December 2006:
Number 512
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A newsletter for the students, faculty and staff of the Collin County Community College District. Published monthly. For information or submissions, call 972.599.3142. Cougar News welcomes student and faculty submissions. Next deadline: Dec. 7 All submissions are due by 5 p.m. on the due date. Photos cannot be returned. Text should be emailed to mrobinson@ccccd.edu or sent on disk. Please submit copy that is proofed, edited and saved in Word format. Cougar News staff: Lisa Vasquez, director; Mark Robinson, editor; Marcy Cadena-Smith, contributor; Sydney Portilla-Diggs, student correspondent; Stephanie Hall, student correspondent; Teresa Danner, special contributor; Nick Young, photograpy and layout.
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Guest speaker chronicles evolution in the classroom
Arguably no other subject has drawn the ire and debate of the American consciousness as much as evolution has.
Since Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” in 1859 and “The Descent of Man” in 1871, arguments for and against the theory of evolution have burned bright inside and outside the classroom.
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| Dr. Ed Larson | Dr. Edward J. Larson, the Herman E. Talmadge Chair of Law and Richard B. Russell Professor of American History at the University of Georgia, spoke at Collin’s Spring Creek Campus Oct. 26. And, again, evolution and its debate in 20th century America was the focus.
In 1998, Dr. Larson received the Pulitzer Prize in History for “Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion” becoming the first sitting law professor to receive the Pulitzer Prize in History. The title of his presentation was “From Dayton to Dover: A Brief History of the Evolution Teaching Controversy in America.” His other publications include “Evolution's Workshop: God and Science in the Galapagos Islands,” which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002, and “Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over Creation and Evolution” and “Sex, Race and Eugenics in the Deep South.”
Getting Scope on Evolution
Students, faculty and staff who walked into the conference center for Larson’s lecture were welcomed by a black and white photo displayed on the large screen behind the speaker’s dais. The photo, circa 1925, showed a booth of Mississippi evangelist T.T. Martin promoting the anti-evolution league and his book, “Hell and the High Schools.”
That is where Larson begins. He said that debate about evolution in public colleges or universities has never been a debate. Most of the dispute has been in the high school classroom.
Also, there have been three phases of anti-evolution sentiment:
• Remove evolution from the classroom completely
• Balancing discussion of evolution in the classroom with creationism
• Teaching evolution as a theory.
When the Scopes Monkey Trial -- and the grand spectacle that accompanied it -- began, the former proved to be the rule. In 1925, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Butler Act that banned any teaching in any state-funded educational establishment of any theory that “denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) went into action offering legal support for any teacher who agreed to defy the Butler Act. According to Larson, teacher John Scopes was urged by the school’s principal and other officials to teach evolution in order to put the city of Dayton, Tenn. on the map.
Not necessarily an exercise in American academic rights, but more of a publicity stunt. It worked. The world’s eyes descended on the small town. Transcripts were run in major newspapers around the world. Deemed the “Trial of the Century,” it was the first trial to be broadcast via radio. Due to the nature of Scopes’ unlikely celebrity, he was not demonized or alienated by the town and travelled quite a bit and talking with the media before the trial, according to Larson.
“World Views at War”
The Scopes trial featured master orators and friends defense attorney Clarence Darrow and prosecuting attorney William Jennings Bryan.
One thing they didn’t have in common was religion. Bryan was a progressive, but a fundamentalist Christian. Darrow was a vehement agnostic. Darrow and Jenning’s religious juxaposition was the epitome of evolution in America.
According to Larson, it was “world views at war” in the courtroom and outside of the courtroom. Darwin’s works were very popular when they were published. However, much of the United States subscribed to a common set of beliefs, mostly of protestant foundations.
In the 20th century, the gap widened. Christian “modernists” began adapting traditional beliefs with current science. Scopes and Darrow lost the case and the Butler Act was upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court. Other states enacted similar laws and some school districts passed rules against evolution in the classroom. Conversely, support for the teaching of evolution gained support, too.
Larson said one Rhode Island congressman wrote a bill prohibiting teaching evolution. The bill was placed in the Committee of Fish and Game, and it promptly died.
Religion Dressed Up As Science
In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious instruction was unconstitutional. Anti-evolution proponents advocated balanced teaching creationist and evolution in the classroom. In addition, behind the momentum of the popular publication of “The Genesis Flood” by Henry Morris and John Whitcomb, creation science, which combines the Biblical creation story with modern science. But it, too, was ruled unconstitutional as “nothing but religion, dressed up in science.”
In 2002, stickers were placed on science books in Cobb County School District in Georgia stating that evolution is a theory and should be “critically considered.” Furthermore, a judge found that the inclusion of intelligent design was unconstitutional in 2005.
In Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District, intelligent design was ruled as a form of creationism in that it involved “supernatural” forces.
Evolution in Today’s Classroom
Eighty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial, evolution is still making headlines for its inclusion or exclusion in the classroom. The city of Dayton, Tenn. hosts reenactments of the trial every July. Larson attended the 75th anniversary celebration. He said you can go, attend the reenactment and buy a little wooden monkey souvenir.
“Religion continues to matter greatly in America,” Larson said, citing survey information that shows that three-fourths of those surveyed believed in miracles and three-fifths believe religion is important.
“If history is any guide then dark clouds remain in the horizon,” he said.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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