Evolution in the United States Education System Essay -- Essays Papers

Evolution in the United States Education System In July of 1925, a Tennessee high school teacher named John Scopes sat in a court room facing a violation of state law by teaching evolution, the idea that human beings and monkeys share a similar ancestry. This was no ordinary trial, this was the â€Å"trial of the century†; it featured heavy media attention, it was a battle between two of the best attorneys in the nation, and it raised many questions about evolution and creation, the theory that human beings were put on Earth by God. Today, these questions still are not answered, with cases and debates still popping up 78 years after the famous â€Å"monkey trial,† with the same issues at hand: creation versus evolution (Futuyma 6). The evolution theory goes back to the times of the Greeks, who believed that humans went through a form of evolution. Later on in the 18th and 19th centuries, many scientists and philosophers from Europe wrote theories pertaining to evolution. Finally, in 1859 On the Origins of Species, a book on observations by Englishman Charles Darwin, was published explaining his theory, that in the long run, the fittest of all species survive, passing on different characteristics to help the next generation survive. This theory changed the aspects of biology and sparked much controversy in society. Beginning in the 1870s in the United States, about ten years after Darwin released his controversial book, Southern Christians began to fight the idea of evolution, while in the North, much was not made of the topic. It was almost completely ignored. In the early 1900s, teaching of evolution had become pretty normal in an American elementary, middle, or high school, although sometimes with some controversy. In the... ...d J. (1998). Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. Boston: Harvard University Press. Levenson, J.C. (2004). The age of Darwin. Raritan, 23 (3). 115-149. Linder, Douglas. (2002). Tennessee vs. John Scopes Monkey Trial. Retrieved April 19, 2004, from http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm Morgan, Jeffrey P. (2003) Reading race into the Scopes trial. Journal of American History, 90 (3). 891. Robinson, B.A. Teaching of Evolution of U.S. schools. Retrieved: March 30, 2004, from http://religioustolerance.org/ev_school.htm Shultz, Lynne H. Summary of Evolution in Public Schools. Retrieved: April 19, 2004, from http://infidels.org/activist/state/evolution.shtml Scopes, John T. & Presley, James. (1967). Center of the Storm. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston Books