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Recently the Kansas state board of education adopted a policy that pretty much prevents the teaching of the theory of evolution in that state's public schools.
The opponents of evolution argue that it's just a
theory, and it shouldn't be taught as a fact.
In that
regard, they're right. Gravity may be a fact, but
gravitation is just a theory, and it changes over time.
Isaac Newton's 17th-century formula worked pretty well,
but didn't explain certain perturbations in the orbit of
the plant Mercury, and Newton's Law of Gravitation
was eventually modified by Albert Einstein's 20th-century
theories of special and general relativity. Science is
like that.
But there's a difference between teaching evolution
as a theory
and not teaching evolution at all
because that might cause fundamentalist children might lose
their faith and grow up to be Secular Humanists or even
Democrats.
Any school that measured its curriculum against the Bible would have to alter many courses besides biology.
Mathematics, for instance. There's no need to memorize
3.14159265358979...
as the value of pi (the ratio
between a circle's circumference and its diameter), when
the Old Testament (I Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2) gives
the value as just 3,
a number much easier to
remember.
Geology would get easier, too, as would astronomy. Why bother with eons of Cambrian and Cretaceous lore to memorize, or with red-shifts and billions of light years, when the heavens and the earth came into being at 9 a.m. on Oct. 23, 4004 B.C.?
Discussions of Kansas history could get tricky. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as a response to the existing parties' (Whigs and Democrats) failure to cope with the attempted extension of chattel slavery into the territories of Nebraska and Kansas.
The first GOP presidential campaign came in 1856, with
the party solidly against the twin pillars of barbarism
and ignorance: slavery and polygamy [Mormons in Utah
Territory].
Nowhere in the Bible have I found any definitive denunciation of slavery or polygamy; indeed, many heroic figures practiced one or both. Thus Kansas students, if they're to be educated in a just, moral and biblical manner, should be spared the anti-slavery and anti-polygamy heresies that played such a prominent role in the early days of their territory. Their future civics classes might feature discussions of the best ways to restore these biblical principles to American life.
But didn't this all come to a head once before, in the
famous Scopes Trial of 1925 in Dayton, Tenn., which
inspired the play and film Inherit the Wind
?
John T. Scopes was then found guilty of violating state law by teaching evolution, and duly fined $100. On appeal, the state supreme court upheld the constitutionality of the law, but overturned Scopes' conviction on the technicality that the fine was excessive. The Tennessee law was repealed in 1967 -- but obviously, that didn't end this controversy.
When I researched the Scopes Trial for a college paper years ago, I came to be amazed that William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow were such bitter enemies there.
With both the Populist and Democratic nominations in 1896, Bryan ran for president as a progressive liberal: regulate the trusts and monopolies, recognize the labor unions, restore prosperity to the farmers, etc.
As an attorney, Clarence Darrow defended unions, opposed the death penalty, and, like Bryan, fought for the little guy.
So why were these men of such similar political beliefs such bitter enemies in Dayton? I couldn't figure it out then, and enlightenment came only a couple of years ago when I read Under God: Religion and American Politics, by Garry Wills.
Wills explained that the darwinism
that Bryan
really abhorred social darwinism
-- the doctrine
that American economic life should be totally market-driven
and only the fittest get to eat.
Darrow hated social darwinism, too, but he also despised Bryan's fundamentalists for imposing Prohibition, and further, his friend H.L. Mencken, whose journalism defined the Scopes Trial, was a social darwinist.
Thus, Wills argued, Bryan's real Christian concern -- that America would become an inhumane dog-eat-dog society unless the faithful were mobilized -- was obscured by the hoopla over teaching evolution in the schools.
I'd like to think there's something deeper in the current Kansas controversy, too, but if there is, I'll have to wait for somebody like Garry Wills to find it.
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