Education went through a time of great positive reform in the 1920s. More states were requiring students to stay in school until graduation, causing finishing rates to almost double to more than 1 in 4. This so-called progressive education had an emphasis on "permissiveness," the idea that working and "learning by doing" were fundamental to the education process. This made many schools more attractive than the kind of jail that they represented to students at the time.
Science also made huge advances at this time. The Rockefeller Foundation launched a large-scale public health program that by the 1920s had wiped out hookworm, and improved quality of health care increased the life expectancy from 50 years to 59.
Both science and progressive education came under criticism by Fundamentalists, people who thought that the teaching of Darwinian evolution destroyed faith in God and added to moral breakdown. Tennessee was one of three schools that adopted measures to prohibit the teachings of evolution. In 1925, a high-school biology teacher name John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching evolution, with former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan taking the case against him as a Presbyterian Fundamentalist. Ultimately, Bryan was made a fool by a famed criminal lawyer named Clarence Darrow partly because he had only the Bible as his evidence, and he died of a stroke five days after the trial, probably of related causes.
The results were pretty much inconclusive, as Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, which the supreme court of Tennessee set aside. The absurdity of the trial cast ridicule on the cause of the Fundamentalists. Despite the fact that more and more Christians were acknowledging the validity of findings in modern science, Fundamentalism remained strong in American spiritual life and particularly in the Baptist Church. It had an emphasis on literal reading of the Bible. Interestingly, the actual constitutional issue in question was left unresolved until 1968, when a similar Arkansas law was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that it violated 1st Amendment rights.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/monkey-trial-begins
Do you think Congress did the right thing by remaining inconclusive? I think this decision is similar to the events leading up to the Civil War. America had this very sensitive topic, slavery, and instead of confronting the problem straight on, the government continued to push the issue aside. As a result, slavery eventually caused a war. Luckily the issue between evolution and religion died down until it has become a subject rarely discussed. This article compares science and religion:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nas.edu/evolution/Compatibility.html
This is a concise and well-written post about important point that has been recurring since the introduction of teaching evolution in schools.
ReplyDeleteOut of the many court cases regarding the issue, I found that Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education (1997) was one of the most interesting because a policy was proposed that would require teachers to read aloud a disclaimer, supposedly designed to promote "critical thinking," before teaching evolution. The court eventually rejected the policy, but the debate has continued since then.
source: https://www.au.org/our-work/legal/lawsuits/freiler-v-tangipahoa-parish-board-of-education
It seems to me that teaching evolution from a religious view is a blatant violation of the First Amendment's guarantee for religious freedom. As you brought up in your last paragraph, Epperson v. Arkansas established that an Arkansas law on teaching evolution was unconstitutional. I am sure that Darrow argued about the First Amendment during the case; why did the decision not go the way of Scopes if the argument is framed in the Constitution itself?
ReplyDeleteMolleen Matsumura, 7-31-2007, "Ten Major Court Cases about Evolution and Creationism," National Center for Science Education, http://ncse.com/taking-action/ten-major-court-cases-evolution-creationism
It definitely does seem that teaching evolution from a religious view, infact anything vaguely related to religion would be a clear violation of the guarantee of religious freedom. However as Victor mentioned, this was a very sensitive topic, one that if not put off till a calmer time probably would have caused more trouble than was necessary.
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