science

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial rather than just read about it. In short: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial is a 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.

Key takeaways

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial is a 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 stations nationwide, on November 13, 2007, with many reruns, and features interviews with the judge, witnesses, and lawyers as well as re-enacted scenes using the official transcript of the trial. Judgment Day was produced by WGBH's 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. In April 2008 the documentary won a Peabody Award. It won the 2008 Science Journalism Award presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to honor excellence in science reporting.

Summary When the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, votes to require science teachers to read a statement touting intelligent design as a scientific alternative to Darwin's Theory of Evolution, parents sue the district, leading to a trial in which the judge must decide if intelligent design is merely a new name for creationism, already barred in public school science classes as being religious in nature.

Response The documentary was received positively by many scientific organizations. It was praised by Nature, and described as accurate by the National Center for Science Education. 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." In contrast, creationists and intelligent design supporters have criticized the documentary. The Discovery Institute produced a website critical of the broadcast, while Answers in Genesis argued the evidence for evolution presented by scientists in Judgment Day was fallacious. The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) also claimed the film was not balanced. WKNO-TV, the local PBS affiliate in Memphis, Tennessee, initially decided not to air the documentary because of the "controversial nature" of the subject, but later reversed its decision.

See also List of works on intelligent design John E. Jones III List of Nova episodes

References

External links Judgment Day from PBS website. Full transcript is available on the website. Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial at IMDb

Teacher resources Special Collection: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, Archived 2007-12-05 at the Wayback Machine Teacher's Domain Multimedia Resources Teacher's Guide: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, NOVA Judgment Day Intelligent Day on Trial Briefing Packet for Educators: Resources to help you meet challenges to teach evolution, PBS

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

In research: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2007 American films, 2007 American television episodes, 2007 films, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial in simple terms?

Why does Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.