California considers creation v. evolution

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 19

California considers creation v. evolution

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BOB ROSE,

of the "Chicago Daily News," through N.Z.P.A.)

SACRAMENTO (California). Fifty years ago Biblethumping William Jennings Bryan convinced a Tennessee jury that a biology teacher, John T. Scopes, broke both state and God’s laws by teaching evolution.

Tennessee became the laughing stock outside the Bible belt Now it may be California’s turn in a modem version of the creation vs. evolution Scopes trial. The revived controversy has released a flood of oratory equal to that of Mr Bryan and his opponent, Mr Clarence Darrow.

This time the decision lies not with a jury but with the nine-member State Board of Education. On December 14 it is to rule whether the Bible version of creation must be given equal time with Charles Darwin’s theory in science text-books. In California, the board has the final say on all books used in all the state’s schools —about 10 per cent of the text-books published in the nation—so the determination will mean millions, plus the influence it may have on other states, and on the students. One proposed text, for example, tells about the "special design of the ant, the beetles, the bees, the spiders’’ and adds: “You can see that all of these things could not have come about by chance . . . These are only some of the evidences that show us that the designer or creator planned for everything to fit together—to balance.” The scientific community

is upset over the possibility of such non-scientific language getting back into school texts. But the procreation forces have some important allies, including some members of the board. One said flatly that “no text-book should be considered for adoption that has not clearly discussed at least the two major contrasting theories for origins . .

The statement prompted the National Academy of Sciences to adopt a resolution condemning the “equal time” idea on the grounds that “religion and science are separate and mutually exclusive realms of thought.” It said that science excludes "supernatural causes as a concept.” But the pro-creation side was able to turn out an impressive array of scientists at a packed board hearing on the subject. The science faction in turn put on its share of theologians. “It is conceivable that California will be remembered more for a repetition than the space achievements of the ‘monkey trial’ error and Nobel prizes of its scientific community,” said the Rev. James Church, assistant superintendent of Sacramento’s Roman Catholic schools.

“Religion is out of place in a science book. It appears to be searching for God with a microscope or a telescope. Science is the study of the works of God as they are. This is without commercials and none are needed. No-one has to say ’This rainbow is brought to you by Almighty God’.” A Riverside Baptist minister, Mr Walter Stowe disagreed. He said: “I do resent to the depths of my soul the biased, one-sided, atheistic evolutionary presentations being

thrust on our children without even a hint that there are at least some qualified scientists who do believe exactly what the Christian child has been taught to believe in his Church and home.”

Mr Stowe urged the board “to take immediate steps to stop the ridiculing of the creationist point of view” and see there is a balanced presentation in the schools. A Stanford biochemist, Mr David Hogness, contended that the arguments against evolutionary principles should be “placed in the same arena as those advanced by the Flat Earth Society — and who among you would advocate that we teach the flat earth theory in our schools today.” But a Berkeley physiologyanotomy researcher, Mr Ronald Remmel, tossing in some quantum mechanics formulas (such as the wave function for an isolated hydrogen atom) to prove his point, leaving the board somewhat glassy-eyed, said that God might actually be involved in random genetic combinations, for example, the basis of mutations and natural selection.

He said that it was possible a divine being let the world run more or less randomly but intervened from time to time — or — that God for his own purposes made things look like they were random when scientists observed them, but that they were really not A University of California zoologist, Mr Herman Spieth, argued that almost without exception modem biologists regard evolution in its entirety as the most plausible explanation for “the origin of different kinds of plants and animals.” Over thousands of millions of years, he said, interaction between populations or organisms and environment has been solely responsible for all development, from the simplest bacterial cell “to the intricately beautiful orchid, the complex instincts of the honey bee, and the capacity for learning, thinking and foresight which is the unique and supreme ability of mankind.” '

But Professor Ariel Roth of Loma Linda University said he saw nothing wrong in teaching creation because the idea was connected with religion. “We do not exclude from science the principle of buoyancy even though it had its origin as Archimedes was taking a bath and can thus be associated with plumbing,” Professor Roth, who teaches biology, said. The Very Rev. Julian Bartlett, dean of the Episcopal Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, made it clear putting religion in science textbooks “incredible, appallhe thought the idea of ing and preposterous.” He said that the “creation myth-story” set forth in the book of Genesis was for many centuries “considered by Christians and Jews alike as the reliable account, quite literally,” of the origin of life.

But he said that science "dismantled” the Genesis story by investigation and thus “rendered Biblical religion an inestimable service” by making it clear it was a religious and theological document, “not a scientific treatise.” Rabbi Amie! Wohl, of Sacramento, agreed that it was “a theological statement.”

“Our Jewish faith has never been weakened or threatened by the new knowledge,” he said. “The majesty and mystery remains. The truth of Adam and Eve stories, or any other Biblical tales, does not rise or fall on their scientific demonstrability, but rather on their moral and symbolic teaching.” Mrs Nell Seagraves, prime mover behind the creation movement—which she said is also under way in Illinois, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oreton and Virginia—insists that “Christian children are losing their faith because of an increasingly unrelenting flood

of anti-Biblical teaching in the public schools disguised as historical fact and scientific truth.”

She hopes to get the books changed, to get God back in science, and thus "completely revolutionise education.”

She is also behind a batch of new texts to teach creation theory, which could mean SNZ4.2 million in sales to California alone.

Professor Thomas Jukes, of Berkeley, one of the world’s leading geneticists, criticised a plan to remove a biography of the famed Dr Louis Leakey, who discovered evidence of the origins of man in fossils in Africa, from the California editions of a fourth-grade text. The revision instead would show Michaelangelo’s painting of the creation. “This is art, not science,” Dr Jukes complained. “Also the suggestion of a white

creator giving life to a white man first is ethnically dubious.” The Rev. Hogen Fujimoto, director of education for the Buddhist churches of America, said the “one cause” concept of creation was offensive to Buddhists. He also noted that when Sakyamuni Buddha was questioned about creation he maintained a noble silence.” “Buddha then proceeded to reply by the parable of the poison arrow,” said Mr Fujimoto. “Suppose you were hit by a poison arrow, your immediate question would be to get that poison out of your system and not to be inquiring as to what angle was it shot, who manufactured it, to what tribe did it belong. “Before you can arrive at an answer, your life will come to an end.”