300 Theories of Evolution and Creation 



do not seek to undermine your faith; but we will teach what 

 our eyes have seen, whether it undermines your faith or not." 



It ill becomes scientists who have for centuries suffered 

 through the opposition and hostility of dogmatism to set up 

 any of their own conceptions and interpretations as orthodox 

 dogmas of science — evolution, for example, as a dogma. By 

 the same token, however, they must be on their guard against 

 subordinating research and analysis to a dogma imposed 

 from without — for example, the dogma that acceptabil- 

 ity to one or another church is the ultimate test of a scien- 

 tific idea. 



It has indeed been pointed out that, with the recent 

 attacks upon the teaching of evolution in .tax-supported 

 schools, many scientists have been stampeded by the attempts 

 of certain obscurantists to identify with the evolutionary 

 doctrine all the failings and shortcomings in contemporary 

 civilization. It is a mistake to charge against the evolution- 

 ist the possible misuse to which other people might put his 

 facts and theories. If a Machiavelli applies chemistry to 

 blow up the peasants of other princes, if a Borgia applies 

 chemistry to the poisoning of an unpleasant neighbor, if a 

 bootlegger applies chemistry to the making of bad sub- 

 stitutes for whiskey, the pursuit of chemistry is not thereby 

 made wicked or the findings of chemistry made thereby false 

 science. The scientist should know in his own heart whether 

 his study of evolution has led to his own spiritual undoing. 

 He should be doubly cautious before subscribing to the doc- 

 trine that civilization is threatened because scientific teach- 

 ing — and specifically, if you will, the teaching of organic 

 evolution — makes young people too critical regarding es- 

 tablished beliefs. 



