SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE

Evening Star, Issue 19001, 24 July 1925, Page 6

SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE

ANOTHER TEST CASE AMERICAN CONTROVERSY Frees-Association— By Telegraph-Copyright. WASHINGTON, July 22. . A test suit to restrain the authorities from teaching evolution and other sciences in the public schools in the 'district of Columbia has been filed by iMr Lauren Wittner, a Government j clerk. The suit involves all the unheard evidence in the Scopes trial, and seeks to prevent the payment of the teachers’ salaries under a clause or the Appropriation Bill passed by the Concress, stating that no part of the funds should be used to teach disrespect for , the Bible. . . The petition contends that biologj denies the Biblical story of the ougm of man, and teaches the disintegration of organic bodies after death, whereas the Bible savs that all will rise on the Judgment Day. It also refutes the Biblical statement that man is the perfect physical imago of God. It alleges that chemistry teaches that one elemental matter cannot bo changed into another, whereas the Bible says tMt Christ made wine from water, God liiad© man from the dust of the earth and turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. It alleges that physics teaches that the rainbow is a natural reflection of light rays on the water in the clouds, whereas the Bible states that God made the rainbow as a promise to Noah that no flood would again kill all life. It alleges that astronomy shows that the sun Is the centre of the solar system around which the earth revolves, whereas the Bible states that the earth is the centre of the universe, that the earth was created in four days before the sun, and that the sun, moon, and stars travel around the earth. It alleges that philology shows that language and speech are the gradual outgrowth of thought, whereas the Bible teaches that the earth had one language until God confounded man’s speech in the Tower of Babel. Mr Wittner has brought the suit as A taxpayer of the district. He said: “ I am on the sido of science. I have filed the suit to determine what Congress really meant by the restrictive clause.”—A. and N.Z. Cable.