Down Scopes

Science and religion have had a rocky path throughout history… whether in the turbulent period of Inquisition-infested Europe as Galileo tried to foster the heliocentric view of our solar system in the 17^th century… or in the legendary Scopes trial where evolution was put to the test in a legal trial: “In the summer of 1925, a young schoolteacher named John Scopes stood trial in Dayton, Tennessee, for violating the state law against the teaching of evolution. Two of the country's most famous attorneys faced off in the trial. William Jennings Bryan, 65 years old and a three time Democratic presidential nominee, prosecuted; 67-year-old Clarence Darrow, who was a staunch agnostic and who had defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb the year before, represented the defense. Bryan declared that ‘the contest between evolution and Christianity is a duel to the death.’…

“[After a heated courtroom debate between these two great orators,] Darrow changed his client's plea to guilty. Scopes was convicted and fined $100. However, the conviction was thrown out on a technicality by the Tennessee Supreme Court (that the judge, and not the jury, had determined the $100 fine). In 1967, the Supreme Court struck down Tennessee's anti-evolution law for violating the Constitution’s prohibition against the establishment of religion. Five days after the trial's conclusion, Bryan died of apoplexy. The journalist H.L. Mencken wrote of Bryan: ‘He came into life a hero, a Galahad, in bright and shining armor. He was passing out a poor mountebank.’ As for Scopes, he left teaching and became a chemical engineer in the oil industry. He died at age 70 in 1970.” DigitalHistory.uh.edu

Well, Tennessee and its legislature is back at it, attempting to reform what can and cannot be discussed or taught in its public classrooms, making sure that the topics stay on the “right” side of conservative Christian teachings. “[This April,] it enacted a controversial new law — dubbed the ‘monkey bill’ — giving schoolteachers broad new rights to question the validity of evolution and to teach students creationism.

“The Tennessee legislature has been on a determined campaign to impose an ideological agenda on the state’s schools. [In the third week of April], the house education committee passed the so-called ‘Don’t say gay’ bill, which would make it illegal to teach about homosexuality. The state senate just passed a bill to update the abstinence-based sex-education curriculum to define hand holding as a ‘gateway sexual activity.’

“Unlike those bills, Tennessee’s ‘monkey bill’ is now law. School boards and education administrators are now required to give support to teachers who want to ‘present the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses’ of various ‘scientific theories,’ including ‘biological evolution’ and ‘the chemical origins of life.’ The new law also supports teachers who want to question accepted scientific thinking on two other hobgoblins of the far right: global warming and human cloning.

“The Tennessee law has been criticized as a solution in search of a nonexistent problem. In fact, it is worse than that. Tennessee’s problem is not that its schools are teaching too much evolution, but too little. Becky Ashe, president of the Tennessee Association of Science Teachers, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that even before the law was passed Tennessee teachers were avoiding teaching the politically charged subjects of the origins of life and the ascent of man. ‘We know enough to stay away from that,’ she told the newspaper.

“In the Scopes ‘monkey trial,’ the forces of creationism were defeated. Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was reversed on a technicality and he was freed. This time, the antievolution forces have prevailed, and their attack on science could spread. Louisiana passed its own ‘monkey bill’ in 2008, and battles over similar bills have raged this year in New Hampshire, Indiana, Oklahoma and other states. Even in states without ‘monkey bills,’ evolution is not being taught consistently. A 2011 survey found that about 13% of biology teachers across the country are currently teaching creationism or the ‘intelligent design’ theory as legitimate alternatives to evolution. ” Time Magazine, April 23^rd.

It seems that notwithstanding the prohibition of fostering a state religion violates the precepts of the First Amendment to our Constitution, self-censorship may be even more pernicious than actual violative laws that insert the very specific views of one religion into our public classrooms. But teachers, aware that controversy puts them in the cross-hairs of public attack and may impact their assignments as well as their chances for promotion, are simply avoiding obvious subjects that have been taught freely for decades to keep their careers intact. Thus, many of our students are getting nothing at all in the way of an education in these subject areas. Whether we like it or not, evangelical Christianity is not the established faith of this nation, and our Founding Fathers saw fit to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. In Tennessee, however, the majority is most loath to give up that tyranny!

I’m Peter Dekom, and pummeling science with religious precepts is generally a way to turn a younger generation away from faith, not a structure to reinforce those religious beliefs.