Of Monkeys and Men, Preachers and Presidents

by Larry DeWitt
August, 2005

As the nation’s schoolchildren were preparing to return to their classrooms for the start of the Fall 2005 academic year, some unsolicited advice regarding school curricula emanated from an occupant of the White House. No, not the First Lady, who is a trained educator. No, it was from the other guy. The one who got into Yale as a legacy admission, and who racked-up a solid record of C-minus scholarship, with an occasional flash of brilliance that produced a B-minus or two here and there. This erstwhile scholar announced to the nation that, as far as he was concerned, the theory of "intelligent design" ought to be taught in the schools alongside the Darwinian theory of evolution. It was not a novel thought.

One of America's periodically amusing forms of cultural entertainment involves the attempt of religious primitives in the U.S. to replace evolutionary theory by creationism in school textbooks. Every so often we hear of another outburst from some holler in the hills that this idea of evolution is ungodly and hence must be trumped by the belief system of the Bible. This attack on science--and a particular theory in science--is identical whether it comes from the hollers in the hills, or from the scholars in right-wing think-tanks. Whether the noise we hear is some hillbilly beating a wooden spoon against a tin cooking-pot, or whether it is the amplified harrumphs of a politician posing on a speaker’s dais, the intellectual move is one and the same.

In January 2004, in one recent outburst, state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox held a press conference near the state capitol building in Atlantato explain why she was proposing to censor every science book used in middle and high schools throughout Georgia by removing the world “evolution.” She explained that terms like “evolution” are associated with “that monkeys-to-man sort of thing.” After replacing the word “evolution” with the more ambiguous “changes over time,” officials also planned to remove such offensive words as “long,” as in “the long history of the Earth.” This reference to a long history in geology would not do, we learned, because the Bible says the Earth cannot be more than 6,000 years old, and unsuspecting students might understand something longer than 6,000 years by the use of this devious adjective. The intent, Ms. Cox hinted, was to replace Darwin ’s theory of evolution by natural selection with that of creationism, whereby the world sprang into being 6,000 years ago (in the year 4004 B.C.E., according to some Biblical scribblers) in a single burst of divine creation. The idea that creationism is a scientific theory on a par with Darwin’s theory should not be shocking, Ms. Cox told the assembled press, since “Galileo was not considered reputable when he came out with his theory.”

Which theory was that, exactly? Was it the one authored by Copernicus in 1543 in his De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium Libri VI (Six books on the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres), that said the Earth actually revolved around the Sun, and for which Galileo–when he seconded this theory ninety years later–was ultimately persecuted by the Christian Church? Initially, of course it was Protestant theologians who branded Copernicus a heretic and who persecuted believers in the new theory. It was only around the time of the publication of the third edition of the book in 1617 that the Catholic Church was motivated to place it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (its list of banned books), by which time the Protestants, at the initial urging of both Martin Luther and John Calvin, had already been suppressing the theory for more than seventy years. Of course, the Catholic Church did remove De Revolutionibus from the Index, in 1835, deciding apparently that about three hundred years was an acceptable time to admit a new idea to intrude into Christian thinking. Is that the theory Ms. Cox had in mind? Or did she have in mind the event in 1992 during which Pope John Paul II withdrew the Church’s judgment against Galileo–359 years after he was indicted by the Inquisition–and admitted that there might have been a slight miscarriage of justice in this case, and that perhaps Galileo was right after all to think that the earth does move? We might agree with Ms. Cox that the plight of Galileo–his struggle to make “his” theory “reputable”–is indeed an instructive lesson, although it is not quite clear that the Superintendent has gotten it.

Howls of protest, not to mention laughter, followed the announcement of the new Georgia state standards, including a scolding from former President Jimmy Carter, who feared it would make Georgia a national laughingstock. But advocates of creationism in Georgia complained that the howls of both laughter and protest were signs that the evolutionists were the radical fundamentalists in the story. “Could it be that their sacred cow is less than convincing when exposed to the light of truth?,” editorialized the director of Parents for Truth in Education.

July 2005, being the 80th anniversary of the Scopes Trial, “that monkeys-to-man sort of thing” burst onto the news agenda once again. Dayton, Tennessee–the site of the original trial in 1925–still retains the reverberating image of “monkey-town” it acquired during the famous trial. As the Baltimore Sun’s on-site reporter in Dayton–H. L. Mencken–described the place in 1925: “It would be hard to imagine a more moral town than Dayton. If it has any bootleggers, no visitor has heard of them. . . No fancy woman has been seen in the town since the end of the McKinley administration. There is no gambling. There is no place to dance. The relatively wicked, when they would indulge themselves, go to Robinson's drug store and debate theology. . .” In its coverage of the historic anniversary National Public Radio interviewed local truck-farmer O. W. Wooden, who sells his produce in the same town square that witnessed the original trial. Asked what he thinks about the theory of evolution Wooden opined: “They’s try’ng, you know, to tell you that people come from monkeys, you know, and all that stuff. Couldn’t be right. Monkeys, to me, is just like a chicken. And you know what a man is. It’s just one of them things. People’s people.” Eloise Reed–who as a 12 year-old child was an eyewitness to the original trial–still resents the demeaning image of Dayton, especially as portrayed in the Stanley Kramer movie Inherit the Wind. “It belittled our town. . . . It was the way they portrayed us, because we didn’t believe in the theory, or maybe not that, but we didn’t want it taught. We didn’t care. We didn’t give a hoot whether they taught it in the school or not–that’s all right. They couldn’t make the people ‘round here believe it.”

Around the time of the 80th anniversary of the Scopes Trial, a Sunday School class in Port Deposit, Maryland considered as its topic the theory of evolution. “Has anybody seen a cat-dog–other than by the cartoon,” the teacher asked? “No,” the students seriously responded. This refutation-by-cartoon-proof seemed to satisfy the young students, one of whom demanded, “Why do they get to force their opinion on us?” Another young student thought she had the answer: “Evolution is basically a religion itself.” Evolution cannot be proven, one student proclaimed, but the Biblical account can be. Asked how she knows this, she replied simply: “Because the Creator lives in my heart. That’s how I know that creation is true, because the Creator of this earth is in my heart.” When the Cecil County school district adopted new biology textbooks the previous Fall they failed to include Creationism as a standard theory on a par with evolution, and so this Bible-belt stretch of Maryland near Baltimore erupted in what evangelical leaders themselves described as “an insurgency” to force the Creator of the earth not just into the hearts of Marylanders but into their biology textbooks as well.

Every time some learned citizen announces to his fellow humans that he knows for damn sure that men and monkeys have no close kinship, I cannot avoid the uncharitable thought that his words strike me as self-refuting.

But as I noted, some of the hollering has recently been coming from a different kind of holler, a large white house on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. On the first day of August 2005 the principal resident of that holler announced to the Texas newspapers that as far as he was concerned, intelligent design ought to be taught in the nation’s schools alongside evolutionary theory. “I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” this natural philosopher said. “You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas. The answer is ‘yes.’” With as much respect as I can muster, may I say, that is not the question. The question is whether intelligent design or biblical creationism ought to be taught in biology classes and presented as an alternative scientific theory of the origins of species. The answer to this, actual, question is “no,” and for roughly the same reason that we do not teach Aristotle’s metaphysics in biology class. Intelligent design–as a philosophical conception of the origins of existence–certainly can be taught in philosophy classes, and theology courses, and perhaps even in the American Studies curricula. But it is not a scientific theory amenable to the procedures and principles of the scientific method. What it is, of course, is a religious belief dressed in pseudo-scientific garb in order to sneak into the science curriculum, where it is hoped it will be more influential than if it is confined only to Sunday School classes.

There are various arguments for this intrusion of the sacred into the secular. As the president of the ethics and religious liberties commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land, explained matters: [evolution] “is too often taught as fact,” and “if you're going to teach the Darwinian theory of evolution, teach it as theory. And then teach another theory that has the most support among scientists.” (By this last bit, Land was claiming that most scientists believe in God, not necessarily that the majority of scientists favor the"theory of intelligent design--but then the fuzzying-up of the distinction may not have been entirely inadvertent.)

Other arguments have been made by other leading minds of our generation. Referring to the idea that intelligent design explains the origin of species, Christian conservative leader Gary Bauer said, "It's not some backwater view. It's a view held by the majority of Americans." On this point, alas, he is probably right. John G. West, an official with something called the Discovery Institute--which is a think-tank advocating intelligent design--was even more to the point: "President Bush is to be commended for defending free speech on evolution, and supporting the right of students to hear about different scientific views about evolution." The esteemed Catholic theologian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, writing in the New York Times, said "Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science." The good Cardinal also offered a handy heuristic for deciding matters here: he said simply that the idea of evolution as "an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection" is by definition not true. Actually, what the Cardinal should have said, if he were being honest, is that such a view of evolution is not consistent with some views of Christian theology--which might well be the case.

Evolution, like any theory of science, is a theoretical conjecture about the objective truths of our world. Nothing anywhere in science, or any other domain, is a “fact” in the sense used by Land. The naive way that Land and his cohorts use the term implies that a fact is something that is certain and a theory is something that is speculative. And, of course, one speculation is pretty much on a par with another. It's kind of like religion, as the young girl in Port Deposit looks at it: one can believe one religion or another, and who's to say which is right? Right? No, actually. In science, facts are just highly-likely theories. They are always subject to empirical test, and to potential falsification by objective evidence. To "teach evolution as a fact" is not to claim it is certain beyond question--in fact, it is to claim the opposite. It is to posit the theory as a conjecture subject to empirical falsification, and to make the quite sensible and correct observation that, as of yet, it has not be falsified by the evidence in the fossil record or by findings in the biological sciences. The only propositions which are certain are those of theology, which are deliberately made proof against any potential contrary facts. The “theory” of intelligent design is not a scientific theory, it is a theological proposition because no falsifying evidence can be admitted against it.

Nor is this about free speech or freedom of thought. You are free to append whatever dependent clauses you like to your own private crooning of “I Believe.” You are utterly free to believe that we all have a guardian angel watching over us; that for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows; that Someone in the great Somewhere hears your every word; and, yes, that God created the world with all its extant species in the year 4004 B.C.E. If you adopt this last belief, you might have a little trouble explaining the fossil record, but adopt it you can. And for all I know, all these beliefs may be true. It is just that you are not free to call any of these beliefs scientific theories, and you have no rightful expectation that they be taught in biology class alongside the theory of evolution. We are not obligated to teach intelligent design in science classes any more than we are obligated to teach the alternative Lamarckian theory of evolution, which claimed that species evolve in an effort to attain to a teleological goal. We are not obligated to teach creationism in science classes any more than we are obligated to teach the Ptolemaic model of the universe in astronomy classes--despite the fact that they are alternative theories.

This push to incorporate the "theory" of intelligent design into the science curricula is really an effort to obliterate the distinction between scientific theory and religious belief. It is an effort to make religious belief into a form of scientific theory in the expectation that if such beliefs get labeled as alternative scientific "theories" this will lubricate the curriculum for the insertion of religion into secular education. We should refuse the conflation, and insist on a modicum of clarity in this seemingly never-ending discussion. And what the push for intelligent design or creationism is not, most egregiously not, is any kind of move toward a greater openness of mind–it is precisely the opposite. It is an effort to close the minds of impressionable youth to the fretful thought that a literal reading of the Bible might not necessarily be the best guide to understanding the phenomena of the natural world. It is an effort to stuff an ideological stopper in any possible holes of doubt that impressionable young students might fall prey to in their journeys back and forth between the science classroom and the Sunday School class.

One last thought about all of this: one reason--apart from the persistent problem of people with narrow minds reading their Bibles narrowly--that some people are uncomfortable with the idea of evolution by natural selection is that they truly are offended in some way by the idea that people and monkeys are descended from a common ancestor. They really dislike the idea that--even remotely--human beings are not just the most precious and special form of God's creation ever to grace the universe. It's that "monkeys-to-man sort of thing” that bothers them. Well, get over it. Human beings are not the lords of the universe; and the mess we usually make of this planet suggests that maybe we aren't even the brightest form of life in this neighborhood. For my money, your average monkey is a more sane and reliable actor in our world than your average Sunday School teacher. After all, the average monkey is much too sensible to attempt to use the refutation-by-cartoon-proof justification for his theories of the nature of his world.

So, what are we to sensibly conclude from all of this? I think the lesson for America's schoolchildren is fairly simple: Presidents and Preachers make bad science educators; and while monkeys and men may or may not be descended from a common ancestor, some present members of our species sometimes behave as if they are trying to prove that they are.