Yesterday, closing arguments were held in the Ktizmiller trial, pitting the Dover, Pennsylvania school board that advocates teaching of intelligent design against parents of school students challenging the school's policy. The Associated Press reported that Friday marked the conclusion of the six-week trial that featured expert witnesses debating intelligent design's scientific merits and disagreements among other witnesses over whether creationism was discussed in school board meetings months before the curriculum change. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said he hoped to issue a ruling by early January.
Meanwhile, yesterday the New York Times reported that the idea of introducing intelligent design was originally suggested to the Dover school board by an advocacy group hoping to create a test case. For years, a lawyer for the Thomas More Law Center in Michigan visited school boards around the country seeking one willing to challenge evolution and to face a high-profile trial. The Dover school board agreed despite a memo from its lawyer, Stephen S. Russell, warning that if the board lost the case, they would have to pay its opponents' legal fees. In the memorandum, made public in court on Wednesday, Mr. Russell advised that opponents would have a strong case because board members had a lengthy public record of advocating "putting religion back in the schools."
In a final twist of irony, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today says that one of the reporters covering the high profile trial for Harper's magazine is Matthew Chapman, great-grandson of Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution has been central to the case. Chapman's comment on the proceedings: "All of this is so unnecessary. People can believe in God and they can believe in evolution, too."
