Page Ten 



EVOLUTION 



July, 1928 



The Present War Against Evolution 



iPurt uj a radio talk given over KFRC. San Francisco, on Maich 29) 

 By Mayinaru Shipley 



OliNCE they have met defeat in a num- 

 *^ ber of State legislatures the ene- 

 mies of science have determined '"to carry 

 the question of evolution to the plain 

 people." In other words, since they can 

 not get educated men and women to ap- 

 prove their activities, they are going to 

 appeal directly to the mass of the elec- 

 torate, which, engrossed in other duties, 

 has had little opportunity to judge ques. 

 tions of science. Their first experiment of 

 this kind is being carried on in Arkansas. 



Here Representative A. L. Rotenberry, 

 backed by a Fundamentalist evangelist 

 named Ben Bogarl. has prepared a very 

 stringent measure, which if passed, will 

 even cripple the medical schools of the 

 State and make it difficult to teach geo- 

 logy and biology even in the State Uni- 

 versity. This bill is being presented to 

 the voters of Arkansas to be voted upon at 

 the November election. 



New Attacks Planned 



If the fundamentalists succeed in Ar- 

 kansas they will approach every one of 

 the twenty States which have the initia- 

 tive and referendum system in the same 

 manner. Specifically named as the next 

 points of attack are North Dakota. Colo- 

 rado and Montana. 



But this does not mean that the funda- 

 mentalist anti-evolutionists are now going 

 to confine their attention to initiative 

 measures. Far from it! They have elo- 

 quent, if not learned, speakers at the 

 present moment spreading misconceptions 

 of scientific findings and ridicule "f 

 science in Kansas and Oklahoma, which 

 they announce will be the first states to 

 face anti-evolution legislation in 1929. Not 

 one of these states — Colorado, Montana, 

 North Dakota. Kansas and Oklahoma — is 

 in the South, where the agitation against 

 the teaching of evolution began. The anti- 

 scientists are spreading their net also 

 over the north and west. Indeed, last year 

 anti-evolution bills were introduced in two 

 New England States — Maine and New 

 Hampshire — to say nothing of the bill 

 which we managed to defeat in California. 



While Bryan was alive only one or two 

 such bills were introduced in any one 

 year, and only in the south. Now, three 

 years after his death, under the leadership 

 of such men as Straton and Riley, anti- 

 evolution measures are introduced in the 

 north and west, and in 1927 thirteen of 

 them! They are the entering wedge, and 

 we shall see strange sights in 1929. 

 More Fundamentalist Tricks 



Meanwhile, the genera! non-legislative 

 war on the teaching of evolutionary sci- 

 ence goes merrily on. Tennessee and Mis- 

 sissippi have state laws forbidding the 

 teaching of evolution. In Texas the State 

 Text Book Commission simply deleted 

 from authorized text-books those passages 

 which taught or even implied evolution, 

 and nationally known school book pub- 

 lishers are now getting out so-called "Tex- 



as editions". This system has been ex. 

 tended to Louisiana and Florida by con- 

 sent of public school officials who are 

 "more interested in the next election than 

 in the next generation." 



In Florida, at this very moment a self- 

 appointed committee of Fundamentalist 

 Baptist deacons headed by a Fundamental- 

 ist Presbyterian elder is engaged in what 

 they call "purging" the libraries of the 

 .State University and the State College 

 for Women of books of which they do not 

 approve. The chief objection as voiced by 

 Elder Tatum is that they contain evolu- 

 tionary teachings. 



Moreover not a week passes that I do 

 not receive a letter from some teacher 

 complaining that he or she has been dis- 

 missed for teaching evolution and even, 

 in many cases, for believing in it. One 

 was from a history teacher in the en- 

 lightened state of Michigan, who was re- 

 peatedly asked specifically if he accepted 

 the theory of evolution! 



And yet there is not a living biologist 

 or geologist of standing today who is 

 not an evolutionist. As the late President 

 Woodrow Wilson put it, when questioned 

 during the Scopes trial: "I, like every 

 other man of education and culture, nat- 

 urally accept the theory of evolution." 



The Basic Issue 



The conflict is between two opposing 

 cultures, two irreconcilable views of the 

 world and of life. It can not end in a 

 "peace without victory", but must continue 

 until one prevails. There is the method 

 of science, and there is the method of 

 tradition, and every serious-minded man 

 and woman must choose between them. 



The method of science is that of ob- 

 servation of facts, of testing, weighing, 

 measuring, comparing, analyzing, syntiie- 

 sizing. The method of tradition is that 

 of hearsay, of handed down ideas, of so 

 called revelation from an alleged super- 

 natural source. That is the method of 

 the darkest era of man's history, when 

 men trembled at thunderstorms and earth- 

 quakes; when there was a witch or a 

 demon in every accident, and the only 

 way to avert an epidemic or the evil in- 

 fluence of a comet in the skies was to burn 

 candles or chant hymns or to burn the 

 witch or torture the wizard to death. 



That, it chould be plain even to the 

 most prejudiced, is not the way of the 

 twentieth century. Today when an epi- 

 demic occurs we study its causes and 

 cures, we work to prevent its repetition. 

 In a thousand laboratories patient toilers 

 are at work saying "why did this happen 

 and how can we make certain that it will 

 not happen again?" That is the way the 

 Panama Canal was built — by sanitation, 

 the destruction of the mosquitoes that 

 caused the fatal malaria which had made 

 engineering impossible. In the sixth or 

 seventh century the malaria would have 



Courtesy of Stephen C. Preston 

 A NEW STYLE IN ROOSTERS 



Here's photo of a Plymouth Rock Roo& 

 ter with a pair of horns atop his head. 

 He's on exhibition at a gasoline filling 

 station in Oregon City, Oregon. Seems 

 hale and hearty, and gleefully grows » 

 new horn when one of them breaks off 

 in the wire netting of his cage. 



It will be interesting to note whether 

 this rooster becomes the ancestor of a 

 new race of Horned Chickens. At any 

 rate, he should be of interest to scientist? 

 investigating the knotty problems connect- 

 ed with the sudden emergence of entirely 

 new characteristics. 



been approached by exorcism and prayer; 

 and the Canal could not have been built. 

 The monumental work that has removed 

 the menace of yellow fever and bubonic 

 plague from America; that increases the 

 output of our fields a hundred fold; that 

 lights our houses by electricity and pro- 

 vides the vei7 radio over which the ob- 

 scurantist mouths his ancient errors and 

 the aeroplane by which he flies to spread 

 his old mythologies; — all this is due to 

 the patient investigation, the laborious 

 toil, the strict logical reasoning of the 

 modern scientists. And among these scien- 

 tists you wiO not find one who has any 

 standing among his fellows who does not 

 accept evolution as a matter of course. 



To paraphrase the striking words of 

 Professor W. D. Mathew, of the Univer- 

 sity of California, evolution is no more a 

 theory to the man who has studied present 

 day science than the city of San Francisco 

 is a theory to the man who lives in it. 

 It is an established and inconrovertible 

 fact. 



Let Knowledge Judge 



Some portions of some of our narrower 

 religious sects desire to cast this fact 

 aside and substitute for it the guesses and 

 imaginings of people who lived long before 

 the present era of enlightenment. In- 

 capable of understanding the discoveries 

 of science, they have set themselves up as 

 arbiters of what they can not compre- 

 hend, and as better judges of delicate 

 questions of science tl an the men and 



