Subj : The universe
To   : Dave Oldridge
From : Bob Eyer
Date : Thu Jan 11 2001 12:07 am

BE:
-The only religionists who are going to attack
-science on the subject of evolution and cosmology are those who
-think the accounts in their religious texts, notably Genesis
-Chapters 1 and 2, are literally true

>>I thought more than 60 years ago that these people were a dying
>>lot, that this would soon no longer be true...
>>
>>One of the rare youthful thoughts I remember that has, sadly,
>>proven not to be true.

-Yeah, well they're still around, especially in the United States;
-but they no longer have the power to hound scientists from their
-academic chairs on investigations for heresy, as they once did.
-They just make a lot of noise, and so no longer have a deleterious
-impact on scientific practice or education.

>This is just not so--sadly.  Their activities and noises are one
>of the main reasons why evolutionary biology (and there really is
>no other kind, as biology becomes simply organic chemistry and
>taxonomy without evolution) is so poorly taught in many
>jurisdictions in the USA and Canada.  And they have been
>influential in this regard as long as I can remember.

Maybe so; but have there been any cases of biology teachers being
terminated, sued or prosecuted for teaching the theory of
evolution since 1968, let alone 1925?

I know of no post-War analogue of the John Scopes Trial in 1925.

In that year, the Tennessee Legislature passed a law which made it
a criminal offence to teach the theory of evolution in public
schools.  As soon as that law was passed, Scopes announced that he
would violate it, and invited the Sheriff etc to come into his
classroom and arrest him for teaching evolution.  The Sheriff
complied, Scopes was hauled before a local trial court, and, after
some vociferous argumentation between Clarence Darrow and William
Jennings Bryan, the court convicted Scopes of violating that law.
Because the Judge in that matter wanted to be re-elected (state
court judges were subject to election), he imposed on Scopes a
fine of only $100.  Incidentally, Scopes lost his job as a
teacher.

Now, Tennessee, and most of the other States (except Arkansas)
which had these anti-evolution laws on their books, repealed them
by 1968, when the case of Epperson v Arkansas (393 U.S.  97) was
decided by the Supreme Court.  These States thus recovered some of
their reputation before the high court had a chance to embarrass
them over the issue.  They could see what the issue was and they
knew their position was wrong, right from the start.  Repealing
those laws was for them no sweat.

The Epperson decision was merely declarative relief to the
appellant who was not, in fact, threatened by Arkansas with loss
of her position as a biology teacher.  Arkansas had an
anti-evolution law on its books, but had taken no specific action
to dismiss Epperson or have her charged for teaching the theory of
evolution.  (It goes without saying that she DID TEACH the theory
of evolution.) She simply took the case right up to the USSC for
her own peace of mind, so she wouldn't have to be WORRIED about
being dismissed in future.  The Court gave Epperson her
declarative relief, striking down the Arkansas law as a violation
of the 1st and 14th Amendments.

Thus, the issue in the original monkey trial, which was never
definitively settled by Scopes' litigation at the appeals level,
was ultimately settled in the Epperson decision.


>A lot of them crawled out from under their rocks when the USA
>improved its science education in response to the perceived threat
>from the Soviet missile and space programs.

True, but my point is that they have been losing, losing, losing.

States aren't even able to impose so-called "balanced treatment"
laws (equal time for Genesis or Creationism and Evolution).  Every
time one of those laws gets passed, it gets slapped down.

The fundies haven't been able to wield anything like the kind of
raw inquisitorial power which they wielded 75 years ago.

That's what I meant by saying that they just make a lot of noise.
They're not totally harmless; but they're also not nearly as
harmful as they used to be.

Bob

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