In 2005 Judge John E. Jones, presiding over the Dover intelligent design trial, ruled that intelligent design is religion, not science, because he felt he was in the best position to “traipse into such a controversial area” and settle the debate over intelligent design once and for all.

Tomorrow, PBS will air NOVA’s propaganda piece reenacting some parts of the Dover trial, “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.” PBS claims the program will tell the true story behind the Dover trial. But will it?
The program features the usual cast of characters: anti-ID activist Eugenie Scott, Darwinist Ken Miller, and apparently Judge Jones himself (currently on his second annual self-congratulatory globe-trotting tour — be sure to catch him on your local NPR station and Air America). The program will attempt to show that intelligent design is creationism and therefore more religion than science. Like the misleading “Evolution” miniseries PBS produced in 2001, this is an attempt to stifle scientific inquiry and censor science by making talking and researching about intelligent design out of bounds.
Here are a few truths about intelligent design you won’t get from PBS/NOVA’s “Judgment Day” program.

Myth #1: There are no peer-reviewed scientific papers supporting intelligent design.
Judge Jones said that ID “…has not generated peer-reviewed publications.”

FACT: Judge Jones is simply wrong. Discovery Institute submitted an amicus brief to Judge Jones that documented various peer-reviewed publications, which he accepted into evidence. This is a fact-based question which is hard to get wrong. The fact is that there are peer-reviewed papers supporting intelligent design.

Myth #2: Intelligent design is not scientific because it isn’t testable.
Judge Jones said, “…nor has ID been the subject of testing and research.”

FACT: For two days during the trial biologist and flagellum expert Dr. Scott Minnich presented slides from his own mutagenesis experiments performed in his lab at the University of Idaho. In his experiments, he knocked out every flagellar gene, one by one, and found that the flagellum is irreducibly complex. These tests were given to Judge Jones, but apparently he ignored them.

Myth #3: Intelligent design is the same as creationism.
Judge Jones said that ID is “a mere re-labeling of creationism.”

FACT: Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. ID starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural.

For the truth about the Dover intelligent design trial, visit www.traipsingintoevolution.com.