Intelligent designer

The chief defender of intelligent design in the Dover evolution trial insists he has science and God on his side.

By Gordy Slack


Oct. 20, 2005 | HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Richard Thompson has a startling habit of thrusting his fist to his mouth and biting his index finger between the first and second knuckles, as if trying to keep himself from saying too much. But as quickly as it goes in, the finger comes out again and his words begin to flow. He cannot help himself. He must tell the truth. As he sees it.

Thompson is the founder, president and chief council of the Thomas More Law Center, a nonprofit group in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Law Center is representing the Dover School Board pro bono in the current landmark case that pits the theory of evolution against "intelligent design," the theory that some features of the natural world are best explained as the products of an intelligent cause or designer. The Law Center describes itself as "the Sword and Shield for People of Faith," and was originally funded by ultraconservative Domino's Pizza millionaire Thomas Monaghan, who is, like Thompson, a Catholic.

On Sept. 26, the first day of trial, Thompson, in an elegant dark suit, is standing on the steps of the U.S. Middle District Courthouse in Harrisburg, Pa. The trial has adjourned for the day. It is expected to continue through the first week of November.

A light rain falls as lawyers and advocates on both sides of the debate are making public comments. But nearly all of the reporters, photographers and cameramen surround Thompson. He is short and powerfully built, white-haired but bald on top, and endowed with an impressive nose and preternaturally white teeth. He has the defiant, almost menacing energy of an armed man on a moral mission.

Thompson is holding forth on his defense strategy. He says his scientific experts will show that I.D. is a valid scientific theory based on empirical observation by credentialed and respected scientists. He is arguing that no theory should be judged by its historical roots, even if they are religious, or even if they are creationist. Modern chemistry emerged from alchemy, after all, and that doesn't make it bogus. Astronomy emerged from astrology, and we don't hold that against it. Nor should a theory be judged by the personal ideologies of those who hold it; plenty of Darwinists are atheists, but that doesn't disqualify evolutionary biology as an ideology, he says.

Schools that want to include the I.D. debate in their curriculum deserve the right to do so, Thompson says. Denying them that right is a form of both scientific and religious discrimination. "I.D. is seeking a place in the classroom because of its merits," he says. "But it's being kept out because it is harmonious with the Christian faith."

He continues: "There are two Americas today, one that's still very religiously based, and another that has no foundation, where everything is relative, where everything goes." And the moral relativism that dominates the second America is an ideology enabled by Darwinism.

"All scientific theories, including Darwinism, have religious implications," Thompson says. And the religious implication of Darwinism is atheism. Furthermore, moral relativism, atheism and the idolatry of science are symptoms of our "floundering society." Thompson says he aims to put society back on track, and that track is there for us, laid down by God. "We do this, all of the attorneys I'm working with do this, because of our religious commitment."

"Do you believe that we and other primates descended from common ancestors?" a British filmmaker calls out. Thompson bites his finger and says, "Do I think I evolved from an ape? No, I don't believe my ancestor was a monkey."

Thompson stole the lines from William Jennings Bryan.

Bryan was the lawyer, orator, statesman and progressive evangelical Christian who, 80 years ago, argued against teaching evolution in high school in the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tenn. Although Bryan won the Scopes trial, he is remembered for taking an intellectual pummeling on the stand by Clarence Darrow -- perhaps the second most famous lawyer of the day and an advocate for evolution and modernity. While the Scopes trial set off decades of anti-evolution legislation in states around the country, it is also remembered as the beginning of the end for American creationism.

Who could have guessed that the ideologies fueling the Scopes trial would evolve enough to bring us this new version four-fifths of a century (and libraries full of evolution-supporting evidence) later? Well, Thompson could have. "Questions about the role of design in creation have been asked for thousands of years," he says. "They haven't been put to rest at all. They're just getting stronger."

Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District -- the trial's official name -- was hatched in October 2004 when a small south central Pennsylvania community's school board passed a resolution mandating that ninth-grade biology teachers launch their class by reading four paragraphs to their students. The paragraphs cast doubt on the validity of evolutionary theory and say that there are competing theories (specifically I.D.) and that copies of an I.D.-friendly textbook, "Of Pandas and People," are available in the library for anyone who wants to learn more. Several members of the school board quit in protest when the proposal passed, and in December, 11 parents sued the board, accusing it of violating the First Amendment.

The suing parents -- backed by the ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the huge Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton LLP -- are claiming that I.D. is not a scientific theory, but a religious one, namely creationism, and has no business posing as science in biology classrooms.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III (a George W. Bush appointee) will have to decide, following testimony by scientists, philosophers, theologians and historians of science (as well as the plaintiffs and school board members), whether telling Dover's ninth-graders about I.D. is exposing them to an "underdog science," as Thompson calls it, or is promoting a particular religion.

If Judge Jones decides in favor of the Dover school board, dozens of other school boards around the country are waiting in the wings to implement I.D. into their science curricula. If he decides for the defendants, Darwin's theory of evolution alone will continue to be taught in public schools as the scientific explanation for the diversity of life. Regardless of how Judge Jones votes, both sides have said they will appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Thompson gained fame as the Michigan state prosecutor who repeatedly charged assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian with first-degree murder, and didn't stop pursuing him until Thompson was elected out of office, in large part for hounding Kevorkian. Thompson is also known for pushing through mandatory life sentences in Michigan for drug crimes and for prosecuting more drug offenders than anyone else. And, of course, Thompson shares with Bryan the conviction that Darwinism is perhaps the world's most dangerous idea.

But for Thompson to prevail in his quixotic battle to convince the court that I.D. has a place in a nearby high school's ninth-grade biology class, he will need more than confidence and religious zeal. Although divine intervention might help, what he really needs are some new and compelling arguments to help I.D. sneak around the constitutional prohibition against promoting a particular religious view in the public schools. And he thinks he's got them.

Next page: "Should 'On the Origin of Species' be kept outside the science classroom because it talks about the Creator?"