SCIENCE CHALLENGED

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12198, 24 July 1925, Page 5

SCIENCE CHALLENGED

“DISRESPECT OF THE BIBLE” WHERE DOES CONGRESS STAND ? TEST ACTION COMMENCED By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright, lteuter’s Telegram. (Received July 23, 5.5 p.m. WASHINGTON. July 22. The Treasury officials have been ordered by a local court to show cause why the salaries of school officers here should not be withheld, because of their teaching of scientific doctrines which are alleged to reflect on. the Bible. The suit was brought by Lauren Wittner, a taxpayer, under the provisions of the District of Columbia Appropriation Bill, stipulating that no salary shall be paid to any superintendent who permits, or any teacher who teaches disrespect of the Bible. Wittner asserts that the teachings of approved text-books, taken literally, conflict with the text of the Scriptures. SEQUEL TO SCOPES TRIAL A test suit to restrain the authorities from teaching evolution and other sciences in puhlio schools in the Dis-

tricfc of Columbia has Keen filed by Lauren Wittner. a Government clerk. _ The suit involves all the unheard evidence in the Scopes trial: The petitioner contends that biology denies the Biblical story of the origin of man. and teaches the disintegration of organic bodies after death, whereas the Bible says that all will rise on the Jndgment Day. It also refutes the Biblical statement that man is a perfect physical image of God. Petitioner allages, further that chemistry teaches that one elemental matter cannot be changed inso another, whereas the Bible savs Christ made wine from water, and that God made man from the dust of the earth, ana turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. ■That physics teaches that the rainbow is the natural reflection of lightrays on the water in the clouds, whereas the Bihle states. that God made the rainbow as a promise to Noah that ro flood would again kill all life. ASTRONOMISTS WRONG? 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 ris the centre of the universe, that the earth was created four days before the sun, and that the sun. the mpon, and the stars travel round the earth. 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.

Wittner, who brings the suit as a taxpayer of the District, said: “I am on the side of science. I have filed the suit to determine what Congress really meant by the restrictive clause.”