In this fascinating story of evolution, religion, politics, and personalities, Matthew Chapman captures the story behind the headlines in the debate over God and science in America 
In Kitzmiller v. Dover Board of Education, decided in late 2005, a Republican judge rendered a surprising verdict in a case that pitted the teaching of intelligent design (sometimes known as "creationism in a lab coat") against the teaching of evolution. Taking place in a small Pennsylvania school district, the case had national repercussions, all the way up to President Bush, who said he believed intelligent design should be taught as "an alternative theory" to evolution.
Matthew Chapman, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, spent several months covering the trial from beginning to end. Through his in-depth encounters with the participants—creationists, preachers, teachers, scientists on both sides of the issue, lawyers, theologians, the judge, and the eleven parents who resisted the fundamentalist proponents of intelligent design—Chapman tells a sometimes terrifying, often hilarious, and above all moving story of ordinary people doing battle in America over the place of religion and science in modern life. 
Written with a filmaker's eye for character and detail, and including insights only a descendent of Darwin could bring forth, Chapman paints an entertaining, yet disturbing picture of America today.

40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania

History

Chapman, Matthew

Americas

Harper

In this fascinating story of evolution, religion, politics, and personalities, Matthew Chapman captures the story behind the headlines in the debate over God and science in America. Kitzmiller v. Dover Board of Education, decided in late 2005, pitted the teaching of intelligent design (sometimes known as "creationism in a lab coat") against the teaching of evolution. Matthew Chapman, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, spent several months covering the trial from beginning to end. Through his in-depth encounters with the participants—creationists, preachers, teachers, scientists on both sides of the issue, lawyers, theologians, the judge, and the eleven parents who resisted the fundamentalist proponents of intelligent design—Chapman tells a sometimes terrifying, often hilarious, and above all moving story of ordinary people doing battle in America over the place of religion and science in modern life.

40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania

Comics & Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels

Harper-perennial

"When Darwin called his second book The Descent of Man instead of The Ascent of Man he was thinking of his progeny." So declares Darwin's great-great grandson Matthew Chapman as he leaves behind his stressful career as a Hollywood screenwriter and travels to Dayton, Tennessee where in 1925 creationist opposition to the teaching of evolution in schools was played out in a famous legal drama, the Scopes Trial. The purpose of this journey is to see if opinions have changed in the seventy- five intervening years. A defiant atheist, Chapman is confronted not only by the fundamentalist beliefs that continue to banish the theory of evolution but by his own spiritual malaise as the outward journey becomes an inward quest, a tragicomic "accidental memoir". "First there was Charles Darwin, two yards long and nobody's fool. Then there was his son, my great-grandfather, Sir Francis Darwin, an eminent botanist. Then came my grandmother Frances, a modest poet who spent a considerable amount of time in rest-homes for depression From her issued my beloved mother, Clare, who was extremely short, failed to complete medical school, and eventually became an alcoholic. Then we get down to me. I'm in the movie business." Trials of the Monkey combines travel writing and reportage, as Chapman records his encounters in the South, with history and the accidental memoir of a man full of mid-life doubts in a genre-breaking first book that is darkly funny, provocative and poignant.

Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Picador

Charles Darwin's great-great grandson, a highly successful Hollywood screenwriter, travels to Dayton, Tennessee to attend the yearly re-enactment of the Scopes Trials of 1925. Wondering how much has changed in people's attitudes in the last seventy year

Biographies & Memoirs

Regional U.S.

Trials of the monkey: An accidental memoir

Duck Editions

Explores the debates surrounding air pollution, discussing its causes and prevention.

Air Pollution: Our Impact on the Planet (21st Century Debates Series)

Teen & Young Adult

Bowden, Rob

Education & Reference

Heinemann/Raintree

Fraudulent Claims: Deceit, Insurance and Practice

Rules & Procedures

Xpl Pub

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Chapman, Matthew. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Chapman, Matthew