Analysis: The Players

We have stated the major players in this conflict. To be honest, there are several more players, such as the other plaintiffs involved, the various members of the Dover, Pennsylvania school board who had their own reasons for introducing intelligent design into the classroom, and the various and well-credentialed experts for both the plaintiffs and the defendants, but for the sake of brevity, I must exclude them from this project. If one is interested, there are a large variety of books and other media regarding the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial that does a far better job illustrating the varying academic and emotional investments of the involved characters than this project could manage. (My personal favorite of which is The Devil in Dover by the mentioned Lauri Lebo.)

The central figures in the debate are the two sides, the plaintiffs (the titular Kitzmiller and the other concerned parents) and the defendants (the Dover school district). Supporting the plaintiffs is practically the entire field of established, academic science, augmented and represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, who sees the court case as an encroachment of religious instruction into public education. Supporting the defendants are the Discovery Institute, whose sole purpose is to introduce the "controversy" surrounding evolutionary theory in the form of intelligent design instruction, and the Thomas Moore Law Center who's stated mission is to be the "Sword and Shield" for people of faith, which by their own admission on their website, is what they believe to be the conservative and religious counterpoint to the ACLU.

This case will be judged by Judge John E. Jones III, a federal judge, appointed by the first President Bush, a Republican, and an avid churchgoer. Initially believed by both the Discovery Institute and the Thomas Moore Law Center as a sympathetic trump card in their legal hand due to his religious and conservative credentials, Judge Jones would provide a surprising conclusion to the case by providing a judgment that would find rather decisively for the plaintiffs. Surrounding the case is a media firestorm, eager to view what is widely considered as the second coming of the Scopes Monkey Trial, in which evolution is again argued before the court. Lauri Lebo is the local reporter covering the case, and her examinations of both the evidence and of the cultural situation surrounding the case provide an analysis that is outside that of the legal and scientific arguments. She represents the uninformed, yet open minded individual to whom the scientific arguments are meant to convince of evolution's strength or weakness.