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Essay on evolution and religion
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Scopes Trial In the 1920’s everyone thought that teaching evolution was forbidden and that it was against the church. Evolution was a tricking topic to discuss especially in the 1920’s because a lot of people thought that when someone said evolution it was automatically connected to the Bible. Evolution can be very controversial because many people, especially in the 1920’s had very different views on evolution and what is was. In the 1920’s many people thought evolution was something you would not teach. Most people thought it was related to the Bible and did not want it taught to their children. A lot of people thought evolution was only related to the Bible and did not think how evolution is related to how we evolved from a monkey into …show more content…
The teacher John Scopes was only teaching evolution in a relation to science evolution. The Scopes trial was the first occurrence of a teacher teaching evolution in their classroom. “The John Thomas Scopes trial checked the influence of Fundamentalism in Public Education ( John.)” The trial started because John Scopes broke the Butler law. “In 1925, the Tennessee legislature passed the Butler law which forbade the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution in any public school or university(The Monkey …show more content…
Many people feared the topic or term of evolution because they thought if someone is talking about evolution in a scientific way than it was against their religion. Many people have different views or opinions on evolution, in the 1920’s many people immediately associated the term evolution and automatically related it in biblical terms of evolution. Most people when someone would talk about evolution and relate it to science they would get offended because they believed differently because of their religion. “By the 1930’s most of the urban churches of America had been able to reconcile Darwin's theory with the Bible,but rural preachers preferred a stricter interpretation (The Monkey Trial).” The people who got offended about people talking about evolution in another way than the bible also thought it was against their religion to teach or talk about evolution in a fear that it could affect how their children thought about their religion.”In the years that followed his 1859 declaration America's churches hotly debated whether to accept the findings of modern science continues following the teaching of ancient scripture (The Monkey Trial)”. Many parents feared that if their child or children were taught evolution that then that would influence their religion. Multiple parents were very upset that their children were taught Darwin's theory of evolution. “By 1925, Bryan and his followers had succeeded in getting
In the novel Monkey Girl: Evolution, Religion, and The battle for American’s Soul, Humes tells the story of how 11 furious parents in the Dover Area school district decided to sue the school board and the district, because of the new learning objective requirement saying that all of 9th grade biology classes had to be taught Intelligent Design (ID), which is basically a form of creationism as a scientific alternative to evolution. They also believed that it “violated their first amendment right to information and ideas in an academic setting” (Humes, 2007, p. 221). This was the first legal trial to the perception of Intelligent Design. This novel is a narrative that captures nearly everyone’s view point in the Dover Area school District on the issue of Intelligent Design replacing evolution. There were numerous groups and organizations involved the trial including; The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans Unites for Separation of Church and State, Pepper Hamilton LLP, and the National Center for Science Education. This Trial was so major that even that national government was involved. George W. Bush sent a conservative appointee (John Jones) to the bench, which was done because it was “the early handicapping in the trial suggested a
In the uncertainty that the modern world is, there is one law that stays petrified in stone no matter what happens: “Things change with age.” No matter if it is in history, science, or even Pokémon, things change as time passes by and this process is called evolution. The theory formulated by Charles Darwin is the belief that all organisms have come from earliest creatures because of external factors (“NSTA…”). School boards everywhere have accepted the theory of Evolution as fact making it essential to be in the curriculums of science classrooms. However, over the years, controversy has arisen as the fact that is evolution is still only a theory with flaws and setbacks, efficiently making other theories (i.e. intelligent design) a viable alternate in the classroom. The law, on the other hand, had a different idea about these other theories with numerous bans them from schools, claiming them to be against the second amendment. Despite the bitter debate of rather or not it is valid and right for teaching (primarily alone) the theory of evolution lies as being the most reliable and accurate way to teach how the modern world came to be.
Firstly, in the town of Hillsboro teaching the theory of evolution to students was strictly against the law. Bert Cates was in opposition to this idea and, he believed that every student had the right to know about the Origin of species. Teaching the theory of evolution was against the law because it contradicted the teachings
The trial in the movie and historically was cause by a violation of the Butler Act. The movie simply portrays this law as a statute passed by the state of Tennessee that prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. In reality, the Butler Act only made it illegal to teach that humans evolved. During 1925 in the state of Tennesse, one could teach that all species evolved except humans and not have violated the Butler Act. The film also demonstrates that the Butler Act favored fundamentalist Christianity over science in public schools. This is continually emphasized in the movie by the speech and actions, such as the parade when Brady arrives in Tennessee, of the characters who are all clearly fundamentalist Christians. In reality, the Butler Act was intended to actually increase the neutrality of the two views. This is because the Bible could not be taught in public schools, yet this new scien...
John Scopes, a substitute biology teacher was arrested and charged with violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee law which prohibited teachers from teaching the Darwin Theory of Evolution in a science-related course. The American Civil Liberties Union created a plan to find a teacher willing to teach evolution in order to test the Butler Act, which forbade the essence that anyone teaching any theory that shunned the Biblical story of creationism. Scopes agreed to be arrested and have the case be taken to court. However, Scopes had simply reviewed the textbook chapter on evolution. The traditionalists would see this as a threat to their interests and the issue hit the country stronger than a tornado. Everyone was glued to their radios—it was the first broadcasted radio trial--except the campers and hundreds of reporters near the Dayton, Tennessee courthouse. Traditionalists would be outraged by the appearance of speakeasies, flappers, illegal boozing, popular activities of the Roaring Twenties and especially the Darwinian Theory. Their strong Christian beliefs from the Holy Bible stated how God created the world and man and woman. A traditionalist’s beliefs would not accept the idea of evolution because the Bible said that Man did not evolve but was created by God—the Divine Creation in one day.
Charles Darwin, the Father of Evolution, was a British scientist who laid the foundations of the theory of evolution, transforming the thinking of the entire world about the living things around us (Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)). After working on his theory for nearly 20 years, he published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859. As soon as the book was released, the controversy began with each sides gaining followers until the climax on July 10, 1925. The idea that animals could “evolve” and change into new species, including humans, was one that challenged not only how people thought about the natural world, but challenged the story of the creation from the Bible itself. Even though Darwin himself never said that humans “evolved” from apes, everyone took it as a logical extension of his new theory. It went against the idea of argument for design that had unified theology and science for decades (Moran 5). This new threat to Christianity and the social culture of the time was one that would transform state laws on their educational curriculum.
The 1920’s were a time of change. New ideas were becoming more readily experimented with and even accepted by large portions of the population. Some of these included jazz music and the fight against the alcoholic prohibition. The radical idea I will focus on in this paper, however, is Evolution. It is a theory that had been around for over half a century before the 20’s but had only more recently caught on in the US. It contradicted the Christian theory of Divine Creation as described in the Bible. This caused many religious fundamentalists to fight against it. They took their battle to the law books, and they were challenged by pro-evolution modernists in the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925.
Robert Root-Bernstein and Donald L. McEachron, “Teaching Theories: The Evolution-Creation Controversy,” The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 44, No. 7 (Oct…1982). This article, written by Robert Root-Bernstein and Donald L. McEachron sheds light on the controversy of evolution vs creationism in schools and the validity of each being called a scientific theory. The work was created to answer the questions, “Which of these theories is truly scientific and which is a religious belief? Which should be taught in schools?” The article concluded in favor of evolution as a valid scientific theory that should be taught rather than creationism, but also mentioned the worth of understanding the latter.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Darwin's theory of evolution. One of the biggest is that he called the theory by that name. Albrecht von Haller used the word "evolution" in 1744 to mean "to unroll," so the word was around in Darwin's time, but Darwin never used it in the sense we use it today. It was added later by others, including Herbert Spencer, who is responsible for the theory we call Social Darwinism. This theory is misnamed; it is not based on Darwin's work, but Spencer's.
Teaching of evolution has several issues. One of the main issue is that it is unfair to some students with a background of Christianity. Christians believe in Creationism, meaning God created the whole world or if not, most of the world. Darwin's theory of Evolution is complete contradictory of this. In the Bible, it is stated that God made humans in His image while Darwin's theory says that Humans evolved from monkeys. It is basically proving that God, does not exist, violating the first amendment, Freedom of Belief. The first amendment states "..respecting the establishment of religion..." When Christian students listen and are forced to learn the theory of Evolution, it is restricting them to worship without obstacles and is therefore, disrespecting the establishment of religion by defying the existence of God. "If Genesis were interpreted as symbolic, as a myth, fable or fantasy, then the entire role of Jesus would have to be reinterpreted."(http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_school.htm)
In 1925, a teacher named John T Scopes was arrested for teaching the Theory of Evolution as this contradicted religion and their beliefs that God created the world.
John Thomas Scopes, a math teacher and football coach for Rhea County High School in Dayton, Tennessee, was pressured into taking the challenge by a friend, George Rappleyea, who saw the advertisement. With the school’s biology teacher out for the last two weeks of class, Scopes took over and began teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. Soon after, he was arrested and charged with a violation of the Butler Act. Contrary to popular understanding, the worst punishment for this crime was a small fine.
The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee vs. Scopes but given the nickname “The Monkey Trial”, has been credited as starting the popular legal dispute between evolution and creationism in the court, and its impact in the 20’s was immeasurable.
Since the time that teaching evolution in public schools was banned as heresy and taboo for contradicting the Bible, most public school systems today take an opposite approach in which creationism is seldom ta...
simple terms: either Darwin or the Bible was true.” (265) The road to the trial began when Tennessee passed the Butler Act in 1925 banning the teaching of evolution in secondary schools. It was only a matter of time before a young biology teacher, John T. Scopes, prompted by the ACLU, tested the law. Spectators and newspapermen came from all over to witness whether science or religion would win the day. Yet, below all the hype, the trial had a deeper meaning.