CULTURE

The Texas-Size Debate Over Teaching Evolution
Sure, discuss Darwin's 'strengths and weaknesses.' Just not in biology textbooks.

Bettmann-Corbis
Opening Arguments: A book sale at the opening of the Scopes 'monkey trial' in 1925
By Christopher Hitchens | NEWSWEEK
Published Mar 28, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Apr 6, 2009

Mention the name "Texas" and the word "schoolbook" to many people of a certain age (such as my own) and the resulting free association will come up with the word "depository" and the image of Lee Harvey Oswald crouching on its sixth floor. In Dallas for the Christian Book Expo recently, I had a view of Dealey Plaza and its most famous building from my hotel room, so the suggestion was never far from my mind.
But last week Texas and schoolbooks meant something else altogether when the state Board of Education, in a muddled decision, rejected a state science curriculum that required teachers to discuss the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory of evolution. Instead, the board allowed "all sides" of scientific theories to be taught. The vote was watched as something more than a local or bookish curiosity. Just as the Christian Book Expo is one of the largest events on the nation's publishing calendar, so the Lone Star State commands such a big share of the American textbook market that many publishers adapt to the standards that it sets, and sell the resulting books to non-Texans as well.
In many ways, this battle can be seen as the last stand of the Protestant evangelicals with whom I was mingling and debating. It's been a rather dismal time for them lately. In the last election they barely had a candidate after Mike Huckabee dropped out and, some would say, not much of one before that. Many Republicans now see them as more of a liability than an asset. As a proportion of the population they are shrinking, and in ethical terms they find themselves more and more in the wilderness of what some of them morosely called, in conversation with me, a "post-Christian society." Perhaps more than any one thing, the resounding courtroom defeat that they suffered in December 2005 in the conservative district of Dover, Pa., where the "intelligent design" plaintiffs were all but accused of fraud by a Republican judge, has placed them on the defensive. Thus, even if the Texas board had defiantly voted to declare evolution to be questionable and debatable, its decision could still have spelled the end of a movement rather than the revival of one.

Yet I find myself somewhat drawn in by the quixotic idea that we should "teach the argument." I am not a scientist, and all that I knew as an undergraduate about the evolution debate came from the study of two critical confrontations. The first was between Thomas Huxley (Darwin's understudy, ancestor of Aldous and coiner of the term "agnostic") and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (third son of the great Christian emancipator William) at the Oxford University Museum in 1860. The second was the "Monkey Trial" in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925, which pitted the giant of Protestant fundamentalism, William Jennings Bryan, against Clarence Darrow and H. L. Mencken. Every educated person should know the arguments that were made in these transatlantic venues.
So by all means let's "be honest with the kids," as Dr. Don McLeroy, the chairman of the Texas education board, wants us to be. The problem is that he is urging that the argument be taught, not in a history or in a civics class, but in a biology class. And one of his supporters on the board, Ken Mercer, has said that evolution is disproved by the absence of any transitional forms between dogs and cats. If any state in the American union gave equal time in science class to such claims, it would certainly make itself unique in the world (perhaps no shame in that). But it would also set a precedent for the sharing of the astronomy period with the teaching of astrology, or indeed of equal time as between chemistry and alchemy. Less boring perhaps, but also much less scientific and less educational.
The Texas anti-Darwin stalwarts also might want to beware of what they wish for. The last times that evangelical Protestantism won cultural/ political victories—by banning the sale of alcohol, prohibiting the teaching of evolution and restricting immigration from Catholic countries—the triumphs all turned out to be Pyrrhic. There are some successes that are simply not survivable. If by any combination of luck and coincidence any religious coalition ever did succeed in criminalizing abortion, say, or mandating school prayer, it would swiftly become the victim of a backlash that would make it rue the day. This will apply with redoubled force to any initiative that asks the United States to trade its hard-won scientific preeminence against its private and unofficial pieties. This country is so constituted that no one group, and certainly no one confessional group, is able to dictate its own standards to the others. There are days when I almost wish the fundamentalists could get their own way, just so that they would find out what would happen to them.

Posted By: guilbertj2006 @ 04/09/2009 1:54:00 AM
Okay, so religious, gullible, superstitious people evolved - I mean, right? Resolved; so Hitchens argument is with evolution, then, not with God. Or, more to the point, what he's really left pointing out is that the true mechanism which accounts for everything, Nature, isn't great.
What is the corrective? As amusing and erudite as it must be admitted Christopher is, what chance does his wit, and savage turn of phrase, have against Nature?
It must be argued that Natural Selection has finally turned to Atheism to guide Mankind through its next step of evolution; Religion being too weak to preserve the species.
But before we vouchsafe the argument that there is no God, I would like to point out that if we could move 186,000 miles per second, then one minute from now we'd be 11,000,000 miles away. At that rate, in 2-1/2 months we'd pass Pluto, and in 4-1/4 years the nearest star. My question then, to Christopher, when he says there is no God, is, how would you know? Is the Lilliputianess of your vantage point, and the scale of your claim, lost on you?
Don't you feel just a bit like Ptolemy, making a grander prediction on what's there than your calculations can support?
I mean, glance around. Isn't it fair to say that the Human view of most things is conjectural?
So why the self-appointed task of disabusing Man of religion, when claiming there is no God plainly overextends your abilities, and marks you rather more like your subjects, than not.
Have you joined the fight against idolatry? Well, you should.
Look, though, at the silly advocation that Antiochus Epiphanes might well have saved the Greek Geni but for Channukkah, when Alexander himself was proclaimed Zeus Amon in Egypt. The deification of the Caesars was borrowed from there, by the way. Please. Your passion is overextended.
The certitude you desire simply isn't there.
Evolution is a creation myth, destined to be replaced: and should be seen exactly as that. The idea that fish became philosophers is a romantic one, and does not account for the overwhelming majority of natural facts, not just bits and pieces of it, such as the gap between dogs and cats. One need not know the truth in order to be certain of what it is not. I am certain you don't live here, for example, while remaining uncertain (and at peace with that) where you might.
Why appoint yourself the role of having an answer for everything? It's too comprehensive, and finally absurd.
Posted By: bkrummel @ 04/07/2009 2:16:58 AM
Logicitout, my "novel" was in response to your post at 04/06/2009 5:15:14 PM. Did you both to read my post? Firstly I apologized for possibly misinterpreting your position. Moreover, I had a number of comments to what you wrote. In particular, you seem very aware of the Free Exercise Clause, but seem to overlook the Establishment Clause. Do you have anything intelligent to say about what I wrote beyond deriding it as a novel?

The black and women issue is not meant to be a comparison, as it has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment directly. I merely intended to establish that the Founding Fathers were not perfect. Nothing more. Since it does accurately show that the Founding Fathers were not perfect, there is no logical fallacy here.

I agree that some Liberals have misinterpreted the will of the Framers. I would go as far as to say that they have deliberately misinterpreted the Constitution to pursue their agenda. That Liberal justices have engaged in judicial activism. This does not mean we should discount the reforms the liberal have brought us. Times change, and over time our view of the Constitution and rights change too.

The (social) Conservatives have also deliberately misinterpreted the Constitution to pursue their agenda. They wish to freely ignore the 1st Amendment so that they can force their Judeo-Christian values into public policy. They want to keep the word "God" on our coins, our pledge, etc regardless whether it violates the Constitutional rights of nonbelievers. When called to task for it, they respond much like you have: "the Framers didn't follow the 1st Amendment" and "the Framers said believing in God what necessary for Democracy to work". Firstly, you are right, the Framers didn't care about the rights of atheists. They wouldn't let atheists testify in courts and put explicit beliefs in God in our documents. They infringed upon the rights of nonbelievers and they were wrong. So frankly, I don't care if the Framers properly followed the 1st Amendment, I still expect it followed today. Secondly, we atheists are Americans too and we have rights damn it, guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. It is wonderful that the courts acknowledged our rights, even if the Framers did not. Finally, follow the Constitution. Even if the Framers didn't. The Constitution contains the 1st Amendment; follow it.

Now let's forget about the Founding Fathers and focus on what we will do. I've got some questions, so that I don't have to misinterpret you again. How do you think the 1st Amendment, regarding religious freedoms, should be interpreted. What role do you think religion should have in our government? And, do focus this on the issue of the article, do you think it is Constitutional to teach Creationism in the science classes?

P.S. Stop talking about "Logic" and at some point change your screenname. What you do has nothing to do with logic.
Posted By: Logicitout @ 04/06/2009 11:34:00 PM
Not sure what your novel has to do with the framers practicing what you say the first amendment prohibited.
The framers wrote it yet violated the amendment immediately and continually ? ( without protest )
Protest came later when Liberals wanted to change the intent.
The black and women issue is a real bad comparison, showing some flawed Logic.
I understand what the courts have decided today, yet common sense tells you the framers did not agree with todays courts.