December 26 movie: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. My folks and I watched this together, the recent Nova documentary about the Dover school board trial. My dad had closely followed the case while it was happening, so he was able to add context & more information during the movie. I also followed the trial, though not as closely. I remember where I was when I heard the verdict though. I was driving home from work, I had just gotten on on I-85 north. On the radio they read quotes from the decision, like "breathtaking inanity," and I bounced up and down in my seat, whooped for joy and waved my arms in the air. One at a time, of course! Had to keep one hand on the wheel.
The movie did a good job, I think, of explaining the basic principles behind evoutionary biology in a clear and understandable way. With nifty graphics. Whether it was accurate or not, I'll leave to the scientists. Of which I am emphatically not one; in fact I have trouble following the discussions of evolution vs. intelligent design on the cool science blogs when they get down to details. I still try to read them anyway, because they are cool. And who knows, I might learn something before they go over my head.
The term "docudrama" has a bad rap, but I think it maybe applies here: it's mostly documentary, with interviews, news footage and narration. Plus they added dramatizations of the trial because cameras weren't allowed in the actual courtroom.
From what I understood at the time, this case was a crushing defeat for the ID people. And the movie definitely confirms that perception. The defendants made some major mistakes, such as saying on camera they wanted to bring "creationism" into the classroom in an early interview; lying about the source of money to buy the ID book that was added to the school library; and probably the most glaring gaffe, cdesign proponentsists. It made me wonder if the trial might have gone differently had the ID crowd been able to pull their act together.
One thing that really bothers me about modern American journalism is this focus on "objectivity" at the expense of all else, including "accuracy." It seems like much of the media think their job is to repeat what each side says about a controversy, giving equal weight to all sides, regardless of which statements are true and which are false. In essence, they give up reporting and reduce themselves to stenographers. The Nova documentary didn't do that at all. They thoroughly refuted the claims made by ID as they went along. I guess it's no surprise that Nova would come down on the side of science, but the people from the Discovery Institute must have hated it. Oh what am I saying. It was PBS! They would have hated it no matter what it had said.
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