Free Republic

Dover Area School District's federal trial began yesterday in Harrisburg with talk ranging from divine intervention and the Boston Red Sox to aliens and bacterial flagellum. After about 10 months of waiting, the court case against the district and its board opened in Middle District Judge John E. Jones III's courtroom with statements from lawyers and several hours of expert testimony from biologist and Brown University professor Kenneth Miller. On one side of the aisle, several plaintiffs packed themselves in wooden benches behind a row of attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, Pepper Hamilton LLC and Americans United for...

HARRISBURG, Pa. - The second day of a trial over what students should be told about evolution and alternative views of life's origins veered briefly into a discussion of faith. Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, a witness for eight families suing the Dover Area School District for introducing the concept of "intelligent design," was asked by a school attorney whether faith and reason are compatible. "I believe not only that they are compatible but that they are complimentary," said Miller, who had earlier volunteered that he was a practicing Roman Catholic. Pressed on that point, Miller was asked why a...