Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

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Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.
Introduction
The “Judgement day: Intelligent design on trial” Is a video documentary on the case of Kitzmiller vs. a district school in Dover. The documentary presents conflicting views of residents, teachers, scientists, and lawmakers on the incorporation of the intelligent design in science classes in the school. The documentary also re-enacts scenes of the official trial based on the formal transcript of the case. The legal battle ensued when the board of the district school in Dover, Pennsylvania unanimously voted against including the intelligent design in science textbooks used for teaching. Buckingham, a board member, supporting the introduction of the new curriculum, went ahead to draft a statement to be read by all biology tutors. The statement to be read before teaching any Evolution unit required that teacher informs students the weaknesses and problems in Darwin’s evolution theory and informing each student that a copy of intelligence design book is available for any interested student.
The trial presents a problem where the judge has to decide whether the intelligent design is just a modified name for creationism, which had already received a ban from schools for its religious nature. The documentary presents a legal battle that divided the Dover community over the teaching of evolution as the explanation for existence and survival in public schools. The paper describes the evidence given by both sides of the court case and the decision of the judge in the fierce legal battle of science.

Discussion
Darwin’s theory of evolution explains life over the course of a very long period defining the change and growth of the planet. The theory explains that the changes in features and adaptations of the plant resulted from mutations and that the advantageous features enable an animal to have a longer life and therefore continue with reproduction. The theory further explains that, as reproduction proceeds among these plants and animals with new adaptations, these changes occur over several generations of plant and animal species and the newly evolved population becomes a whole generation of species (Hitchslap, N.p). On the other hand, Intelligent design argues that some aspects of existence are so complicated that need the existence of an extremely ‘intelligent agent’ responsible for designing these aspects of existence. Proponents of Intelligence design utilize the term ‘Irreducible complexity’ to refer to specific things found on the earth, an example being bacterial flagellum. In the documentary, Michael Behe who believes in Intelligent Design, explains that the flagellum, a structure that enhances the movement of bacteria, is too complex and is made up of several pieces that it cannot function with even a single missing component (Lasser, N.p). Therefore, the intelligent design argues that these pieces did not evolve over a period. Because there is no evidence to prove mutation and/or adaptation of each of these pieces, the proponents of intelligent design, therefore, concludes that the whole system must have come into existence as a single unit and thus there must be an intelligent agent involved in its design.
The argument by proponents of Intelligent Design sounds convincing, the evolution theory proposed by Darwin cannot explain the existence of flagellum, and its appearance in one generation. The weakness presented by intelligent design proponents here is that; most parts of the flagellum can be found in other organisms (Lasser, N.p). However, they are not responsible for movement but enhance other processes in these organisms. Behe is the only scientist proponent of intelligent design. Even though his example of bacterial flagellum can be wrong, there is no basis for dismissing the whole idea. Other supporters of Intelligent design in the case include; Phillip Johnson who in a 1987 supreme court ruling supported the retention of Creationism in the classroom after it had been ruled out. The main aim of Kitzmiller’s lawyers in the case was to depict that Intelligent Design had the same similarities with Creationism which at the time had already been banned from science classes (Hitchslap, N.p).
The proponents of evolution in science classes argued that; in science, using the word ‘theory’ doesn’t have the same explanation among laypeople. Kitzmiller’s experts and lawyers checked the drafted copies of the book ‘Pandas and People’ that was donated to the school with the help of several board members to the Dover district school as an Intelligent Design textbook (Hitchslap, N.p). The textbook was written before, but only published after the ruling by the supreme court in 1987 had some interesting arguments. For example, the lawyers found out that before 1987, the book didn’t mention ‘intelligent design’ because the term had not been coined yet, the book discussed the creation and even defined the term ‘creation.’ Furthermore, after the ruling in 1987, the book defined and discussed ‘Intelligent Design; in the same manner, it had defined creation changing the term intelligent creator into the intelligent agent (Lasser, N.p).
Conclusion
The video documentary explains both sides of the problem; the proponents of evolution discredit the opinions of Intelligent design supporters based on the definition of terminologies using the replacement of the term intelligent creator by intelligent design. On the other hand, the proponents of Intelligent design argue based on the fundamental complexity of some aspects of science, discrediting the evolution theory based on the weaknesses presented. The court ruling went in favour of evolution. In my opinion, because evolution also presents weaknesses. The education system should have adopted ‘Intelligent design’ as an alternative explanation of existence. Evolution presents rigidity and does not give students the freedom to choose their own belief based on the available options.
Work Cited
Hitchslap, Christopher. Judgment Day Intelligent Design On Trial FULL (NOVA). 2011. Web. 24 Nov. 2016.
Lasser, Josh, 2007 Day, Judgment. “Intelligent Design on Trial.” NOVA (2007).