenda in public institutions. Richard Feynman, the physicist, in characterizing the aim of science and the aim of religion said that science seeks to uncover immutable laws that can predict events. The inverse square law of gravitation, laws of motion, and the effect of acceleration on mass, once revealed, changed how the universe is understood. Scientific method postulates a theory and then tests it, always open to new facts that will refine it. Oppositely, religion formulates opinions as dogma that, like conspiracy theory, is not accountable to fact. Dogma resists information that would compromise its premise. As long as science could not explain phenomenon, religion took as its providence superstitious understanding and assigned the mysteries of the world to an all-knowing God, who spoke to human creatures through inspired texts interpreted by anointed priests and ministered to the uneducated. Little has changed in the process of religious knowing, but much has changed in scientific understanding. In this compelling report of a forty-day trial, arguments are heard for and against the inclusion of a textbook describing Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolutionary theory in a ninth grade science class at Dover High School in Pennsylvania. The board of education voted the text into the curriculum and several parents who objected, claimed that the content was religiously driven, scientifically invalid, and legally unconstitutional. They won the case, but not before an exhausting, and by turns boring, shocking, outrageous, bigoted, benighted and ridiculous sequence of witnesses had their say in a formal court of law. It will serve no purpose here to comment on the obdurate convictions of religious people who are simple-minded, except to say that anyone can have an opinion, and everybody does, but an opinion is worthless unless it comports with reality. People in asylums have opinions, but it would be foolish to account any weight to them. In Mr. Chapman's narrative, science represents reality, and in Judge Jones's court, reality obtained. It's hard to know what opponents of Darwin fear especially. The loss of God from their world is part of it, or more to the evangelical point, the loss of God from your world, which good Christians find hard to countenance. But more fundamentally, dread screams from their intolerance and zeal from a possible awareness of the cosmic fraud in all of it. Matthew Chapman quotes Mark Twain: "Faith believes something you know ain't true." The constitutional rights framed by the wise fathers of our country stand as a barrier against extremism. In our day religious belief systems are collapsing under the weight of their absurdity. A world view seething in prejudice, misappreh