American Atheist Magazine Oct 1986

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A M E R I C A N ATH~ISTS

is a non-profit, non-political, educational organization dedicated to the complete and absolute separation of state

and church. We accept the explanation ofThomas Jefferson that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the

United States wits meant 'to create a wall of separation between state and church.

American Atheists is organized to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiryconcerning religious

beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices;

to collect and disseminate information, data, and literature on all religions and promote a more thorough

understanding of.them, their

origins,

and their histories;

to advocate, labor for, and promote in alllawfulways the complete and absolute separation of state and church;

to advocate, labor for, and promote in alllawfulways the establishment and maintenance ofa thoroughly secular

system ofeducation

availab le

to all;

to encourage the development and public acceptance of a human ethical system stressing the mutual sympathy,

understanding, pod interdependence of all people and the corresponding responsibility of each individual in

relation

to society; ,

to develop andpropagate a social philosophy inwhich man isthe central figurewho alone must be the source of

strength, progress, and ideals for the well-being and happiness of humanity;

to promote the study of the arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the maintenance, perpetuation, and

enrichment of human (and other) life;

to engage in such social, educational, legal, and cultural activity as willbe useful and beneficial to members of

American Atheists and to society as a whole.

Atheism may be,defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at

establishing a:life-style and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and the scientific method, independent of all

arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds.

Materialism declares that the cosmos is devoid of immanent conscious purpose; that it is governed by its own

inherent, immutable, and impersonal laws; that there is no supernatural interference in human life; that man -

finding his resources within himself --,.can and must create his own destiny. Materialism restores to man his dignity

and his intellectual integrity. It teaches that we must prize our lifeon earth and strive always to improve it. It holds

that man is capable of creating a social system based on reason and justice. Materialism's faith is in man and

man's ability to transform the world culture by his own efforts. This is a commitment which is in its very essence

life-asserting. It considers the struggle for progress as a moral obligation and impossible without noble ideas that

inspire man to bold creative works. Materialism holds that humankind's potential for good and for an outreach to

more fulfillingculturaldevelopment is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.

American Atheist Membership Categories

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Allmembership categories receive our monthly Insider's Newsletter, membership card(s), a subscription to

American

Atheist

magazine for the duration ofthe membership period, plus additional organizational mailings,

i.e., new products for sale, convention and meeting announcements, etc.

American Atheists - P.O. Box 2117 - Austin, TX 78768-2117


3/77

October 1986

Vol 28, No. 10

m e r i c n t h e i s t

Journal of Atheist News and Thought

ARE

YOU

MOVING?

Please notify us six weeks in advance to ensure uninterrupted delivery. Send us

both

your old and new addresses.

NEW ADDRESS: (Please print) OLD ADDRESS: (Please print)

Name

Address

City _

State _

Effective Date: _

Editor's Desk

R. Murray-O'Hair

Director's Briefcase

Jon G. Murray

Willtoday's Americans ever understand

- or be exposed to - the meaning of

Science - Unabridged ? Or has scien-

tific illiteracy advanced too far?

Ask A.A.

A potpourri of topics: Village Atheists,

reactions to sneezes, duplicate officers,

spiritualism, and logical syllogisms.

A Special Section on Creationism

The creationist's battle against ev-

olution-science is no laughing mat-

ter, not with a new suit in front of the

nation's highest court. The Ameri-

can Atheist examines the history

and future of that battle in a special

forty-page section.

For details, see page 2.

Blasphemy (part I)

Liberty of speech and an Atheist stood

trial one hundred years ago in New Jer-

sey. And as

The Truth Seeker's

original

account shows, Christian tolerance was

even then not a pleasant thing to behold.

Second Printing

Fourth Printing 8-1997

Mail to: American Atheists

2 The Probing Mind

Frank R. Zindler

Careful reading throws Daniel In The

Debunker's Den.

Report From India

Margaret Bhatty

Asian religion and The Girl Child -an

all too tragic combination.

6

Poetry

7

American Atheist Radio Series

Madalyn O'Hair

Charles Smith - Atheist was one of

evolution's earliest defenders.

Historical Notes

Press Conference

Brian Lynch

The U.N. decrees no man or people

may achieve national liberation at the

expense of another, and that is Why

Zionism Is Racism.

49

Me Too

Letters to the Editor

Classified Advertisements

Cover Art by Christopher Dunne

Name

Austin, Texas

Address

City _

State _

P.O. Box 2117 Austin TX 78768-2117

Zip _

Zip _

October 1986

60

61

64

9

70

72

Page 1


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m e r i c n t h e i s t

Editor/R. Murray-O'Hair

Editor Emeritus/Dr. Madalyn O'Hair

Managing Editor/Jon G. Murray

Assistant Editor/Gerald Tholen

Poetry/Angeline Bennett, Gerald Tholen

Non-Resident Staff/John M.Allegro, Burnham

P. Beckwith, Margaret Bhatty, Nawal EISaadawi,

Merrill Holste, Lowell Newby, Fred Woodworth,

Frank R. Zindler

Production Staff/Laura Lee Cole, Christina Dit-

ter, Shantha Elluru, Keith Hailey, Brian J. Lynch,

Jim Mills,John Ragland, Jes Simmons

Officers of the Society of Separationists, Inc.

President/don G. Murray

President Emeritus/Dr. Madalyn O'Hair

Vice-President/Gerald Tholen

Secretary/R. Murray-O'Hair

Treasurer/Brian J. Lynch

Chairman of the

Board/Dr,

Madalyn O'Hair

Members of the Board/don G. Murray (Vice

Chairman), August Berkshire, Herman Harris,

Ellen Johnson, Scott Kerns, Minerva Massen,

Robin Murray-O'Hair, Shirley Nelson, Richard C.

O'Hair, Henry Schmuck, Noel Scott, Gerald

Tholen, Lloyd Thoren, Frank Zindler.

Officers and Directors may be reached at P.O.

Box 2117, Austin, TX 78768.

Honorary Members of the Board/Merrill

Holste, John Marthaler

The American Atheist is published monthly by

American Atheist Press, an affiliate of Society of

Separationists, Inc., d/b/a American Atheists,

2210Hancock Dr., Austin, TX 78756-2596, a non-

profit, non-political, educational organization ded-

icated to the complete and absolute separation of

state and church. (Non-profit under IRS Code

501(c)(3).)

Copyright 1986 by Society of Separationists, Inc.

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in

part without written permission is prohibited.

ISSN: 0332-4310.Mailingaddress: P.O. Box 2117,

Austin, TX 78768-2117.

The American

At heis t

isindexed in IBZ

(I nterna-

t io ria l B ib li og ra ph y o f

Periodical

Literature,

Os-

nabruck, Germany).

Manuscripts submitted must be typed, double-

spaced, and accompanied by a stamped, self-

addressed envelope. A copy ofAmerican Atheist

Writers' Guidelines is available upon request. The

editors assume no responsibility for unsolicited

manuscripts.

The American Atheist Press publishes a variety of

Atheist, agnostic, and freethought material. A

catalog is available free upon request.

The American Atheist is given free ofcost

to members of American Atheists as an

incident of their membership. For a sched-

ule of membership rates, please see the

inside front cover. Subscriptions for the

American Atheist alone are $25 a year for

one-year terms only. The library and

institutional discount is 50%. Sustain-

ing subscriptions ($50 a year) are tax-

deductible.

Page 2

tion is that the U. S. Supreme Court not

alone reconvenes in October, but it has

already accepted for review the Louisiana

case in which that state has prescribed that

the Genesis record of creation of the uni-

verse, world, and man must be given equal

time, equal treatment, and equal credit in all

of the public schools of that state right up

through university graduate school level.

You need to know what is going on when

it comes to Rehnquist's first big chance to

turn the nation's education back a century

or two. Ifyou know what went on regarding

creationism in other courts from 1925 for-

ward, you will be intellectually braced to

accept what isgoing to happen in the highest

court of the nation. And American Atheists

thinks it won't be-good.

EDITOR'S DESK / R. Murray-O 'Hair

A SPECIAL ISSUE

A Special Section on Creationism

W

hen you picked up this issue of the

American Atheist, you might have

noticed that it's is just a bit thicker than

usual, with seventy-two instead of the usual

forty-four pages. And you might have won-

dered why American Atheists, a cause or-

ganization with littlemoney to spare, went to

the extra expense of a special issue on

creationism.

We did it because it was time that some

periodical give a history and overview of the

legalbattle over creationism. Various organ-

izations, periodicals, tracts, leaflets, and

books had debunked creationism - but

seemingly all had ignored the application of

the concept to our school system.

American Atheists deals constantly with

reality, and the reality of the current situa-

About Creationism -

A short guide

to the need for this issue, its contents,

and THE issue. - 7

Creationism: High Jinks and History

- Born in the Enlightment, nursed by

American Protestantism, Fundamen-

talism has grown to be a threat to

science. Here is the history of its devel-

opment. - 8

Astronomical

Society of the Pacific

-- A small organization's reponse to

creationism's claims. - 11

The National Academy of Sciences

- An excerpt ofan untimely response to

the militarism of the creationists. - 14

Proposed

National Bill-

Ready and

waiting for signatures, this document

could seal the future ofbiological educa-

tion. -- 23

Arkansas' Scientific Creationism -

Forty years ofterror: The original crea-

tion/ evolution skirmish began inArkan-

sas in the 1920s and finished in the

1960s. - 24

Tennessee, Satan, and Antievolution

- The 1970s saw Tennessee's attempt

to keep the Devil (and evolution) out of

the schools. - 26

October 1986

A

No-Win Situation -

How Califor-

nia was nearly saved from science. - 27

Arkansas - The Second Go-Round

- A review of the much-hailed Mon-

key Trail II. - 29

The Texas Story -

The attorney

general of Texas, the nation's largest

textbook purchaser, gave his opinion

on creationism - only to be ignored by

the textbook commission. - 32

Making a Monkey Out of the United

States

Supreme

Court -

The Supreme

Court reviews Louisiana's Balanced

Treatment Act this month. Will it be

convinced by the experts that crea-

tionism is perfectly good science? - 33

Kenyon's Contentions -

Willa brief-

case full of credentials and slick argu-

ments convince the Supreme Justices

that evolution-science and creation-

science are equal? - 42

A Creationist Upsets the Evolution-

ists at La Trobe -

The creationism

contagion is not confined to the U.S. by

any means. - 46

Academic

Backs Evolution Theory

- An Australian Atheist responds to

his nation's creationists. - 48

American Atheist


5/77

DIRECTOR'S BRIEFCASE /

Jon

G. v1urray

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SCIENCE - UNABRIDGED

W

e receive many articles on many sub-

jects from newspapers and maga-

zines from around the country here at the

national American Atheist Center. We

received a couple ofthem recently that were

the kind of articles that contain information

that one suspects on one's own for some

time, and then suddenly is confirmed by an

actual report or study or happening. Such

were two articles from the

Washington

Post

(June 2, 1986) and

The Courier-Journal

(Louisville,Kentucky; ,June 7, 1986) report-

ing a variety of survey statistics concerning

the knowledge of basic scientific concepts

by a sample of American adults. I have

attempted below to summarize the material

reported in these two newspaper accounts.

They were different versions of an article by

Cristine Russell, a

Washington Post

staff

writer. I was not able to secure an actual

copy of this survey from Northern Illinois

University, the institute of origin of the

report, prior to the writing of this column.

An aside is needed here. One of the phe-

nomena of American journalism is that a

given reporter or writer will do a story and

submit it to his or her editor, who willprint a

version of the original in the paper for

which the writer works and then have a dif-

ferent version put on the wire service. If

you look at a particular wire service-carried

article that has been published in more than

one newspaper and closely compare the

two, or three, or more versions, you willsee

that each local paper always picks up differ-

ent parts of the entire wire service release,

which in turn differs from the paper that

originated the story,

In order to comment on these findings, I

must first share them with you. That is a

Christian key word that usually makes my

skin crawl because religious persons always

say that they want to share something

with me before they proceed to try to con-

vert me to the Lord.

Excerpts From A Science Report

The American Association for the Ad-

vancement ofScience held a meeting during

the week of May 26 of this year in Philadel-

phia. The principal speaker at that meeting

was Mr. Jon D. Miller,who isthe head ofthe

Public Opinion Laboratory at Northern Illi-

nois University inDe Kalb, Illinois.The topic

ofhis presentation concerned a survey that

Austin, Texas

he conducted regarding the relative levels of

understanding of basic science concepts by

a cross section ofAmerican adults. The find-

ings were based on a random telephone sur-

vey of a representative sample of two thou-

sand adults during November and Decem-

ber 1985. Mr. Miller indicated that the mar-

gin of error in his sample was about two and

one-half percent in either direction. The fol-

lowing is a listing of the results, rounded off,

of the key survey questions as it appeared in

The Washington Post

of June 2, 1986.

Self-reported understanding of DNA

Clear understanding 16%

General sense 27%

Little understanding 57%

Belief that astrology is:

Very scientific 7%

Sort of scientific 29%

Not at all scientific 61%

Acceptance of evolution:

Human beings as we know them

today developed from earlier species

of animals.

Agree

Not sure

Disagree

47%

7%

46%

Belief in lucky numbers:

Some numbers are especially lucky

for some people.

Agree

Not sure

Disagree

40%

4%

56%

Belief i n extraterrestrial visitors:

It is likely that some of the unidenti-

fied flying objects that have been

reported are really space vehicles

from other civilizations.

Agree

Not sure

Disagree

43%

11%

46%

Attitude toward scientists:

Because of their knowledge, scien- .

tific researchers have a power that

makes them dangerous.

Agree

Not sure

53%

4%

October 1986

Disagree 44%

What It Means

In addition to the chart above, a number

of findings were enumerated in Mr. Miller's

speech to the AAAS.

(1) Seven percent of those surveyed said

they had changed their behavior because of

advice in an astrology column, and 20 per-

cent who had dropped out of high school

said astrology had influenced them. In addi-

tion, nearly half of the least -educated agreed

with the statement that it is not wise to plan

ahead since many things turn out to be a

matter of good or bad luck anyway, while

only 6 percent of college graduates agreed.

(2)One-third ofthose surveyed claimed to

have a clear understanding of what a mole-

cule is. Forty-eight percent (Post,

The Cour-

ier said 40 percent) had a

general

under-

standing, and 28 percent said they had

little

understanding.

(3) Fewer than one-third surveyed had a

clear

understanding of radiation, and one in

five admitted to little or no understanding of

the term.

(4) Seven of ten participants agreed with

the theory that in the entire universe, it is

likelythat there are thousands of planets like

our own on which life could have devel-

oped.

(5) Eight out of ten surveyed were in

strong agreement with the scientific view of

plate tectonics.

(6) In general, the study reported that 15

percent ofAmerican adults, or about twenty-

five million, did not complete high schoo .

With respect to the question in the chart

concerning attitude toward scientists, 71

percent of high school dropouts and 38 per-

cent of college graduates were the subsets of

the total of 53 percent who agreed that

knowledge makes scientific researchers

dangerous. In spite of this, 57 percent of

those surveyed agreed with the statement

that in this complicated world of ours, the

only way we can know what is going on is to

rely on leaders and experts who can be

trusted, while 81 percent of the least-

educated believed they had to depend on

experts, but a majority of college graduates

rejected this notion.

(7) On the basis of his findings, Mr. Miller

concluded that a substantial majority of

Americans do not have a sufficient vocab-

Page 3


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7/77

cials to see to it that teaching science is

made a priority. I am not saying that the

humanities subject area is less important,

but I am saying that science courses cannot

be looked upon as controversial and

humanities courses as safe.

Unfortunately, science has been inextric-

ably linked to the military in the minds of

politicians for years in this country. Presi-

dent Eisenhower created the White House

Office of Science and Technology Policy in

the 1950s to attempt to bring the nation's

best science advice to Washington. Behind

it all was military use first, naturally, but at

least it gave the public a new image of the

worth of science to the nation as a whole

by the president endowing it with its own

White House spokesperson. Even this

executive blessing for science has now

fallenon hard times. President Reagan is the

most popular president, cosmetically, that

we have ever had and is at the same time

probably one ofthe most scientifically misin-

formed, as his Strategic Defense Initiative

(SOl or Star Wars ) demonstrates. Eisen-

hower, Kennedy, and Johnson kept up the

White House blessing for science until

Nixon came along and scuttled the position

ofscience adviser to the president, making it

necessary for Congress to restore it by

statute.

The choices for science adviser by Eisen-

hower, Kennedy, and Johnson were per-

sons such as Jerome B. Wiesner and Lee A.

DuBridge, who were well-qualified and

respected by their peers. Wiesner was a

respected educator ine lectrical engineering

who held the presidency of the Massachu-

setts Institute of Technology (M.LT.) and

was presidential advisor to Kennedy. Du-

Bridge was a physicist specializing in photo-

electric phenomena during the Johnson

administration, and he held the directorship

of the radiation lab at M.LT. and the presi-

dency of the California Institute of Technol-

ogy. In Gerald Ford's administration, H.

Guyford Stever became science advisor,

having expertise in the fields of mechanical,

aerodynamic, and marine engineering and

naval architecture, heading those depart-

ments at various times at M.LT. Under

Jimmy Carter, Frank Press got the science

advisor job. Press, as an educator and geo-

physicist, headed that department at M.LT.

from the late 1950s to the mid 1960s and was

a Columbia Medal of Excellence recipient.

President Reagan has had trouble since he

checked into the oval office. Several distin-

guished scientists turned him down during

his first term, so he had to appoint George

A. Keyworth II, a little-known neutron phys-

icist with the Los Alamos National Labora-

tory since 1973.Keyworth quit inJanuary of

this year to go into consulting, and Reagan

has now appointed WilliamR. Graham, for-

merly the deputy administrator for the

National Aeronautics and Space Adminis-

Austin, Texas

tration at the time of the space shuttle disas-

ter. Graham has been on the research and

technical staffs of various military contrac-

tors since 1961and is hardly a luminary in his

field. Needless to say, these kinds of ap-

pointments by Reagan of political kindred

rather than fieldleaders are not going to set

a very good example for the nation or the

nation's educators.

The Solution Is No Problem

I also think that the solution is not to

blame the public school system for declining

interest and proficiency in science, as did

Mr. Miner in his address to the AAAS in

Philadelphia. Instead, the public schools and

the educators and administrators who run

them need to be encouraged about teaching

science and asked to teach more instead of

being intimidated into teaching less by a

bunch of religious fanatics. We as Atheists,

particularly because we base our worldview

on the scientific method, must initiate and

sustain pressure on the educational system,

both public and private, to increase the

teaching of science and make more science

topic areas available to young people.

We can no longer afford to take a back-

seat to the Gablers of Longview, Texas, or

the Creation Science Research Center of

Southern California. Atheists need to be

present to speak up at school board meet-

ings, textbook selection hearings, and the

Atheists among the faculties of major educa-

tional institutions need to speak up instead

of keeping a low profile. Tenure be damned

The scientific community failed to speak up

against its breakthroughs of the 1940s and

1950s being used to make bombs, and now

we have an arms race of staggering propor-

tions. If this generation of scientists fails to

speak up and lend credence to the concept

of increased science education, there may

be no more science education at all. The

backbone of the publishingindustry, educa-

tors, and legislators need to be strength-

ened, and Atheists are in just the position to

take some of the heat off of them by doing

battle with the religionists face-to-face.

~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A second generation Atheist,

Mr. Murray has been the Director

of The American Atheist Center

for ten years and is also the Managing

Editor of the merican theist He

advocates Aggressive Atheism.

Stop The Press

As this month's Director's Briefcase

was being written, the Austin American

Statesman

of Saturday, August 2, had an

article appear entitled Students Show

Lack of Science Education. This article

concerned two professors and surveyors

who teach at the University of Texas at

Arlington (UTA). The two professors, who

teach sociology and archeology, conducted

a study of scientific history knowledge

last fall of 409 UTA undergraduates and

found some of the following results:

(1)41 percent believe man and the

dinosaurs coexisted.

(2) 22 percent believe aliens have

visited Earth.

(3) 34 percent believe in black

magic.

(4) 38 percent think communica-

tion with the dead is possible.

(5) 35 percent believe in ghosts.

The two professors have also surveyed

undergraduates at the University of South-

ern California, Texas Christian University,

and Central Connecticut State University.

They are in the process of writing a book on

the results of the these surveys. The UTA

results were first released in an article co-

authored by the two professors in Youth

and Society, a professional journal.

The statistics gathered by these UTA

professors are even more frightening than

October 1986

the general public surveys that formed the

basis for this month's Director's Brief-

case, because they involve college stu-

dents and not just a general group including

persons who never graduated from high

school. One of the professors was quoted

as saying, I think we've seen that part of

our society is left with one foot on the moon

and another in a cave. I thought that would

be harder to say about college students.

The two authors of the study said that

they did not consider results concerning

religious beliefs as evidence of scientific illit-

eracy. This obviously stems from the

rationalization on their part that one can

have bizarre or unscientific notions with

respect to religion that may not necessarily

spill over into other aspects of their lives. I

don't agree, as an Atheist, with that ratio-

nale. I have never thought that one can

compartmentalize thought patterns and be

rational in one area and irrational in the

other without the irrationality spilling over

and influencing rational behavior.

Historically, scientific illiteracy has fos-

tered increased reliance on organized reli-

gion and mystic or faith solutions to life

problems. I would like to think that our

culture has grown out of that stage of

human development, but with the results of

all these surveys at hand itwould appear we

are now regressing. - Jon G. Murray

Page 5


8/77

have been taught carefully from infancy that

humans need to believe in a god and that

they

need to

have

a

supernatural entity

floating about. They have been conditioned

to be

unable

to accept a

creator-less

universe.

So, they speak not of Jehovah, but of a

life-force.

We would doubt that most individuals

who claim not to be religious but to be spir-

itual are deliberately trying to deceive.

They just do not know the proper terminol-

ogy. The proper word for what they accept

is deism.

The alternative word for spirit is soul, and

all these good folks harbor the delusion that

they have one. Deprogramming of such

persons is

extremely difficult.

Since

there

are so many people in the nation who have

jettisoned all these religious

ideas

and

are

yearning to discover that American Atheists

exists, we don't waste

precious

time,

en-

ergy, or money needed for literature to

convert them out of their ignorance. We

pass them over as we look for Atheists who

followed a do-it-yourself plan to mental

freedom.

ASK A.A.

In Let ters to the Editor, readers

give

their

opinions, ideas,

and informa-

tion.

But

in

Ask A. A.,

American

Athe-

ists answers questions regarding its

policies,

positions,

and

customs, as

well

as queries

of factual and historical

situations.

What is the origin of the phrase The Vil-

lage Atheist ? Do you think itwas somehow

derived from the

1848

expression the idiocy

of villagelife ? (l do not mean to relate Athe-

ism to idiocy )

M. Stone

Pennsylvania

In every middlesex, village, and farm

community there

is

usually one person who

is smarter than the rest. Traditionally, he

has been the iconoclast in every culture.

When the world became religiously satu-

rated, he was the Atheist, that is to say, the

person who was the thinker and the critic

of the dominant culture. We would not be

surprised

if the expression was given birth in

the Age of Reason and probably someone

like Voltaire was its author. How about

some help in research on this one?

< : ~

What should we Atheists say when some-

one sneezes?

John Sikos

Michigan

Do you need

a tissue?

< : ~

Several months ago, you changed the

format of the magazine's listing of the editor

and the entire staff of the magazine.

Very good and very professional looking.

However, under the heading Members of

the Board, the name Richard C. O'Hair is

listed.

Who is this? Is this the same person who

died several years ago and was buried at

Arlington?

Or are you iisting the name to check to

see ifanyone troubles to read this part ofthe

magazine?

Otherwise, the magazine is better than

ever.

WilliamAxelrod

California

What a long memory you have

You

are

thinking of Richard

Franklin

Page 6

OHair, figurehead president of American

Atheists from 1965 to 1975. He did die on

March 13, 1978, and was later buried in

Arlington National Cemetery. As a side-

note, his was the first headstone

in

that

cemetery to have an Atheist symbol on it.

The legal battle to obtain that resulted

in

a

Veterans Administration regulation which

lists the American Atheist symbol as one

that is available for veterans buried in any

national cemetery anywhere. The U.S.

government pays the cost of the headstone

and the chiseling of the Atheist design.

The individual currently serving on the

Board of

Directors

of the Society of Separa-

tionists, lnc., is his son, Richard Craig

OHair. Many, many years ago there were

no persons brave enough to sign on as

Board of Director

members

of American

Atheists. The state of Maryland, in which

American Atheists is incorporated, required

five board members. As soon as someone

with a limited amount of bravery was found

and his name was published - panic fol-

lowed, as did a resignation. This was not so

with Richard Craig OHair, who is the step-

son of Madalyn

OHair. He

owned his own

business (and stilldoes) and hence was fear-

less. At a time when courage was needed

(about

1969),

he was there with his.

He

has

been an active board member since that

time. He is alive and well and lives in the

Phoenix, Arizona, area.

< : ~

A talk show hostess recently, when asked

ifshe were religious, replied, No, but I am

spiritual. I hear this double-talk often.

Alcoholics Anonymous tells us they are not

a religious organization but one that is spir-

itual. Ifone is spiritual, doesn't that mean

they believe some supernatural entity in-

vested in them a spirit? Doesn't it mean they

subscribe to some religious supernatural

spiritualism? Why the doublespeak?

Herb Ault

Florida

Very often individuals who

are reared in a

religious home or environment upon maturi-

ty realize that the formal religionwhich they

were taught is not fully compatible with real-

ity. They therefore reject that orthodox

theism.

But religion is very often like a tick - you

cannot get it out of your skin without some

effort.

Such persons may be able to divest them-

selves of the surface symptoms of religion

(genuflecting, saying the rosary, going to

church, praying), but not the mind-set. They

October 1986

Is this syllogism correct?

God could not cause causality.

Causality presupposes existence.

God could not cause existence.

Timothy Giesehen

South Dakota

Here

we

go

again with

an

illustration of

just exactly what is wrong with so-called

formal logic. If one accepts an a priori

statement premised on nothing but the flat

statement of it, and adds a minor premise,

or a major one, what can be deduced fits the

requirement of the formula for the formal

logical argument, and it is still garbage

in/garbage out.

You take a first premise of god could.

This supposes, a priori, that there is a god,

that he? has

or

has not certain attributes

and that with those attributes (or powers)

he has certain capabilities.

My gawd man Excuse the expression

Why

go

into these incredible and

asinine

projections to begin? Since your first state-

ment has a minimum of three false premises

in it, all is lost in the first line of the syllogism.

Atheists never put garbage

in.

In that way

they never need to worry about what comes

out. Have you tried Socratic dialectic argu-

mentation instead of the Aristotelian syllo-

gistic type? You should.

American Atheist


9/77

ABOUT CREATIONISM

W

hen the U.S. Supreme Court recon-

venes in October 1986, one of the

cases on its agenda willbe titled

Edwards v.

Aguillard, which concerns itself with the

question whether or not the biblical story of

the creation of the universe and humankind,

should have equal treatment with evolution

in the public schools of the nation.

Inorder to introduce the Judea-Christian

mythos, the presentation of it to the legisla-

ture of Louisiana (the source of the case)

and to the Supreme Court has been couched

in terms of science. The claim, currently,

is that creationism is supported by the prin-

ciples of science as well as

by

a group of

professional scientists in the nation. This

group relies on educational credentials and

upon the theorists' of evolution attempts to

clarify points for which solutions are stili

being sought. The latter is interpreted by

creationists to be signals of the failure of the

principal underlying the Darwinian theory

of evolution, and extensive negative analy-

sis is made of each.

Both the legal and the political outreach of

the creationists has become more sophis-

ticated and more intense with the passage of

time. The financial stability ofthe organized

groups of creationists now being assured,

their position as an institution in the culture

having been attained, the threat that they

pose becomes more and more awesome.

The case inLouisiana - currently before

the U.S. Supreme Court - has not been

seriously viewed as a t hreat. The law at issue

was identical to that which had been thor-

oughly discredited by a federal district court

inArkansas in 1982.There, an antievolution

lawhad been passed on March 19, 1981,and

immediately challenged by the American

CivilLiberties Union on May 27 of the same

year. The trial was had in December 1981,

and an opinion was issued on January 5,

1982, declaring that the antievolution law

was unconstitutional as an establishment of

religion. Later in 1982, the governor of

Arkansas seized upon creationism as a

campaign issue estimating that 75 percent

ofArkansas supports Creation Science. If

he had it to do all over again, he would sign

the Creation Science billagain.

A senator in Louisiana, also in 1981, after

simply making some minor modifications in

ithad introduced the same law inthe Louisi-

ana legislature. A challenge was also, imme-

diately, made to the Louisiana law. The legal

proceedings there, however, were some-

what more complicated since the challenge

was made in a state rather than a federal

court and media coverage attendant to it

was not as great as that given to the same

law in Arkansas.

When the case in Arkansas was lost by

Austin, Texas

the creationists, the monetary result was an

award to the American CivilLiberties Union

attorneys of $357,768 for legal fees. Since a

dispu.te had occurred over this amount, an

appeal having been taken to the Eighth Cir-

cuit Court of Appeals, the final award, one

year later on January 5,1983, (including 8.75

percent interest of$31,771) was $389,539.18.

In addition, it was estimated that the state of

Arkansas had perhaps spent as much as

$250,000 to defend the law. The Arkansas

antievolution law fiasco cost one milliondol-

lars in taxpayers' money.

Louisiana's law, as indicated, also had

been immediately challenged and that state

also had the problem of its defense. The

attorney general, inaddition to the expenses

incurred by his staff working on the case,

had spent $75,000 initiallybefore he went to

the legislature, in 1982,to ask for $100,000 in

addition in order to appeal an adverse deci-

sion to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of

Appeals. The Louisiana legislature, thinking

that it had a lost cause on its hands, refused

to appropriate the necessary funds. The

margin was close, just six votes short of the

necessary two-thirds needed, but nonethe-

less the Louisiana legislature did not have

confidence enough inthe constitutionality of

the law which it had passed to want to play

the game further as the case continued up

the appellate ladder. Funds were sought

from private, mostly religious, sources.

Later, the Fundamentalists went after

state money again as this case, already in

litigation for fiveyears, worked itsway to the

U.S. Supreme Court. InJuly 1985they were

able to convince the Louisiana House to kill

another billwhich would have forbidden the

state to again pay for an appeal, this time to

the U.S. Supreme Court.

No stretch of the imagination would have

warned anyone in the nation that the U.S.

Supreme Court would seriously consider a

review of a law which had been so expen-

sively repudiated in Arkansas. All of com-

mon sense would have suggested that Loui-

siana would have stopped its relentless

pursuit of affirmation of the antievolution

lawby an appellate court when the Arkansas

case was determined, withits attendant pub-

licity, against creationism in the public

schools.

This, however, was not to be. Early in

1986 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to a

full review of the case. Since that time, of

course, the makeup of the Court has

changed with Chief Justice Burger stepping

down, Rehnquist taking his place, and Scalia

being added. That the Court agreed to

review it is ominous enough.

Consequently, American Atheists felt it

important that you become aware ofwhat is

October 1986

happening and why. The evolution-creation

struggle, inits legal phase, isbefore the high-

est court of the nation. Behind it all is a

history of three important cases, two in

Arkansas and one in Tennessee, which have

already been decided in federal courts, in-

cluding one decided in the U.S. Supreme

Court in 1968, almost twenty years ago. All

three are analyzed in this issue of the Ameri-

can Atheist. An important historical review

is also given. Additional items include a

glimpse of the difficulty in Australia where

American Atheist member Dr. Ian Bock,

LaTrobe University, traded remarks with

one of the creationists in that nation. An

American Atheist Radio Series program

reviews what happened to a lone Atheist in

the 1928 evolution-creation fight in Arkan-

sas. It is the hope of American Atheists that

this extensive review of the evolution-

creation debate willprepare you for a devas-

tating attack on science in our times by the

U.S. Supreme Court's upholding the equal

access concept to introduce creation-

science into the public schools.

In the literature and media reports re-

viewed for the writing ofthis issue, the finest

summary statement was that of William J.

Bennetta, a scientific consultant, a profes-

sional editor, and a research associate of the

California Academy of Sciences. This co-

gent excerpt is from his Bold Aspirations

written in 1986:

The religious right isfundamentalism's

political arm .... It seeks objectives

that are depicted in fundamentalist

literature as being derived from, or

consonant with, biblical prescriptions

and prophecies. Statements of these

objectives vary considerably, but the

principal goals are constant and prom-

inent: a fundamentalist theocracy -

that is, a government operated accord-

ing to fundamentalist readings of the

Bible;an economy of capitalism, more

or less unrestrained; a foreign policy

based on nationalism and chauvinism

reinforced by militarism; a social

organization in which women would

be subordinate to men and would

focus their lives on reproduction; a

system of education that would dis-

courage analytical thinking in all

realms except the purely technical

ones; a system of science that would

serve only to support commerce and

to generate sophistic demonstrations

that facts of nature confirm biblical

narratives; and theocratic suppres-

sion ofcultural, intellectual, ethical, or

sexual departures from the prescrip-

tions of biblical authorities. ~.

Page 7


10/77

The origins and evolution of the creationist movement - or

. the when and where of the anti-science lobby.

type Methodist-Episcopalian religious camp-

meetings began to be held in Fair Port, New

York, on 200 acres of land which that

denomination owned. These were initiated

by (later Bishop) John H. Vincent and Lewis

Miller. The idea was that the acreage would

be an excellent place for Bible study and the

training ofSunday School teachers. The first

assembly was called in

1874.

Vincent held

the theory that all sound learning was sacred

and that secular lifeshould be pervaded by

religion. On this basis, he began soon, in

addition to Bible study and Sunday school

training, to offer many subjects at Fair Port.

Since this Methodist camp was located near

Chautauqua, the lectures came to be known

by that name. The Chautauqua idea of

enriching adults with religious-based lec-

tures spread throughout the United States,

with many cities establishing their own

Chautauqua programs. The lectures sup-

ported the fundamental rather than the

modern approach.

Dwight Lyman Moodv.? a boot and shoe

merchant, was finding the same problems

with Christianity in general. He was thor-

oughly upset by the higher criticism, the

social gospel movement, and the theory of

evolution. He quickly became an important

figure in the YMCA movement, holding a

position of power from

1861

to

1873.

By

1889,

he had opened his own Bible Institute

in Chicago to train workers in Bible study.

Moody, as others, was funded by business-

men who hoped that his work with young

men would lead them, through fundamental-

ist Christianity, to a lifeof employment char-

acterized by honesty, sobriety, industry,

and piety.

It would not be incorrect to state that

Protestant Christianity, as known today,

originated in the United States circa 1900. I t

was then that Fundamentalism was just

beginning to stabilize as a possible move-

ment. By

1904

a circuit chautauqua plan

had been devised with religious spokesmen

traveling with a standardized program of lec-

tures, music, and entertainment. One of

these was William Jennings Bryant, who

gave six hundred speeches in twenty-seven

states, the most famous of which was his

lecture on the The Prince of Peace.

Then in 1909, two California oil million-

C R E A TIO N ISM : H IG H JIN KS A N D H ISTO R Y

F

undamentalist is not just a pejorative

word one hurls at the know-nothings of

our day and age. It describes a mind-set

which is distinct. It is the proud appellation

of a specific group of persons who have

come together to group themselves under

certain historical, theological, and philosoph-

ical banners. The sad part of it is that they

are so dumb they do not even know whence

they derived, or why. This article is to

enlighten them on their own history and to

provide to Atheists an explanation of the

Fundamentalists' beginnings and harmful

history.

Actually, historically, for well over

1,500

years, there were only a handful of intellec-

tuals who dared, sub rosa, to have opinions

in respect to religion which did not fit the

standard patterns of Christianity in power

throughout the Western world. The intellec-

tual movement called the Enlightenment

gave birth to rationalism within the

church. This concept, or thought style,

owed much to the English deists, to the

German Pietistic movement, and to the

French esprits forts, all of which had made

subtle attacks on the supernatural origin of

the Scriptures. The argument that devel-

oped was between revealed and natural

religion - the Nature and Nature's God

concept of our own Declaration of Inde-

pendence, wherein the Bible was freely

attacked, as with Thomas Paine's Age of

Reason versus god's absolutes revealed in

the book he had written. In rationalism,

which was in the final analysis an attempt to

save the Christian religion, Jesus Christ was

viewed as a moral teacher, not as a god, and

the intellect-affronting and absurd miracles

of the New Testament were rationalized

as natural events, misinterpreted or exag-

gerated. The creation story in Genesis was

reduced to a poetic or symbolic account.

This religious rationalism (the earliest propo-

nent of which appears

to

have been J. S.

Semler') was held by German theologians

and Bible scholars roughly between 1740

and

1836.

Later, of course, the Tubingcn school was

founded by Ferdinand Bauer, professor of

theology. The work there, primarily an

attempt at reconstruction ofearly Christian

Johann Salomo Semler, 1725-1791, Univer-

sity of Halle biblical critic and the father of

German rationalism.

Page 8

history, continued from

1826

to

1860.

After the CivilWar, the apostasy began to

be felt in the United States. News of the

European critical study of the Bible by the

methods of historical and literary analysis

came to be known as higher criticism. It

was necessary, in America, to keep it out of

the reach of both laypersons and inquiring

scholastic minds. But, in 1859, Charles

Darwin published his Origin of Species by

Means of Natural Selection or The Preser-

vation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for

Life, and that event was to shatter religion.

In the U.S. churches themselves, conser-

vative opinions in respect to the Protestant

religion were almost uniformly held until the

middle ofthe nineteenth century. It was only

then that what came to be termed modern-

ism began to corrupt the ideological power

structure of Christianity. As this menace

(the secular humanism of those times)

grew,. organized opposition began in the

form of Bible Institutes and Bible Confer-

ences as the conservatives attempted to

cling to the old.

Five-Point Formula

A Bible conference was held at Swamps-

cott, Massachusetts, in

1876;

a prophetic

conference was held in New York City in

1877.

One such interdenominational pro-

phetic conference was assembled in Niag-

ara Falls, New York, in 1876, and held annu-

ally thenceforth. By 1895 this Niagara Bible

Conference, as it came to be known, framed

the famous five-point formula of creed which

it desired to see as a requisite for belief in

Protestant Christianity. This held to:

(1) the inerrancy and infallibilityof Scrip-

tures, i.e., the Bible;

(2 ) the complete deity of Jesus Christ;

(3) the virgin birth;

(4)the substitutionary atonement, i.e., the

atoning sacrifice and death of Jesus Christ

for the sins of the world;

(5) the (literal) physical resurrection of

Jesus and his bodily Second Coming return

to the earth.

The dissenters to modernism held that an

unqualified belief in these dogmas was

essential to declaring ofone's self as a Chris-

tian. A book,

Jesus Is Coming,

by an

unknown author, was printed in three mil-

lion copies, two million of which were dis-

tributed in the United States and one million

abroad.

Meanwhile, open-air, public-assembly-

October 1986

2Dwight Lyman Moody, 1837-1899, Ameri-

can evangelist.

American Atheist


11/77

aires, Lyman and Milton Stewart, financed

the Los Angeles Bible Institute, fashioned

after the Niagara Bible Institute. The two

also financed the publication and distribu-

tion of twelve volumes called The Funda-

mentals. These were edited by A. C. Dixon

and R. A. Torrey. Over three millioncopies

of these books had circulated by the time the

last one was published. The idea then was to

wrest control of denominational machinery

from the more liberal elements, or to set up

rival organizations. Jehovah's Witnesses

during this period were flooding the nation

withprophetic literature concerned with the

Second Coming. Almost five million copies

of that church's Divine Plan of The Ages

were distributed between 1890 and 1915,

and during the decade of the 1920s perhaps

as many were distributed of Millions Now

Living Will

Never Die. This was at a period

when the U.S. population was stillunder one

hundred million.

The term fundamentalism was first used

by Dr. C. L. Laws, editor of the Watchman-

Examiner,

a Baptist publication. He was one

of a group of Baptists who, in 1920, joined

the protests. Modernism was given the

term liberalism. This evil was seen as

spreading in certain of the Protestant de-

nominations and subverting the faith of the

fathers. The word soon came to be at-

tached to all those who held to the Niagara

Five-Point Formula of creed.

The controversies concerned with mod-

ernism and liberalism developed into two

bitterly opposed factions of Protestantism.

The term fundamentalism and the central

fivedogma ideas came to characterize those

who were, indeed, Fundamentalists. With

its new name, Fundamentalism grew primar-

ilyaround several basic disputes. One was,

of course, the continuing issue of higher

criticism received in the United States in a

very lightweight form. The other. was the

issue of evolution.

Following 1920, Fundamentalism spread

to bodies other than the Baptists and Meth-

odists from which it was first derived, most

notably the Presbyterians, later also to the

Lutherans, the Disciples of Christ, and the

Protestant Episcopal Church. Always the

doctrines held by the Fundamentalist fac-

tion caused rifts in the church.

Several new denominations had come

into existence in the United States, also.

They were so extravagant in their claims

that their doctrines could be classified as

belonging to the Fundamentalist class. They

were Joseph Smith's Church ofJesus Christ

of Latter-Day Saints (1830), Joseph Bates'

Seventh-Day Adventists (1860), Charles

Russell's Jehovah's Witnesses (1874), and

Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Scientists

(1879). Each of these had a long, hard begin-

ning history.

The members of the Fundamentalist fac-

tion, scattered throughout the geographi-

Austin, Texas

cally large United States, most often forced

to operate within their own church denomi-

nations, had many major concerns: Women

were being so bold as to attempt to attain

suffrage; cities in their growth were attract-

ingyoung men who needed to be spiritually

monitored; saloons were everywhere; criti-

cism of religion continued, even within the

church; evolution - no longer confined to

college-level study - was creeping into the

public schoo system. Their battles were to

defeat the Equal Rights Amendment; to set

up a system of protective boarding places in

cities through the Young Men's Christian

Association; to force the passage of anti-

saloon or Prohibition laws; and to seek legis-

lation to stop the teaching of evolution.

The Fundamentalists were wholly suc-

cessful with their prohibition fight. During

the period 1906 to 1917, twenty-six states

enacted prohibition laws at the urging of the

Anti-Saloon League. The Methodist church

was in the forefront of this effort to keep the

working man sober so that he could be more

efficiently used by the growing industries of

the nation. The League had tried to gain a

federal prohibition law in1846,again in 1869,

and again in 1893. The Eighteenth Amend-

ment was voted by the House in 1914 and

ratified in 1919. Titled Prohibition of Intoxi-

cating Liquors, it read:

Amendment 18

SECTION1.After one year from the

ratification ofthis article the manufac-

ture, sale, or transportation of intoxi-

cating liquors within, the importation

thereof into, or the exportation there-

offrom the United States and allterri-

tory subject to the jurisdiction thereof

for beverage purposes is hereby

prohibited.

SECTION2. The Congress and the

several States shall have concurrent

power to enforce this article by

appropriate legislation.

After the old demon rum and the saloon

scourge of the nation had been defeated,

there was another target: evolution.

A New Devil: Evolution

Evolution had always been a prime en-

emy. It had but slowly made its way across

the Atlantic. During the first two decades of

the twentieth century there were, in fact, but

two evolution texts available for use in public

schools.

Biology,

a ten-volume set by Caro-

line Stackpole, appearing in 1909, was only

for the general reader. A Civic Biology, by

George W. Hunter, was published in 1914by

the American Book Company as a high-

school text and it was far from thorough.

Biology for Beginners, by Truman J. Moon,

was published in 1921 by Henry Holt and

Company. Both texts were available to the

public school systems. This latter was by far

October 1986

Page 9


12/77

the best.

Immediately after World War I, a World

Bible Conference was called for Philadel-

phia. During this conference, the World

Christian Fundamentals Association was

formed. The Fundamentalists were adamant

that the Five Points of Fundamentalism

were indispensable elements of the true

Christian faith. This larger association,

however, could not hold itself together and

during the Depression simply ceased to

exist. The Fundamentalists then continued

to exist as dissenting and dissatisfied fac-

tions within each denominational body.

Most of the established churches had been

forced to reconcile their faith with science,

accepting evolution as compatible with the

god idea. Incumbered as the Fundamental-

ists were with a fight against their own spe-

cific liberalized denominations, they yet

saw the need to repudiate evolution, and

they managed to go to the attack. They

determined that the arena of the fight was

. going to be in the public schools, and it was

there that they struck.

Their chief spokesman was William Jen-

nings Bryan. During the entire decade of

the 1920s he stumped the country demand-

ing that antievolution laws be adopted to

protect the nation's public schools from evo-

lution, or any doctrine which would be in

conflict with the Genesis story. He had

model laws which he introduced to the legis-

latures. Often he asked, and gained permis-

sion, to address the legislative bodies him-

self. The speeches were of the revival genre.

He was one of the so-called silver-tongued

orators of the day, a speaker of consider-

able impact. Hitting the southern states, he

found defeat in Kentucky - but only by one

vote. It was then 1922, and the debate was

hot when Kentucky was chosen as the pos-

SIble state for the first antievolution law,

which read:

It shall be unlawfu in any school or

college or institution oi learning main-

tained in whole or in part, in this state,

by funds raised by taxation for

any

one to teach any theory of evolution

that derives man from the brute, or

any other form of life, or that elimi-

nates God as the creator of man by

direct creative act.

On March 9, the defeating vote was cast by a

member of the legislature who viewed anti-

evolution as an infringement on personal

liberty.

It was in 1922, also, that in Fort Sumner,

New Mexico, a superintendent of schools

lost his job for teaching evolution. No other

3William Jennings Bryan, 1860-1925, Ameri-

can lawyer and politician.

Page 10

than Woodrow Wilson attempted to come

to his rescue, writing a reply to a letter which

the superintendent had sent to him:

August 29, 1922.

May it not suffice for me to say, in

reply to your letter of August 25, that

of course like every man of intelli-

gence and education I do believe in

organic evolution. It surprises me that

at this date such questions should be

raised.

Sincerely yours,

Woodrow Wilson

The private letter did not help at all in the

battle which began to be waged.

In 1923 the Commission on State Affairs

of the Texas House of Representatives

reported unfavorably on a bill which would

prohibit the teaching of either evolution or

creation. In Florida, an antievolution mea-

sure did not pass. In Oklahoma, such a mea-

sure did.

In 1924, with Fundamentalist agitation to

exclude fifty textbooks that recognized evo-

lution, publishers were treating evolution

very cautiously or explicitly excluded it.

There was no discussion of the origin of man

at all in textbooks of the day. In some there

was cited in the preface a report by the

College Entrance Examination Board that a

thorough treatment of evolution might be

too difficult for high school students. The

governor of North Carolina felt constrained

to publicly announce that he was opposed to

the teaching of evolution.

Tennessee's

Contribution

Within just several years, Tennessee and

Mississippi passed Bryan's new pro-Gen-

esis, antievolution bill by almost unanimous

vote. Governor Peay, of Tennessee, wanted

to veto it, but frankly, was afraid to do so.

Instead, he stated that no prosecutions

under the law would take place.

The law was passed, nicknamed The

Monkey Law by the press, and captioned

as follows:

Public Act, Chapter 37, 1925. An

act prohibiting the teaching of the

evolution theory inall the universities,

normals, and all the public schools of

Tennessee which are supported in

whole or in part by the public school

funds of the State, and to prescribe

penalties for the violation thereof.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the

General Assembly of the State of

Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful

for any teacher in any of the universi-

ties, normal and all other public

schools in the State, which are sup-

ported inwhole or in part by the public

school funds of the State; to teach any

October 1986

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

animal.

SECTION 2. Be it further enacted,

That any teacher found guilty of the

violation of this act shall be guilty of a

misdemeanor and upon conviction

shall be fined not less than $100 and

no more than $500 for each offense.

SECTION 3. Be it further enacted,

That this act take effect from and after

its passage, the public welfare requir-

ing it.

Although now billed as a Fundamentalist

nut, William Jennings Bryan was one of the

most important men of the era. He began his

career as a lawyer, later becoming a state

circuit judge. When he moved to Nebraska,

he became the First Congressional District

Representative for that state in the U.S .

Congress from 1891 to 1895. In Congress he

was on the influential and important House

Ways and Means Committee. He was the

editor of the

Omaha World-Herald

news-

paper. As a candidate for the presidency of

the United States in 1886, with a 46.7 per-

centage of the popular vote (6,516,722), he

won 176 electorial votes against McKinley's

271. After that election he remained the

leader of the Democratic party for a score of

years. He was a colonel in the Spanish-

American War. In his second try for the

presidency in 1900, against McKinley again,

he received 45.5 percent of the popular vote

(6,358,160) and 155 electoral votes against

McKinley's 292. After that election he estab-

lished a weekly political journal, The Com-

moner. He was again nominated for the pres-

idency by the Democratic Party in 1908,

when he lost to Taft but still held 43.0 per-

cent of the popular vote (6,410,665) with 162

electoral votes against 321. He used his

influence to swing the 1912 nomination of

Woodrow Wilson as presidential nominee

for the Democratic Party, and his speeches

for that candidate were partially responsible

for Wilson's win. As a reward for that work,

Wilson appointed him to the position of

Secretary of State in 1913. Bryan was

instrumental in influencing the nation to-

ward what was then called progressive polit-

ica~positions. Without his work, his orator-

ical and editorial abilities, it is now thought

that those measures would not have come

to fruition. He fought for the popular elec-

tion of U.S. senators, a graduated income

tax, female suffrage, national prohibition,

and the creation of a Department of Labor in

the federal government.

In the 1920s, another organization was

coming to birth in our nation: the American

Civil Liberties Union. Struggling for finances,

hoping for media coverage, it issued a

statement that it would give $1,000 toward

American Atheist


13/77

legal fees for any person who would chal-

lenge the Tennessee antievolution law, the

first one passed in the nation. When no tak-

ers came forward, it contrived with two

members to have them swear out warrants

in May

1925

against John T. Scopes, a

science teacher in Rhea County High

School. He was using George W. Hunter's A

CivicBiology in his class as a textbook. Hunt-

er was the former science chairman of the

DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.

His text hardly could be said to have a thor-

ough explanation of evolution, but it was

enough to bring an indictment against

Scopes. It is difficult now to admit that the

famous trial had as its raison d'etre a bid for

publicity. The warrant for arrest was a

scheme to force a trial. Although it has never

been spelled out, it is apparent that Scopes

agreed to have the arrest warrant sworn

against him. Few historians or reporters

emphasize that what followed was a

criminal

trial of Scopes. He retained for his attorney

the former dean of the University ofTennes-

see Law School, Judge Randolph Neal. Wil-

liamJennings Bryan, since the law involved

was one which he had sponsored, volun-

teered to represent the World's Children's

Fundamental Association as chief religious

prosecutor. Clarence Darrow was in New

York when he heard of Bryan's decision. Of

it he says, in his The Story of My Liie:

At once I wanted to go. My object,

and my only object was to focus the

attention of the country on the pro-

gramme of Mr. Bryan and the other

fundamentalists in America. I knew

that education was in danger from the

source that has always hampered it-

religious fanaticism. Tome itwas per-

fectly clear that the proceedings bore

little semblance to a court case, but I

realized that there was no limit.to the

mischief that might be accomplished

unless the country was roused to the

evil at hand. So I volunteered to go.

The American Civil Liberties Union got

hat it wanted: publicity. Darrow, however,

hought that the media handled the case as

farce, instead ofa tragedy. The Baltimore

un newspaper dispatched H. L. Mcncken-

o cover the trial. Reporters came from

round the world, and itwas estimated that

bout 150 ofthem were inresidence to cover

he event. Later it was calculated that two

illionwords were dispatched, via Western

nion, bythe media inthe twelve days ofthe

rial. Eight telegraph operators were called

o the job. At least 175,000 words were

NewYork: Charles Scribner's Sons,

1934.

Henry Louis Mencken,

1880-1956,

Ameri-

an editor and misogynist.

ustin, Texas

tapped out a day in order to handle the load.

WGN radio of Chicago broadcast coverage

of the trial on the first national radio hookup.

William Jennings Bryan arrived accom-

panied by his son, William,who was then the

assistant district attorney for Los Angeles,

California. Darrow had hoped to have local

counsel, but every attorney in the town was

afraid to be associated with the case.

When the trial began on July

10, 1925,

Darrow found the judge sitting beneath a

monster sign, saying, 'Read your Bible

daily.' The judge, to begin the trial, read

from the Bible and asked a local minister to

invoke the Divine blessing with a prayer.

Darrow objected both to the sign and to the

trial being opened each morning with a

prayer, and he was - of course - overruled

by the judge. During the trial Bryan man-

aged to speak at allof the eleven churches in

town.

The judge refused to permit Darrow to

call any evolutionist as a witness in support

of the need to have evolution taught in the

public school. At that time it was generally

accepted in the scientific community that

evolution was the linchpin principle which

had transformed biology from a science of

description and enumeration into a science

of analysis and explication. Without such

testimony, Scopes had no chance. In fact, he

would have had no chance with such wit-

nesses. Darrow did the only thing he could

do. He called upon Bryan to consent to be a

witness. On July 20, he agreed. Darrow's

legendary destruction of Bryan's fundamen-

talism has its basis infact. Darrow shattered

the man and his ideas before the world.

The judge, of course, found Scopes as

guilty as sin and fined him $100. The Balti-

more Sun newspaper paid the fine.The case

went on to appeal. Bryan died in Dayton,

just several days after the trial finished (July

27).

Darrow went on to continuing national

fame. And the ACLU received the publicity

needed to give the infant organization a

start.

ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFIC

At

its summer

1982

meeting, the

board of directors of the Astronomical

Society of the Pacific unanimously

passed a resolution concerning crea-

tionism. Again, it is a compelling in-

dictment of science organizations of

the nation that a small astronomical

society was the only

one

having

mem-

bers with sufficient courage to speak

out, although not in a timely manner,

against creationism. Media coverage

of the statement was minimal. It was a

small, lonely, and late offering to the

nation. Although hard-hitting, the pro-

posed

reason for its

announcement

obscured its actual

message.

The statement was made to in-

crease public understanding of astron-

omy.

Resolution Passed By

The Astronomical Society

Of The Pacific

As scientists and educators, we are con-

cerned that a religious doctrine called

scientific creationism or creation sci-

ence is being advanced as a scientific

alternative to the evolution of the physical

and biological world.

Among its many dubious tenets, crea-

tionism proposes that the age of the uni-

verse is only a few thousand years, an idea

that flatlycontradicts both the physical evi-

dence that has been accumulating for cen-

turies and its logical interpretation. An

examination of that evidence clearly indi-

cates ages for the Earth, the solar system,

October

1986

and the Milky Way Galaxy that are vastly

older than a few thousand years.

The radioactive dating of materials from

the Earth, the Moon, and meteorites shows

the age ofthe solar system to be at least 4.6

billion years. The abundances of heavier

elements and the evolution of the great

globular clusters of stars show that our

Galaxy is substantially older. Moreover,

these methods of age determination (while

they are major ones) do not stand alone;

there are many other independent strands

of evidence that point to similar conclu-

sions. In fact, the vast sizes of astronomical

systems virtually demand that we think in

terms of millions to billions of years. The

light from distant galaxies, for instance,

requires more than a billion years just to

reach the earth.

The evidence further indicates that evolu-

tionary change is not merely a biological

process,. but one that characterizes the

entire physical universe. It is clear that

large-scale and long-term changes in the

cosmos as a whole had to occur to produce

the stars, the heavier elements, and ulti-

mately the planetary system in which we

live before biological evolution on Earth

could even begin. To deny this process of

cosmic evolution is to deny centuries of

scientific evidence and thought and to turn

back to a world viewbased insuperstitution

and ignorance.

Creationism is not a science, but rather

an expression of the religious beliefs of a

small minority. As such, it has no place in

museums, science classes, or science

textbooks.

Page 11


14/77

Science's Loss

Although the publicity battle was won, the

war was lost. Scopes was found to be guilty,

and this made a marked impression on the

school textbook industry of the .day. The

year following,Hunter rewrote his textbook

to delete allmention of evolution. The word

did not even appear in the glossary. It was a

symbolic beginning. After 1926,Moon's pub·

lishers began to emasculate the treatment of

evolution inhis book, Biology for Beginners.

Antievolutionist laws began to find accep-

tance, the next being passed in 1926inMis-

sissippi. Arkansas followedin 1928.The men

of science in the nation were not about to be

embroiled in the issue. It continued to be

fought out only on the legal and political

front.

A quote from the Scientific American

magazine of August 1929, which illustrates

well the timid, albeit knowledgeable, posi-

tion of the scientists, reflects well that they

knew what was occurring.

Many have sincerely been misled

into the belief that there is a broad

cleavage between scientists who ac-

cept evolution and those who do not.

To them our reader may find it advan-

tageous to show the following state-

ment quoted in part: The Council of

the American Association for the

Advancement ofScience has affirmed

that so far as the scientific evidences

of the evolution [of] plants and ani-

ma s and man are concerned there is

no ground whatever for the assertion

that these evidences constitute a

'mere' guess. No scientific generaliza-

tion is more strongly supported by

thoroughly tested evidences than is

that oforganic evolution. The Council

of the Association is convinced that

any legislation attempting to limit the

teaching of any scientific doctrine so

well established and so widely ac-

cepted by specialists as is the doctrine

of evolution would be a profound mis-

take, which could not failto injure and

retard the advancement of knowledge

and of human welfare by denying the

freedom of teaching and inquiry that is

essential to all progress.

The statement, of course, was ignored.

In the 1930s the Fundmer:talists had

already begun to approach teachers, text-

book publishers, libraries, and local com-

munities with their concerns about and

attacks upon evolution. By 1933the schools

of the nation were using evolution-free biol-

ogy books, placating the Fundamentalists.

The 1933 edition of Moon's Biology for

Beginners did not mention the word evolu-

tion. Even the index did not list it.

In the 1940s there was some mention of

Page 12

evolution in the texts, but one-third ofAmer-

ican teachers feared being identified with

evolution as the content in biology books

decreased. In the 1950s there was again a

slight de-emphasis in the texts, probably

because of McCarthyism. At this time, the

general statement could be made that the

schools focused on drill teams, band, and

football instead of scholastic achievement.

Communism And Evolution

Everything changed in October 1957

when the Soviet Union launched

Sputnik,

the first artificial earth satellite. There was an

immediate outcry for greater emphasis on

the teaching of science in the public high

schools. Later biologists were to state that it

was only then that they became aware of

how disastrously school administrators and

textbook publishers had sabotaged biology.

In response to it, the National Science

Foundation funded several programs to

modernize the teaching of science in the

nation's schools. The Biological Sciences

Curriculum Study (BSCS), a nonprofit

organization, was hurriedly put together and

was among those receiving grants for cur-

riculum study and textbook revision. Work-

ing with scientists and teachers, the BSCS

developed a series of fivehigh school biology

texts-which, although emphasizing different

aspects of biology, incorporated the theory

of evolution and natural selection as major

themes. The Texas State Board of Educa-

tion, naturally, asked fora special edition for

that state that would mitigate these frighten-

ing ideas. The Biological Sciences Curricu-

lum Study refused to compromise. The fat

was in the fire, and ironically it was the

U.S.S.R.'s space program which saved the

science programs in American schools.

Three of the BSCS texts which were devel-

oped received acceptance by biology teach-

ers, generally.

The Fundamentalists leapt to the chal-

lenge. Henry Morris published his Genesis

Flood in 1960and invented the term scien-

tificcreationism, which by the middle 1960s

had gained currency in the nation. He was

primarily responsible for the organized crea-

tion science movement. In doing so, he

found enough allies from the Missouri Synod

of the Lutheran church to make up a third of

the original steering committee for an organ-

ization which he founded.

Rather than attacking evolution, the Fun-

damentalists now took a different tact. The

grand strategy which they developed was to

make the biblical account of creation appear

to be rational and meritorious. They asked

for equal time in the apparent hope that

the school systems would refuse to teach

evolution rather than to introduce the Bible

as a text into the schools. From antievolu-

tion laws the move was toward laws that

would forbid teaching of evolutionary biol-

October 1986

ogy unless equal treatment was given to

scientific creationism. Such laws were

immediately introduced into legislative bod-

ies again, and the first such was enacted in

Tennessee in 1967, and in Arkansas and

Mississippi in 1968.

Once again there was a decline in cover-

age ofevolution, one publisher from 1968 to

1977cutting inhalf the amount ofthe text on

the subject; words were more cautious and

indefinite.

The 1970s decade was disastrous. Efforts

to gain positive access for creationism were

soon made. These efforts at first were coor-

dinated by the Creation-Science Research

Center (EI Cajon, California), the Institute

for Creation Research (San Diego, Califor-

nia), and members of the Creation Research

Society. In 1963 the Creation Research

Society was formed from a schism in the

American Scientific Affiliation.It is an organ-

ization of literal Fundamentalists who have

the equivalent of a master's degree in some

recognized area of science. A purpose ofthe

organization is to reach all people with the

vital message of the scientific and historic

truth about creation. Similarlythe Creation

Science Research Center was formed in

1970 from a split in the Creation Research

Society. Itsaim has been to reach the sixty-

three million children of the United States

with the scientific teaching of Biblical crea-

tionism. The Creation Science Research

Center, CSRC, was founded on the campus

of fundamentalist Christian Heritage Col-

lege (itself having been founded by Tim La

Haye). Opposition was weak, poorly organ-

ized, and consisted mostly of individuals

attempting counterefforts where and as they

could. There was no coordination, no com-

munication. The media - inexcusably -

did not cover the continuing issue, even on

local levels. The single, but small, sane effort

to hinder the progress of the Fundamental-

ists was that of the National Association of

Biology Teachers (NABT), Wayne A.

Moyer, executive director, with a member-

ship of high school and junior-college teach-

ers. Yet, this organization made a serious

tactical mistake by refusing to dignify the

position of the creationists by challenging

them. College administrators and the Amer-

ican Association of University Professors, in

effect, because they declined to dirty their

hands in the fight, turned the students of the

nation over to the nuts everywhere. The far

from adequate excuse ofthe AAUP was that

it needed to shy away from the issue for fear

of infringing on academic freedom. Mean-

while, the creationists felt no qualms about

forcing biology teachers to use Genesis fora

text. Actually, the unwritten policy of the

traitorous AAUP was one of total aloof-

ness. In that way, they could assure that

their jobs were safe even if the minds of the

youth of the country were despoiled in the

process.

American Atheist


15/77

The California Board of Education was

prevailed upon by the creationists to include

in its science framework for the public

schools language to the effect that evolution

was one of several theories, another of

which - necessary to explain the origin of

life - was creation in scientific terms. I t

also agreed that the philosophy of origins

should be discussed in social-science texts.

The creationists, riding high, thought the

concessions were inadequate.

The New York State Education Board

was also approached with a request that

evolution be considered one of several the-

ories and that creation instruction be

included in the new science syllabus in prep-

aration for the public schools. The State

Education Department sought the opinion

of individual scientists and the New York

Academy of Science on the matter.

There was violence over the issue inWest

Virginia.

I n

1970,Hal Lindsay wrote his totally irra-

tional

The Late Great Planet Earth,

which

within four years would go into thirty-seven

printings of 3,750,000 copies. The book was

generally concerned with Biblical prophe-

cies involving this generation.

Henry H. Morris' book, The Remarkable

Birth of Planet Earth, was published in 1972

by the Creation Research Society. The the-

sis of the book was:

I t is only in the Bible that we can

possibly obtain any information about

the methods of creation, the order of

creation, the duration of creation, or

any of the other details of creation.

Morris claimed that the Bible was not only

inspired, but factual. I n all of the infighting it

isnecessary to keep inmind those Five Fun-

damental Facts to which the Fundamental-

ists subscribe. As a scientific document,

coming from an infalliblesource, not open to

either inquiry or interpretation, the Bible is

Documents

American Atheist Magazine Oct 1986