Why does Tennessee hate evolution?
Narrowly, the trial was about challenging a newly passed Tennessee state law against teaching evolution or any other theory denying the biblical account of the creation of man…
…John Scopes, the 24-year-old defendant, taught in the public high school in Dayton, Tenn., and included evolution in his curriculum. He agreed to be the focus of a test case attacking the new law, and was arrested for teaching evolution and tried with the American Civil Liberties Union backing his defense. His lawyer was the legendary Clarence Darrow, who, besides being a renowned defense attorney for labor and radical figures, was an avowed agnostic in religious matters.
The state’s attorney was William Jennings Bryan, a Christian, pacifist, and former candidate for the U.S. presidency. He agreed to take the case because he believed that evolution theory led to dangerous social movements. And he believed the Bible should be interpreted literally.
The weather was stiflingly hot and the rhetoric equally heated in this “trial of the century” attended by hundreds of reporters and others who crowded the Rhea County Courthouse in July 1925. Rather than the validity of the law under which Scopes was being charged, the authority of the Bible versus the soundness of Darwin’s theory became the focus of the arguments.
“Millions of guesses strung together,” is how Bryan characterized evolutionary theory, adding that the theory made man “indistinguishable among the mammals.” Darrow, in his attacks, tried to poke holes in the Genesis story according to modern thinking, calling them “fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.”
The jury found Scopes guilty of violating the law and fined him $100. Bryan and the anti-evolutionists claimed victory, and the Tennessee law would stand for another 42 years. But Clarence Darrow and the ACLU had succeeded in publicizing scientific evidence for evolution, and the press reported that though Bryan had won the case, he had lost the argument. The verdict did have a chilling effect on teaching evolution in the classroom, however, and not until the 1960s did it reappear in schoolbooks.
They’ve taught evolution in Tennessee for my entire life, and I’m 42 years-old. I guess they’re still going to teach evolution in Tennessee’s schools, but now they are also going to teach whatever the hell they want, including that evolution is a pile of b.s. Their moronic governor is going to sign a new law that sounds innocuous enough:
Neither the state board of education, nor any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or any public elementary or secondary school principal or administrator shall prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.
What does that mean? It means that you can’t discipline an educator for teaching kids total nonsense about the theories of evolution, climate change, plate tectonics, germ theory, or anything else that might invite some skepticism about the literal truth of the Book of Genesis or the Bible more generally.
Why is it important to teach evolution? Here’s a concise explanation. Start with the fact that you can’t understand biological systems if you don’t know that they are the same across different life forms:
This question has emerged with even greater force as modern experimental biology has focused on processes at the cellular and molecular level. From bacteria to yeast to mice to humans, all living things use the same biochemical machinery to carry out the basic processes of life. Many of the proteins that make up cells and catalyze chemical reactions in the body are virtually identical across species. Certain human genes that code for proteins differ little from the corresponding genes in fruit flies, mice, and primates. All living things use the same biochemical system to pass genetic information from one generation to another.
You also cannot understand ecological or environmental systems without understanding evolution:
During the billions of years that life has been on earth, it has played an increasingly important role in altering the planet’s physical environment. For example, the composition of our atmosphere is partly a consequence of living systems. During photosynthesis, which is a product of evolution, green plants absorb carbon dioxide and water, produce organic compounds, and release oxygen. This process has created and continues to maintain an atmosphere rich in oxygen. Living communities also profoundly affect weather and the movement of water among the oceans, atmosphere, and land. Much of the rainfall in the forests of the western Amazon basin consists of water that has already made one or more recent trips through a living plant. In addition, plants and soil microorganisms exert important controls over global temperature by absorbing or emitting ”greenhouse gases” (such as carbon dioxide and methane) that increase the earth’s capacity to retain heat.
The point of spending money on education is to teach people things. They’ve been accusing teachers of corrupting the morals of our youth since Socrates drank his hemlock. Socrates questioned the gods and infuriated the pagan literalists, but at least he didn’t have to contend with Big Oil. The Tennessee legislature is an embarrassment. They literally think the job of an educator is to keep the public stupid so they won’t question their religious upbringing and they’ll let Exxon/Mobil do whatever they want to do.
You can’t go around calling this the Greatest Country in the World when we’re doing stuff like this. We’re becoming the Biggest Joke in the World. Or, Tennessee is, at least.
Here’s another mind-bender. Sorry we tortured you, now we will put you to death.
Things have gotten so bad.
Just great. A mentally ill guy tortured into pleading guilty to everything including stealing the torturers lunchboxes at school is goung to be put on trial. Most people dont realise that he actually pled guilty to everything the “interrogators” accused him off, meaning he is now officially behind every terrorist attack on the united states posession over the previous 30 years.
Frankly, putting the poor guy out of his misery would probably be a mercy at this point.
I suspect that’s what KSM actually wants.
I expect he’ll find martyrdom less glorious and publicly acclaimed than he’s hoping for, though. If a terrorist gets pumped full of potassium chloride in a forest…
Did you hear about the ten million dollar bounty put on the Pakistani guy who doesn’t even bother living in hiding? He just chills out in public, hanging out with Pakistani parliament members and the military, doing his thing.
That is the craziest fucking country in the world. How is everything that goes on there not the biggest scandal on earth? SEAL Team Six might well be gassing the choppers as we speak.
And all becasue the priests of Palistine included a poem that they sung every morning in the temple as the preface of Genesis in the 5th centuary BC. That;’s where the whole God created the world in 7 days sequence came from. It was never meant to be taken literally by the guys who wrote it
And you are wrong about Socraties, at least according to my Classics and philosophy degree. The guy probably did question the Gods of Athens, but it was only becasue he questioned everything else. His sctick was to engage someone in conversation then keep asking a constant stream of inane questions till his victim was a blubbering mess, then he pronounced the guy stupid and “Oh, I’m only trying to find wisdom”. He didn’t teach anything, he was the ancient equivalet of an internet concern troll. He was also profoundly anti-democratic, having a really dim view of the wisdom of the people.
At his triel, after bieng found guilty the prosecuter proposed the death penalty and Socrates proposed he be given free meals for life (though after other people put up the money he did eventually agree to a payment of 3000 drachmae). The jury chose the deathpenlty of the choices given to him. Frankly he probably drank the hemlock out of choice and most accounts indicate he antagonised and lectured the Jury.
I’ve never really liked the guy from the accounts I’ve read. I have a lot of time for Plato though.
I have a a degree in philosophy and nothing I wrote about Socrates is inaccurate. For example, I didn’t say he was put to death because he chose death. Had he proposed exile, his life would have been spared. He proposed a paid retirement. His insult led to his death.
He also had ample opportunity to escape.
Socrates absolutely taught children to doubt the gods, which is precisely why he was on trial. Just go read Euthyphro if you have any doubts about the matter.
To be fair, virtually all that is known about Socrates comes from Plato (and a little Aristophanes). What the real Socrates did or didn’t do is not entirely known.
And, significantly, Xenophon.
He also was described and was a character in “The History of the Peloponnesian War” by Thucydides. Which is a very interesting book book if you can find a good translation of it.
Actually, Socrates was tried on the basis of two pretty ambiguous charges: corrupting the youth and impiety (in Greek, asebeia). More specifically, Socrates’ accusers cited two “impious” acts: “failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges” and “introducing new deities.”
Of course, the real reason he was on trial is that he annoyed some pretty powerful people in Athens, and everyone knew it.
But hey, better minds than the 2 of us have debated the ins and outs and whys of Socrates. š
the point is that he was talking to young men about religion and introducing skepticism and novel concepts into the process. For example. you don’t want what you have, so the God of Love must be utterly lacking in love, etc.
The hostility to educators from religious parents has a long history.
He wasn’t exactly the only one doing that in Athens at the time, Booman. The place was right after getting defeated in the 30 years war. They were in the throes of fighting off a pretty brutal oligarghy. If you read “the history of the Pellopennisian war” you will read about how people following portents they assumed from the Gods which lead them to disaster. The army destroyed in Sicilly becasue of a Lunar Eclipse was just the most famous example. And even at the best of times Athens was a hotbed of debate. If you think Socrates was the only one “questioning the Gods” in that environent you are sorely mistaken. But people weren’t put in trial for it.
I know you want to see Socrates as a teacher of sceptisism of Religion, and in a way that is partially true, but only in the sense that he was questioning EVERYTHING that made Athens the city that it was. Its like, I dunno, if America lost a war and as a result there were people running around questioning the constitution and the way of life of America. And one of the these peoples students just happened to be the president of the New american republic and had been installed by the victors of the war, you can understand why people might not have liked the guy.
Anyway, like I said, it’s been debated to death but more knowlagable people than I š
Ordinary men aren’t written about in plays. Socrates was a well-known eccentric figure who mentored the oligarchs. However, at the time of his trial, Athens was a democracy and had been for at least a half-decade. No doubt his trial was colored by his political views and connections in the late years of the war with Sparta. But to suggest that his teaching and methods were run of the mill is belied by the existing record. Were that true, he would not have been mentioned by people like Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, and Eupolis.
Erk I wish I could just add onto the end of the last post, as I just ran accress a quote which probably rings true of the view of Athenians in General. Its by the orator Aeschines, who wrote in a prosecution speech, “Did you not put to death Socrates the sophist, fellow citizens, because he was shown to have been the teacher of Critias, one of the Thirty who overthrew the democracy?”
The thirty bieng the thirty Tyrants, who were imposed by the Spartans when they defeated Athens in the Pelopennisian War. Criatas was their leader, and a student of Socretes. So theres was a lot of political stuff going on in that trial
I guess it depends on whether you find Plato or IF Stone more credible. However, your bias is showing when you characterize his method as “inane questions” leading to a pronouncement of “stupid”. As to having a dim view of the wisdom of the people, I guess you haven’t been following the GOP primaries. Democracies stink; they need regular deodorizing from those who question their very foundations.
A fair perspective. You;ve given me something to think about. Thanks!
Historians and sociologists will have to explain how states that once produced moderately conservative political figures (in the case of Tennessee, Howard Baker, Jim Sasser, Al Gore) came to be havens of wingnuttery.
I was just thinking of Al Gore. He appeared last night on Elliot Spitzer’s new hour replacing Olbermann and Gore commented on the heat wave across TN. Elliot has found his nitch and the show is outstanding, but it is such a waste to see TN legislators blockade education and Al must be thinking of ramping up Current in response.
I would imagine one of the big blocks on Current is that its pay for view. If it was offered on Basic cable, like FOX is, it would have a chance to reach a wider audiance. I wonder that the barriers to that are, just raw money or the power of Murdoch.
Ironically, it’s part of my basic BUT ABC, NBC CBS and PBS are not, that’s another $10 a month!
Here’s where I part ways a little with the liberal orthodoxy. As written, this law would not keep the students stupid, but “help… students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.”
I think the useful response is not to try and shoot down this law, but to make sure it is followed to the letter. Our only hope of getting over this current season of suicidal ignorance is to teach critical thinking. Let teachers compare the Talibanish literalism with scientific methods and theories. Unless kids have changed radically, there will be enough smartasses to challenge superstitious propaganda. They don’t have to be shielded from it, they have to be immunized before they are out of school and into a world where bullshit pours down like floodwater.
The task is to make sure such students have complete freedom to question, and to enforce the letter of the law by making sure the science side of the issue is taught objectively and well, with science writing, video, and speakers available to all kids. Excluding comparisons only gives the superstition propaganda the glamor of “secret truths they don’t want you to know”, and sets the kids up for a life of believing everything they see on Fox “news”. I say let’s have this contest. Just make sure there’s provision for enforcing the requirement for objective critique of both/all sides.
You have probably found the only potential silver lining here. By forcing the whole creationist claptrap out into the open, it gives an opportunity to use the scientific method to evaluate the creationist assertions. None of which will be able to stand on their own merits under the scrutiny of testable evidence. There is just no credible way that anything but evolution by natural selection can pass the smell test. This, of course, will depend entirely on teachers holding fast to the basic tenets of scientific discovery, which is probably not going to happen across the board. This whole silly exercise could, in the end, backfire on the creationists. Still, it is a worldwide embarrassment that we are even having this debate and conversation in the 21st century.
Problem is that the effect of the law is to immunize wingnuts who happen to teach the sciences.
Not if they are held to the letter of the law. Uncharacteristically, I believe that even in TN there are enough good teachers and smartass kids to hold the fool teachers to account, and enough liberals to take it to court otherwise. We’ll see how the local pols like having a bunch of Scopes trials all over again.
The only faith-based notion that this country was founded on is the faith that reason will triumph when argument is free. Maybe its time to check whether that still works in America.
Problem is that they WON’T be held to the letter of the law, but the spirit.
We’ve seen how bad science education has become, with more schools not teaching anything about evolution; it’ll get worse with this law, not better.
Why would it get worse? The law provides a foundation for action, whether popular resistance, lawsuits, or other. A superstition-based teacher/school, under this law, could be forced to either demonstrate objectivity, bring in outside resources, or be disciplined.
As you say, science ed stinks in a lot of places. I don’t know if textbooks have improved since I last saw them, but a decade ago they were shocking in their capitulation to the minions of ignorance.
I really don’t understand what pro-science folks have against letting the sides debate, instead of giving the other side the huge advantage of screaming “censorship”.
Well, we should be embarrassed. That could be the start of the climb back to respectability. I’ve thought for a long time that the rise of the loony right became possible because America forgot how to be embarrassed.
Heh, it was what the attack on “political correctness” was all about. Desensitizing the opinion leaders to embarrassment. And then public opinion followed.
Only the Tennessee legislature is an embarrassment?
It seems that the 2010 election started a water cooler pool for “Most embarrassing legislature” and two-thirds of them are trying their damnedest to win it.
Yep. Take a look at this doozy from Arizona
http://www.setyoufreenews.com/2012/04/02/arizona-passes-sweeping-internet-censorship-bill/