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Scopes II - The Great Debate

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Louisiana state senator Bill Keith wrote in 1981 "a bill that mandated balance treatment for creation-science wherever evolution-science is taught to public school children. He was a journalist for 23 years prior to entering the Senate."

The 1982 McLean v. Arkansas U.S. District Court decision---which was dubbed "Scopes II" by the press---was a real media event, and included testimony from most of the "stars" (e.g., Steven Jay Gould, Henry Morris) on both sides of the creation/evolution controversy. Judge William Overton ruled that creation science is religion and is simply not science. The 1987 Supreme Court decision in the Edwards v. Aguillard case overturned laws in Arkansas and Louisiana requiring "equal time" or "balanced treatment" of both creation and evolution.

Keith wrote in the Prologue to this 1982 book, "The question today in Louisiana---and throughout America---is: Should the scientific evidences for creation be given equal time with those evidences for evolution?"

Here are some quotations from the book:

"He then read a letter he had received from Dr. Colin Patterson (author of Evolution (Comstock Book)), a paleontologist with the British Museum of Natural History... (who wrote) 'I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them... Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it... You say that I should at least "show a photo of the fossil from which each type organism was derived." I will lay it on the line---there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.'" (Pg. 14-15)
"However, as (Darwin) lay dying, he embraced the concept of creation... Although Darwin recanted his view of natural selection and evolution from lower forms, thousands of scientists have appropriated his works in their search for the understanding of origins." (Pg. 47)
"Dr. W. Scott Morrow, the science professor-evolutionist-agnostic, supported the motion by creationists... Why would an evolutionist and agnostic be in favor of equal time for creation-science in the public schools? Because he is honest enough to admit there are valid scientific evidences which support creation and he is not threatened or intimidated by those evidences as most evolutionists are." (Pg. 119-120)
"The scientific discoveries by (Chandra Wickramasinghe) and (Fred) Hoyle (e.g., in Evolution from Space: A Theory of Cosmic Creationism) have not been published in standard scientific journals because the editors of those journals generally won't publish anything that questions the Darwinian ideas on the origin and development of life." (Pg. 138)