Reasonable design against Darwin

Monkey Process in US History

90 years ago, March 15, 1925, the General Assembly of Tennessee adopted a law prohibiting the teaching of Darwin's theory in public schools. The violator of the law was threatened with a fine of $ 500.

The further public is known to the general public mainly from Stanley Kramer's film “Hold the Storm” (1960), which shows the patriarchal customs of the southern hinterland, and the incomparable Spencer Tracy created a convincing image of a fighter with obscurantism. The “monkey process” entered into public consciousness as a shameful judgment on a fearless teacher who continued to persist in heresy, despite the threats of “churchmen”.

In fact, everything happened a little differently.

Darwin’s book “The Origin of Species” was published in 1859 and met in America a cold and unfriendly technique. The materialistic theory of the origin of life inspired believers with a deliberate rejection, although most of them did not pick up the works of a British scientist.

The Monkey Process was an attempt to legalize the theory of evolution.

Immediately, after the entry into force of the Law of Tennessee, the American Union of Civil Freedoms proposed its protection to anyone who violates it. In the provincial town of Deuton, there were entrepreneurs who liked the idea to arrange a loud trial that could attract the attention of the whole country and contribute to the revival of local business. It was a candidate for the role of a victim. Such a person was soon found. 24-year-old John Skops worked at a local school as a school football team coach, and, if necessary, replaced mathematics and biology teachers.

The arrest was played out as notes. SKOPS entered the classroom, opened a textbook on which Tenleshah schoolchildren studied for 20 years, and read aloud an excerpt from the chapter about evolution. The city prosecutor Sue Hicks immediately appeared in the classroom and arrested the teacher. There were no angry obscurantists. Skops and Hicks were friends.

This scene in the film Stanley Kramer, which is based on the play of the same name by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. In the role of Bertram Kates - Dick York.

The national press initially reacted to the message about the arrest of the teacher ironically. However, when the most famous journalist in America became interested in the matter, Henry Luis Menken from the Baltimore San newspaper, critics fell silent and also rushed to Deuton. The Baltimore San offered Skops to pay a fine for him in the event of the indictment of the verdict, with which the accused willingly agreed.

Entrepreneurs who started the process proposed leading a team of defenders to the famous English fantasy writer Herbert Wells, but he rejected the proposal, referring to the lack of legal qualifications. Nevertheless, in the process, the best speakers of America took part on both sides. The interests of the prosecution were represented by William Jennings Brian, a large politician of a national scale, a participant in four presidential campaigns, a Secretary of State in the office of Woodlon Wilson and a convinced opponent of Darwinism. He was also the lawyer of Skops Clarence Darrow, whom many historians certify as the best American lawyer of the 20th century.

Both perfectly understood that they were involved in the show.

Stanley Kramer made the prosecutor and lawyer childhood friends. In the picture, their name is Henry Dramond and Matthew Brady. Their roles are played by Spencer Tracy and Fredrick March. In this passage, you can hear the echoes of the current Russian trials about the insult of the feelings of believers.

The process opened on July 10, 1925. In the hall, equipped with the latest information technology then, 600 people were packed. It was even more fun on the nearby streets: here there was a festivities with the participation of living monkeys and missionaries who turned the Gentiles in full swing. At the proposal of Darrow, the jury was chosen by lot. All of them were white men, the majority were poorly educated farmers, and only one did not go regularly to church.

The defense invited scientists as witnesses, but Judge John Rolston did not allow seditious speeches. Then Darrow changed the tactics and called Brian to the testimonial department. The interrogation was that Darrow asked Brian tricky questions that were supposed to demonstrate the failure of the Holy Scriptures. "Are there a day during which God created heaven, earth and all living things on earth, out of 24 hours?" - asked Darrow, luring Brian into a logical trap. Brian replied that nothing was said about this in the Bible and it was not his mind to build assumptions on this subject.

After two hours, the judge interrupted these bickering. Darrow refused the final speech, thereby depriving this right and Brian. SKOPS was found guilty and sentenced to pay a minimum fine of $ 100. Darrow appealed to the Supreme Court of the state, which, due to procedural violations, canceled the sentence.

The law prohibiting Darwin remained valid until 1967. This means that, for example, a native of the state former vice president of Al mountains with this theory, if familiar, is not from the school biology course. Attempts to prohibit the corruption of innocent children's souls by the God -dierce theory (the founder himself, incidentally, found that his theory does not contradict the Bible) in the United States did not stop for a day. During this time, the holy throne was reconciled with Darwin. But American supporters of the biblical version were holy than the pope.

They, however, constantly retreated. With general liberalization of society, school programs ceased to impose a categorical ban on Darwin's doctrine. They left the question at the discretion of the school councils of the counties, while the very theory of evolution was defined in them as "a person’s attempt to find a logical explanation" of the origin of the earth and life on it. It was allowed to teach it only as one of the hypotheses. In exams, her knowledge was not required from students.

Due to the features of American federalism, the district school councils enjoy complete independence in this matter. The position regarding Darwin is adjusted almost after each election, when the ratio of darwinists and creationists changes as part of the school council.

The problem is not as funny as it may seem. As in any secular civil society, in the USA the church is separated from the state. But an increasing number of Americans come to the conclusion about the need to return to moral principles on which the country was created, and it was created, first of all, by Puritans, whose piety irritated the liberals so much that they turned their name into a synonym for hypocrisy. In the wake of movement for the revival of moral values, new obscurantism is gaining strength. Connecting the era of liberalism under threat. Against such a background, a discussion around the theory of evolution no longer looks like an anachronism, misunderstanding or an absurd incident.

The US Supreme Court did not stand aside from the dispute. In 1968, he recognized Arkansas's state to be unconstitutional, which prohibited teaching the theory of evolution in municipal schools. In 1987, the country's highest court was canceled by the Louisian state law, which obliged the teacher to accompany the presentation of the theory of evolution by the mention of creationist theory.

Now not the Darwinists, but creationists have to move from an attack to defense and fight for survival in full accordance with the theory they hated.

Over the decades of this struggle, the creationist theory has been modified. Now it is called the concept of "intelligent design". The beginning of a wide public discussion on this topic was laid by a book for schoolchildren in 1989 "On Panda and People" of the zoologist of Persival Davis and biologist Dean Cenon. Panda got into the headline thanks to the structure of her front paws: for a long time it was believed that she had a thumb, which made a wrong conclusion about her place on the evolutionary ladder; In fact, this is not a finger, but a deformed sesamoid bone. The authors gathered under one cover all the “failures” of evolutionary theory known to them, indicated all the missing links, which were repeatedly indicated before them.

Nevertheless, the book made a splash in America. Many seemed attractive to the lack of purely religious, theological argument. The book "On Panda and People" was a deafening success, it was reprinted. In the biblical belt (that is, in the south and Middle West, where Protestant fundamentalism prevails), people collected signatures under petitions, demanding that the book be allowed to school libraries, and then collected money for its purchase.

The new faith needs the apostles. At the "reasonable designers" they became William Dembsky - the young, bright and contradictory star of unraitionism, the doctor of mathematics and the master of Theosophy. He grew up in the family of a-Darvinist biologist, but at the same time received Catholic education and education. He says that he was not religious and turned to the Bible and literature of creationism in the "difficult period" of his life. Being a specialist in the field of statistics, Dembsky proves that the variety of types of living creatures simply does not correspond to the theory of probability, if we allow random, chaotic development, and not a “reasonable plan”.

William Dembsk and his followers made abduction with their method of cognition. The most common example from the article to the article was the granite rock of the Mount Rashmore in South Dakota, on which the sculptor Gatson Dorglum carved in 1927-1941 in the bas-reliefs of the four presidents-Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

The abduction method is based on previous experience. We associate the winding lines in the coastal sand with sea waves, because we observed many times how they appear. In the same way, the protrusions and recesses on the surface of the Rashmore Mountain inevitably define as portraits of presidents. It never occurred to us that these images are the result of natural erosion under the influence of rains, wind and temperature changes. The bas -reliefs, without a doubt, had a creator. But there are complex, controversial cases. For example, primitive stone tools are scrapers, as well as traces on stone left by these scrapers. Both may be the result of the effects of natural causes. The scientist, who uses the method of abduction, is said by non -shoculationists, is akin to a police detective who, investigating the fact of a person’s death, should not exclude either natural or violent causes.

The lawsuit of Darwinists with creationists is with varying success. We must pay tribute to the American justice: in the USA, no one has thought of summoning the priest as a witness, as it was in St. Petersburg in 2006 at the hearing in the lawsuit of the 15-year-old schoolgirl Maria Shreiber, whose Christian feelings seemed to insult the theory of Darwin (the court then ended in favor of Darwin, but since then a lot of water flowed). In fact: well, what can the father testify to? After all, not the creation of the world, he is a witness!

Well, if you argue with Darwin, then the way Prince Vyazemsky did in due time:

Orange-Uang is our Adam?

Are we going from monkeys?

Such a question is not solved by us:

Scientific minds will decide.

In science, ignoramus and profan,

I’ll ask: no more than truth in that

Which is not at all from monkeys,

Are we going to the monkeys?