Opinion Editorial

The Trial of the Century...Continues

The 75th anniversary of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" reveals that science and religion have yet to make peace

Michael Shermer

Seventy-five years ago this week legal and intellectual titans collided in Dayton, Tennessee to begin what would go down in history as the "trial of the century." Fundamentalist orator and three-time Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan squared off with defense attorney par excellence Clarence Darrow, over whether high school teacher John T. Scopes had violated the law when he taught his students that they had descended from a common ancestor with modern apes millions of years ago.

Scopes, Bryan charged, was in violation of the 1925 Butler Act that made it "unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the state, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." After days of legal wrangling in the sweltering July heat in this, the first trial ever broadcast on radio and covered by every major newspaper in the land, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 because, of course, he had broken the law. It was his intention to do so from the beginning because the fledgling new American Civil Liberties Union had advertised in the local paper for someone to serve as fodder for its legal canon, aimed at anyone who attempted to breach the wall separating church and state. The ACLU had planned to appeal the verdict and take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But because of a little-known catch in Tennessee law that required all fines above $50 to be set by a jury, not a judge, the court overturned Scopes's conviction, leaving the defense nothing to appeal and the law stood on the books until 1967.

A myth has emerged since that trial that Darrow and science scored a knockout victory over Bryan and religion, punctuated by Bryan's death two days after the trial (Bryan College stands in his honor in Dayton today). The renowned journalist H. L. Mencken, covering the trial for the Baltimore Sun, summarized it in his inimitable way: "Let no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience." Of Bryan he opined with acerbic wit: "Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor half-wits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards."

In fact, there was no victory for evolution. From 1925 to 1957 maximally noncontentious textbook publishers, more concerned with sales than ideals, deleted evolution from school books and students simply never heard the "e" word in class. All was quite on the evolution-creation wars front until Sputnik awoke a sleeping America to the fact that it was behind in science education. The National Science Foundation's Biological Science Curriculum Study reintroduced Darwin and evolution into the curriculum, and jump-started the creationists into reinventing their beliefs as "creation-science," to be taught side-by-side with "evolution-science."

Scopes II was played out in Little Rock Arkansas in 1981, where Federal Judge William Overton ruled that creation-science conveys "an inescapable religiosity" and is therefore unconstitutional as a subject suitable for public school consumption. Scopes III--the Louisiana creationism case of 1987--went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices voted 7-2 that the act requiring public school teachers to teach creation-science "is facially invalid as violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, because it lacks a clear secular purpose" and that the act "impremissibly endorses religion by advancing the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind."

That was the end of the creationists, right? Wrong.

Creationists shifted their strategy from top-down legal battles to bottom-up school board machinations, such as in Kansas where the Board of Education declared that Darwinian evolution is no better a "theory" than biblical genesis and thus need not be tested on in public schools. Since most teachers "teach to the test," the "e-word" has once again fallen into disuse. In Minnesota, middle school science teacher and born-again Christian Rodney LeVake sued his district when his department balked at his teaching the so-called "evidence against evolution"--code jargon for creationism--and reassigned him to teach other science courses. Kentucky's Education Department replaced the word "evolution" with "change over time" in its curriculum standards. In New Mexico, the state senate's Education Committee voted unanimously to pass a resolution requesting the State Board of Education to "allow the use of materials in the classroom for the study of creation theory." Many other states have proposed or already passed legislation requiring evolution to be taught as "only a theory," more creationist code language.

The creationists have also changed their name, this time to "Intelligent Design Theorists" who study "irreducible complexity" and the "abrupt appearance" of life, yet more jargon for "God did it." This is what ignites my ire about the creationists--their disingenuousness about their religious motivations. Make no mistake about it. Creationists do not want equal time. They want all the time. Theirs is a war not just on evolution, but on all of science. It is not coincidental that Intelligent Design creationists are all Christians. It is inevitable. It is the latest attempt, starting with Scopes 75 years ago, to sneak around the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. (Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with Native American creation myths, or including the Code of Hammarabi alongside the post ing of the Ten Commandments in public schools.)

What is really going on here is old time religion dressed up in new fangled language. The words change but the arguments remain the same. The building is repainted but the interior retains the same old dusty furniture. As Karl Marx once noted: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes trial was a tragedy. The creationists and Intelligent Design theorists are a farce.

The following is from our friends at the Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Anti-evolution crusader Phillip Johnson, dedicated his 1997 book, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, to "Roberta and Howard, who understood 'the wedge' because they love the Truth."

The mysterious reference is apparently a note of thanks to Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. and his wife Roberta, a wealthy and secretive Orange County, Calif., couple who have generously funded the anti-evolution movement and other right-wing causes that advance their fundamentalist Christian outlook.

Howard Ahmanson, however, is no ordinary fat-cat. The savings and loan heir has maintained a long-time relationship with Christian Reconstructionism, an extreme faction of the Religious Right that seeks to replace American democracy with a harsh fundamentalist theocracy.

Reconstructionists believe conservative Christians should take "dominion" over American society. Under their version of "biblical law," the death penalty would be required for over a dozen categories of offenders, including adulterers, homosexuals, witches, incorrigible children and those who spread "false" religions. They regard the teaching of evolution as part of a "war against Genesis."

Ahmanson served for over two decades on the board of directors of the Chalcedon Foundation, Rousas J. Rushdoony's Reconstructionist think tank that serves as the intellectual center of the movement. Ahmanson has also generously supported the Foundation's work.

As for Ahmanson's interests in opposing evolution, his relationship with leaders such as Johnson raises a series of questions about how the movement to "defeat" evolution is paid for and what the larger agenda might be.

There is little doubt that the Ahmansons have the resources to help finance anti-evolution efforts. The family's wealth grew exponentially during the 1950s and '60s when Howard Ahmanson Sr, made billions in the savings and loan industry. After his death, his estate was divided between his son Howard F. Ahmanson and the Ahmanson Foundation, which had $663 million in assets at the end of 1996. (H.F. Ahmanson & Co., the parent company of Home Savings of America, had over $47 billion in assets in 1997.)

With a vast fortune in hand, the Ahmansons are playing an active role in ensuring the anti-evolution movement's success.

According to Reason magazine, promotional materials from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute acknowledge that the Ahmanson family donated $1.5 million to the Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture for a research and publicity program to "unseat not just Darwinism but also Darwinism's cultural legacy." In fact, the August 1999 issue of the Discovery Institute's Journal recognizes an Ahmanson outfit for providing the Center's start-up funds.

With such high-powered assistance, the Center has quickly become a leading anti-evolution organization. The center's senior fellows include some of the highest profile advocates of "Intelligent Design" creationism, including David Berlinski, William Dembski and Michael Behe. Johnson himself is listed among the center's two official advisors.

Additionally, Roberta Green Ahmanson provided the funding for Dembski to appear at her alma mater, Calvin College, a conservative Christian school in Michigan, to promote his approach to attacking evolution. Although he claims to be interested only in the scientific "evidence" against evolution, Dembski's appearance was listed as part of the college's "Seminars in Christian Scholarship."

Funding from the Ahmansons is not always obvious. For example, the Fieldstead Institute is an extension of the Ahmanson empire, which frequently provides financial support for creationist causes. Dembski's appearance at Calvin was sponsored by a group called Fieldstead and Company. (Both appear to derive their name from Howard's middle name, Fieldstead.)

Ahmanson has also taken an interest in providing money for other political causes, including support for voucher subsidies for religious schools and opposition to gay rights and pornography. In the January/February 1997 issue of Religion & Liberty, published by the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, he argued that the Bible opposes minimum wage laws.

Ahmanson's opposition to evolution remains part of his larger agenda of establishing a fundamentalist "Christian nation." In the coming years, as different groups and personalities step into the anti-evolution fray, Ahmanson's role bears watching.