The "Panda trial" remembered by Brian Alters
The twentieth anniversary of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District was commemorated by the Montreal French-language newspaper Le Devoir (July 21, 2025), which interviewed Brian Alters, a former president of NCSE's board of directors.
Alters, now at Chapman University in Orange, California, was at McGill University in Montreal when he testified for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller that teaching "intelligent design" is bad pedagogy. While nobody opposes a class in comparative religion, he told Le Devoir, "we are against the idea of bringing religion into science classes, and confusing students by teaching it as science."
In Alters's view, Kitzmiller was crucial "in presenting future generations with an adequate perspective on what science is" and in deterring possible further creationist assaults on evolution education: "There have been fewer cases [on the matter] before the courts since then," he told the newspaper.
But he was not entirely complacent about the future, citing a recent pair of Supreme Court cases (previously discussed by NCSE) that might have "opened the door ... to the teaching of religious matters rather than scientific matters in science classes" but resulted instead inconclusively, with a 4-4 deadlock.
The article concluded, "He doesn't believe this recent religious offensive will be the last, as faith is a very personal and, above all, fundamental subject for many people. However, he believes progress has been made, as science has won several rounds so far."
