Barbara Forrest

Four years ago today, December 20, 2005, in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in the case of Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District, Judge John E. Jones III ruled that teaching intelligent design (ID) creationism is unconstitutional. In celebration of this anniversary, the Louisiana Coalition for Science, whose co-founder Barbara Forrest served as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in this case, has posted links to some online resources about the trial. Kitzmiller was the first legal case involving ID creationism.

• The first and most important resource is Judge Jones’s ruling itself, which University of Cincinnati law professor Marianna Brown Bettman called “judicial poetry.” Download the ruling here [pdf].
• The National Center for Science Education has posted a comprehensive archive of trial documents here.
• Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, was interviewed about the trial on Point of Inquiry. NCSE served as a pro bono consultant to the plaintiffs’ attorneys throughout the entire period of preparation and during the trial itself.
• The ACLU of Pennsylvania, whose legal director Vic Walczak served as one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, has posted all trial transcripts here.
• One of the best articles about the trial, which ran from September to early November 2005 was written by Margaret Talbot for The New Yorker. See “Darwin in the Dock.”
• LCFS co-founder Barbara Forrest served as an expert witness for the plaintiffs. She wrote a first-person account of the trial, “The Vise Strategy Undone,” for the July 2006 Skeptical Inquirer.
• The Peabody Award-winning NOVA documentary, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, aired on PBS on November 13, 2007. It is now available on Google Video.

In honor of the stunning victory for science education and for the First Amendment’s guarantee of the separation of church and state in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005) . . .

MERRY KITZMAS!!