Reflections on the Debate: Science and Religion in the 1920s
George W. Hunter. The New Civic Biology. New York: American Book Company, 1926.
In the 1920s, the Scopes Trial became the flashpoint of the anti-evolution crusade. It was backed by a fundamentalist movement that had organized in the early 20th century, rising on a current of conservative religious fervor and a rejection of contemporary secularism. In the 1950s and 60s, due to Cold War scientific competition, evolution found a more secure place nationally in high school science curricula, where it had been limited by earlier legislation. The Butler Act in Tennessee remained good law until it was repealed in 1967. In the following year, prohibitions on teaching evolution were judged unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Epperson v. Arkansas 393 U.S. 97 (1968) as a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Other more recent cases have dealt with questions concerning the teaching of religious doctrines in public schools.
The items in this section highlight the debate over evolution in the 1920s and the forces that contended to preserve and prohibit the teaching of evolution in schools.
George W. Hunter. The New Civic Biology, Presented in Problems. New York: American Book Company, 1926.
The textbook at the center of the Scopes Trial was Hunter’s Civic Biology (1914) . Hunter described evolution in some detail and depicted an evolutionary tree of species. Sensitive to the verdict in the Scopes case, and hoping to continue to sell his book, Hunter republished the work as New Civic Biology (1926), in which he downplayed evolution, removing much of the earlier material. “Evolution” was even removed from the index. Yet he retained a discussion of Darwin’s life and work, and humans were recognized as the highest order of primates, distinguished by their moral faculty.
Maynard Shipley. The War on Modern Science: A Short History of the Fundamentalist Attacks on Evolution and Modernism. New York: Knopf, 1927.
Shipley, a president of the Science League of America, chronicled the efforts of fundamentalist pastors and politicians to advance anti-evolutionist state laws in the 1920s, providing a state-by-state account. In places like North Carolina, the governor’s office prohibited textbooks discussing evolution through school boards, after the legislature failed to pass a law banning it from classrooms. In other states, such as Virginia and New York, Shipley noted the small chances of successful legislation. Three states prohibited the teaching of evolution and others passed resolutions condemning it during the period.
Stewart G. Cole. The History of Fundamentalism. New York: Richard Smith, 1931.
Cole studied the development of Christian fundamentalism from the early 20th century through the 1920s, at a peak of its popularity. A break-away movement within Protestantism, fundamentalists felt that progressive theology, tainted by a modernizing world, had forsaken original Christian principles. It aimed to restore the purity of the church and took up conservative positions on subjects including salvation and daily ethics. The Bible was the centerpoint of the remedies fundamentalists prescribed, with textual accuracy and literal truth championed by many. A well-researched account, Cole’s book described the organizations, issues, and figures that guided the movement.
Edward A. White. Science and Religion in American Thought: The Impact of Naturalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1952.
Written several decades later, White’s book reviewed prominent scientific thinkers and philosophers who wrestled with the relationship between science and religion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. White discussed views ranging from those who saw religion as a superstitious obstacle to modern progress and scientific social improvement, to those who felt religion and science could occupy separate spheres or ultimately confirmed the same truths about the universe. Some scientists recognized that religion was a part of enduring human instincts and values but believed that science had to fight for its status, which they saw as aligned with free thought.