Monkey Girl by Edward Humes

The full title of this book is Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul. It is about a legal fight about teaching Intelligent Design in a public school system in Dover, PA. In telling the story about Dover, Hume also gave a thorough history of teaching evolution and creationism in public school systems around the country throughout the 20th century. The book was well-researched and clearly written.


I learned a lot reading this book. I hadn't realized exactly what Intelligent Design (ID) was; I had always said, 'yes I believe in evolution and yes I believe God made the world and those things coexist.' But the followers of ID in the book discount the fossil record, claim the world is just 6000 years old, and believe that people and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time. ID believes that Darwin is wrong and that we didn't come from a common ancestor to monkeys.

In this community, and many of the others mentioned in the book, ID is just a sneaky way of bringing creationism into the classroom. I was absolutely shocked at how openly so many of the people in the story believe that America is a Christian country and how that should inform our public school curriculum. It made me want to join the ACLU immediately.

The book covers several different aspects of the case, including small-town school board politics, the legal fight about ID, and the motives and personalities of many of the main characters. Of particular interest to me was the depiction of a Brown Professor (Ken Miller) who is the author of a biology book considered by the school board and later, a key expert witness for evolution. While I never took any courses with him, he did teach the freshman biology course that influenced me to read Galapagos.

The book also spends some time describing the Discovery Institute, a clever organization founded on the belief that "teaching the controversy" of evolution as a "flawed theory" with "gaps" is the first step in bringing creationism back into science classes. The Discovery Institute is very careful with their positioning and end up withdrawing from this particular case because they believe that the creationists try to position ID too strongly as a religious belief. While the Institute is founded on religious principles and believes that creationism should be taught in schools, they are careful to distance themselves from hyper-religious creationists to keep their reputation scientific and professional.

My favorite part of the book was the last quarter which was excerpts from the transcript of the actual case. The dialogue is fascinating. There are school board members lying under oath, school board members with no knowledge of what ID or evolution is, and lawyers for ID who don't know when they are winning or losing the case. Ken Miller's testimony is passionate and clear.

My only objection to the book is that the author, though purporting to write a journalistic book, didn't seem able to remain impartial as a journalist. His obvious bias towards evolution made me feel like although I agree with him I would rather have read a more balanced book. But then I think, really? would I really have read a book supporting ID? I am not sure.