Creationism

After the Scopes trial, the creationism movement declined quite dramatically and quickly. This was not due to Americans losing interest in the science-religion relationship, for now was the time of the foundation of such organizations as the American Scientific Affiliation, which tried seriously to seek a meeting ground between science and various forms of evangelical Christianity. But as is shown well by the trials of this particular organization—forever torn by the quarrels over geology and evolution—full-blooded Creationism no longer captured universal support among biblical Christians. Yet Creationism had its lasting effects, in that textbook manufacturers increasingly took evolution—Darwinism especially—out of their books, so that schoolchildren got less and less exposure to the ideas anyway. Whatever battles the evolutionists may have thought they had won in the court of popular opinion, in the trenches of the classroom they were losing the war badly.

Things started to move again in the late 1950s. A major factor was that, in the years since the Scopes trial, evolutionary thinking had not stood still. Indeed, the three decades from 1930 to 1960 were times of great ferment and development, for Mendelian genetics (and after this, molecular genetics) had reached such a point that it could be synthesized with Darwinian selection to make a fully integrated evolutionary theory, known variously as "neo-Darwinism" or the "synthetic theory of evolution." Naturally enough, evolutionists were excited and vocal about their advances, and particularly contemptuous of all who did not follow them down to the last detail. At celebrations in 1959 in Chicago to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, fundamentalist objectors to the new paradigm were objects of particular scorn. This set a general background of un-ease and determination by biblical literalists, adding to a causal mix that had already started to ferment a year or two earlier when a more specific yeast had been added. It was then that, thanks to Sputnik, the Russians so effectively demonstrated their superiority in rocketry (with its implications for the arms race of the cold war), and America realized how ineffective was the scientific training of its young. In response, the country poured money into the production of new science texts. In this way, with class adoption, the federal government could have a strong impact and yet get around the problem that education tends to be under the tight control of individual states. The new biology texts gave full scope to evolution—to Darwinism—and with this the creationism controversy again flared up.

Fortunately for the literalist, help was at hand. A biblical scholar, John C. Whitcomb Jr., and a hydraulic engineer, Henry M. Morris, together wrote what was to be the new Bible of the movement, Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications (1961). Following in the tradition of earlier writers, especially those from Seventh Day Adventism, they argued that every bit of the biblical story of creation given in the early chapters of Genesis is supported fully by the best of modern science. Six days of twenty-four hours, organisms arriving miraculously, humans last, and sometime thereafter a massive worldwide flood that wiped most organisms off the face of the earth—or rather, dumped their carcasses in the mud as the waters receded. At the same time, Whitcomb and Morris argued that the case for evolution fails dismally. The gaps in the fossil record show that there can have been no evolution; the nature of natural selection is such that it allows no genuine check and even if it did, it could not account for the complexity of life; the measures of earth time are dicey; and much, much more.

Genesis Flood enjoyed massive popularity among the faithful, and led to a thriving creation science movement, where Morris particularly and his coworkers and believers—notably Duane T. Gish, author of Evolution: The Fossils Say No!—pushed the literalist line. Particularly effective was their challenging of evolutionists to debate, where they would employ every rhetorical trick in the book, reducing the scientists to fury and impotence with their bold statements about the supposed nature of the universe. By the end of the 1970s, creationists were passing around draft bills, intended for state legislatures, that would allow—insist on—the teaching of creationism in state-supported public schools. In the biology classes of such schools, that is. By this time it was realized that, thanks to Supreme Court rulings on the First Amendment to the Constitution (which prohibits the establishment of state religion), it was not possible to exclude the teaching of evolution from such schools. The trick was to get creationism—something that prima facie rides straight through the separation of church and state—into such schools. The idea of creation science is to do this—although the science parallels Genesis, as a matter of scientific fact, it stands alone as good science. Hence, these draft bills proposed what was called "balanced treatment." If one was to teach the "evolution model," then one had also to teach the "creation science model." Sauce for the evolutionist goose is also sauce for the creationist gander. In 1981, these drafts found a taker in Arkansas, where such a bill was passed and signed into law—as it happens, by a legislature and governor that thought little of what they were doing until the consequences were drawn to their attention.

At once the American Civil Liberties Union sprang into action, bringing suit on grounds of the law's unconstitutionality. The judge agreed, ruling firmly that creation science is not science, it is religion, and as such has no place in public classrooms. And that was an end to matters, reinforced by a similar decision (that did not go to trial but that was appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court) in Louisiana.