Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial is an award-winning NOVA documentary on the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, which concentrated on the question of whether or not intelligent design could be viewed as science and taught in school science class. It first aired on PBS on November 13, 2007 and features interviews with the judge, witnesses, and lawyers as well as re-enacted scenes using the official transcript of the trial.[1]
Judgment Day was produced by NOVA and Vulcan Productions in association with the Big Table Film Company. The senior executive producer was Paula S. Apsell, the executive producer was Richard Hutton, and the producers were Joseph McMaster, Gary Johnstone, and Vanessa Tovell. The senior producer was Susanne Simpson. Johnstone and McMaster served as directors, and McMaster was the writer.[2]
In April 2008 the documentary won a Peabody Award.[3] It won the 2008 Science Journalism Award presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to honor excellence in science reporting.[4]
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The documentary combines real-life interviews with those involved in the controversy with reenactments of events in the trial. The school board of Dover, a small rural town in Pennsylvania, passed a policy in which biology teachers in Dover Area High School must read a disclaimer regarding evolution, stating that it is not fact and contains gaps in evidence. It then pointed them to a set of books advocating intelligent design, called Of Pandas and People. Several biology teachers, including featured interviewees Brian and Christy Rehm, refused to read the statement and a lawsuit, Kitzmiller v Dover, was eventually filed to stop the school district from mandating the teaching of intelligent design. The documentary presents the resulting trial as revolving around the validity of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory. The defendants, members of the Dover County school board, argued that ID was a scientific theory and thus deserved to be taught in schools alongside evolution. The plaintiffs argued that Intelligent Design was a religious doctrine. Also at issue in the trial was whether the board members who had pushed the teaching of Intelligent Design had knowingly done so in order to inject creationism into the public schools. Previous court rulings had explicitly ruled the teaching of creationism unconstitutional as a violation of the separation of church and state. After hearing testimony from scientists in favor of and opposed to Intelligent Design, Judge John E Jones III rules that Intelligent Design is an inherently religious theory and therefore the teaching of it is not permitted as part of a science curriculum.
The documentary was received positively by many scientific organizations. It was praised by Nature,[5] and described as accurate by the National Center for Science Education.[6][7] Variety magazine also gave the documentary a positive review, and said it was one of the year's most important television projects, that "should be shown not just in every U.S. high school but in houses of worship as well."[2]
In contrast, creationists and intelligent design supporters have criticized the documentary. The Discovery Institute produced a website critical of the broadcast,[8][9] while Answers in Genesis argued the evidence for evolution presented by scientists in Judgment Day was fallacious.[10][11] The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) also claimed the film was not balanced.[12]
WKNO-TV, the local PBS affiliate in Memphis, initially decided not to air the documentary because of the "controversial nature" of the subject, but later reversed its decision.[13]
Teacher resources for the documentary