| The Monkey Trial ON 10 July 1925, a drama was played out in a small courtroom in a Tennessee town that touched off a far-reaching ideological battle. John Thomas Scopes was a 24-year-old physical education teacher at the secondary school in Dayton, Tennessee. He was put on trial after confessing to teaching evolution while acting as a substitute biology teacher - something Tennessee had recently made illegal. The so called "monkey" trial became a media circus and struck a powerful chord in American society. The reasons are still with us. Natural selection provides an explanation for the origins of living things, including humans, that depends entirely on the workings of natural laws. It says nothing about the existence, or otherwise, of God. But to many believers in such a God, if humans are just another product of nature with no special status, then there is no need for morality. Worse, evolution with its dictum of survival of the fittest seems to encourage the unprincipled pursuit of selfishness. At the time of the Scopes trial these were not merely academic concerns. The first world war had convinced many of the brutalising effects of modernity. Scopes lost. The newborn American Civil Liberties union paid his $100 fine and planned to appeal to the US Supreme court, where they hoped laws like Tennessee's would be declared illegal. They were thwarted when the verdict was overturned on a technicality. In Dayton, though, it appeared that Darwin had won. The antievolutionists and rural, religious society generally had been held up to nationwide ridicule by the urban press covering the trial. As a result there were few overt efforts to pursue such legal attacks on evolution for decades. But, for some historians, Scopes was no victory for Darwinism. The prosecutor, populist politician William Jennings Bryan, was seen as speaking for the "common people". Those people, repelled by an alien, arrogant, scientific world that seemed opposed to them and their values, developed a separate society increasingly bound to strict religious laws. Before the trial, evolution had not been an important issue for these people. Now it was. For many Americans, being in favour of evolution is still equated with being against God. Intelligent Design 80 years on, creationist ideas have a powerful hold in the US, and science is still under attack. US Supreme Court decisions have made it impossible to teach divine creation as science in state-funded schools. But, in response, creationists have invented "intelligent design" (ID) which, they say, is a scientific alternative to Darwinism. ID has already affected the way science is taught and perceived in schools, museums, zoos and national parks across the US. In the US, Kansas has long been a focus of creationist activity. In 1999 creationists on the Kansas school board had all mention of evolution deleted from its state school standards. Their decision was reversed after conservative Christian board members were defeated in elections in 2002. But more elections brought a conservative majority in November 2004, and the standards are under threat again. This time the creationists' proposals are "far more radical and much more dangerous", says Keith Miller of Kansas State University, a leading pro-evolution campaigner. "They redefine science itself to include non-natural or supernatural explanations for natural phenomena." The Kansas standards now state that science finds "natural" explanations for things. But conservatives on the board want that changed to "adequate". They also want to define evolution as being based on an atheistic religious viewpoint. "Then they can argue that intelligent design must be included as 'balance'," Miller says. In January in Dover, Pennsylvania, 9th-grade biology students were read a statement from the school board that said state standards "require students to learn about Darwin's theory of evolution. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence". Intelligent design, it went on, "is an explanation for the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view". Fifty donated copies of an ID textbook would be kept in each science classroom. Although ID was not formally taught, students were "encouraged to keep an open mind". These moves are part of numerous recent efforts by fundamentalist Christians, emboldened by a permissive political climate, to discredit evolution. "As of January this year 18 pieces of legislation had been introduced in 13 states," says Eugenie Scott, head of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California, which helps oppose creationist campaigns. That is twice the typical number in recent years, and it stretched from Texas and South Carolina to Ohio and New York. The legislation seeks mainly to force the teaching of ID, or at least "evidence against evolution", in science classes. The fight is being waged on other fronts as well. Scott counts 39 creationist "incidents" other than legislative efforts in 20 states so far this year. In June, for example, the august Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC allowed the showing of an ID film on its premises and with its unwitting endorsement. After an outcry, the endorsement was withdrawn and officials insisted that it was all a mistake, although the screening did go ahead. Also in June, a publicly funded zoo in Tulsa, Oklahoma, voted to install a display showing the six-day creation described in Genesis. The science museum in Fort Worth, Texas, decided in March not to show an IMAX film entitled Volcanoes of the Deep Sea after negative reaction to its acceptance of evolution from a trial audience. The museum changed its mind after press coverage evoked an outcry, but IMAX theatres elsewhere in the US have not screened science films with evolutionary content to avoid controversy. Since 2003 the bookstores at the Grand Canyon, part of the US National Park Service, have sold a young-Earth creationist book about the canyon, repeating the creationist assertion that it was formed by Noah's flood. Anti-Darwin campaigners have not won everywhere. A Georgia court ruled that stickers describing evolution as "theory not fact" must be removed from textbooks. A bill in Florida that might have allowed students to sue teachers "biased" towards evolution died. And Alaska rewrote its school science standards to emphasise evolution. But religious fundamentalists have succeeded in insinuating a general mistrust of evolution. "Creationists depict evolutionists as a cultural elite, out of touch with American society," says Kenneth Miller of Brown University in Rhode Island. Creationism has had less cultural impact in Europe, but, in the UK, some state schools are incorporating it into science classes. The English education system allows private donors to invest in the refurbishment of state-funded schools in deprived areas, in return for controls over what is taught there. Emmanuel College at Gateshead in north-east England opened in 1990, financed by millionaire car dealer and Christian fundamentalist Peter Vardy. It teaches both evolution and creationism in science classes and, school officials say, lets children make up their own minds. Little notice was taken until 2002, when Vardy proposed opening more schools. A second opened last year in Middlesbrough, and a third will open near Doncaster in September. Last September, Serbia briefly banned the teaching of evolution in schools. It changed its mind days later after scientists and even Serbian Orthodox bishops spoke out. There was also uproar over creationism in the Netherlands. The Dutch have several sects that teach creationism in their own schools. But in May, Cees Dekker, a physicist at the Delft University of Technology published a book on ID, and persuaded education minister Maria van der Hoeven that discussion of ID might promote dialogue between religious groups. She proposed a conference in autumn, but dropped the plan after an outcry from Dutch scientists. In Turkey there is a strong creationist movement, sparked initially by contact with US creationists. Since 1999, when Turkish professors who taught evolution were harassed and threatened, there is no longer public opposition to creationism, which is all that is presented in school texts. In another Muslim country, Pakistan, evolution is no longer taught in universities. Fundamentalist Christianity is also sweeping Africa and Latin America. Last year Brazilian scientists protested when Rio de Janeiro's education department started teaching creationism in religious education classes. The fear among creationism's critics is that a pattern is emerging that will culminate in a new wave of creationist teaching. They are worried that this will undermine science education and science's place in society. "The politicisation of science has increased at all levels," says Miller. "What is happening is a political effort to force a change in the content and nature of science itself." God The Indifferent No one seems to ask why people feel a need to adopt this viewpoint. Here's a theory: A designer who creates a plane that travels from London to New York without a pilot is more intelligent than a designer whose plane needs a human pilot. Yet passengers may feel better in the second type of plane. Similarly a God who creates a system of evolution, which needs no further intervention, is more intelligent than a God whose creation needs constant supervision and directives. Perhaps some people feel better and more cared for by the second type of God, and then out of gratitude declare this to be the more intelligent. This psychological problem is at the root of a lot of the hostility shown by advocates of intelligent design (ID) towards those who argue for evolution. This attitude can become so compulsive, vehement, "holier-than-thou" and even neurotic that the ID-ists start vilifying those who reject ID. When the evolutionists refuse to buckle under, the ID-ists become even more angry and hate-filled, and wish to take over the state and enforce this "gratitudinal" behaviour and related "holiness" by means of laws or other threats. "How dare you deny or be ungrateful to a caring God?" that is their bitter-angry question. They are 100 percent sure that a God who intervenes every half an hour is more caring than a God who creates then becomes indifferent. In the depth of their psychology this is what motivates the ID-ists and drives them to ridicule or demonise the evolutionists. Much nuisance has emanated from those who wish to enforce gratitude towards their God. In fact there is nothing irrational in believing in a God who created the universe then went on to do other things. In contrast, a super being who creates something then spends eternity fiddling with it could well be thought of as in need of help. That's not a caring attitude at all. That's more like a school bully. Do you really want to believe in a God that looks after you only if you do specific things? And which religion is right about those "things"? Should we be kneeling in a specific direction 5 times a day, muttering prayers on a Sunday, or sacrificing something living whenever the moon is full? Surely it makes most sense to be aware that Something created the universe, and maybe to feel grateful for our existence? Part of that gratitude must include working together - all colours, all races - to improve the lives of everyone - humans, plants and animals alike. We are blessed with a vast diversity of life on our planet and we should look after all of it - even encourage it to diversify further. Perhaps in the beginning, God created the universe, including the earth and many forms of life. And he said "go forth and multiply, and diversify, for diversification is good and will make me proud". Want to make a comment? Click HERE Home Page Discussion Forum Site map | 