If a deeply entrenched academic truth is challenged by new scientific insights and discoveries, should authorities allow classroom discussion of such challenges? That was the question many people believe was placed on the national stage by the famous Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. This week is the 75th anniversary of the famous trial over the freedom of a Read More ›
People who only want unbiased, honest science education that sticks to the evidence are bewildered by the reception they get when they try to make their case. Their specific points are brushed aside, and they are dismissed out of hand as religious fanatics. The newspapers report that “creationists” are once again trying to censor science education because it offends their religious beliefs. Why is it so hard for reasoned criticism of biased teaching to get a hearing? The answer to that question begins with a Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee play called Inherit the Wind, which was made into a movie in 1960 starring Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Frederic March. You can rent the movie at any video store with a “classics” section, and I urge you to do so and watch it carefully… The play is a fictionalized treatment of the “Scopes Trial” of 1925, the legendary courtroom confrontation in Tennessee over the teaching of evolution. Inherit the Wind is a masterpiece of propaganda, promoting a stereotype of the public debate about creation and evolution that gives all virtue and intelligence to the Darwinists. The play did not create the stereotype, but it presented it in the form of a powerful story that sticks in the minds of journalists, scientists and intellectuals generally…
Read More ›To hear in Real Audio go to “http://www.sciencefriday.com/” HEADLINE: SCOPES TRIAL AND THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION VS. CREATION IRA FLATOW, host: This is TALK OF THE NATION/SCIENCE FRIDAY. I’m Ira Flatow. Today is the 75th anniversary of the day a Tennessee jury, after deliberating for nine minutes, handed John Scopes a guilty verdict. The crime: violating Tennessee’s law that banned Read More ›
As Kansas wound down its week long observance of the 75th anniversary of the Scopes Trial, a striking irony largely escaped notice: Whereas in 1925 the teaching of evolution was banned from the classroom, in 2000 the teaching of anything but evolution is effectively banned from the classroom. Academic freedom is just as restricted as ever–only this time it’s the Read More ›
When most of us think of the controversy over evolution in the public schools, we are likely to think of fundamentalists pulling teachers from their classrooms and placing them in the dock. Images from the infamous Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925 come to mind. Unfortunately, intolerance of this sort has shown itself in California in the 1990s as a result of students complaining about a biology instructor. Unlike the original Scopes case, however, this case involves a distinguished biology professor at a major university — indeed, an acknowledged expert on evolutionary theory. Also unlike Scopes, the teacher was forbidden to teach his course not because he taught evolutionary theory (which he did) but because he offered a critical assessment of Read More ›
