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Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over Creation and Evolution

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Larson's book is excellent. It focuses only on the legal history of 20th Century Creationism. The book was quite objective and thorough and it is hard to discerne the author's position on the matter, although one suspects he may not be sympathetic to the Creationist cause since he is familiar with their sometimes devious and irrational strategies for manipulating public opinion, the courts and state legislatures to "overrule" the scientific community in the matter of evolution. He succeeds in amply illustrating his main thesis, namely that the response of the courts to Creationism has been profoundly influenced by public opinion. Well written and recently revised to bring it up to date.

Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution by Edward J. Larson is the definitive history of the ongoing American argument of the place of religion and science in the public schools. The author does a superb job in giving the reader the history of biology texts from the 19th century into the 20th century. The book traces the history of legislation and court cases in the ongoing controversy of the place of evolution and creation science in American education. I read this book after I read Larson's later work, Summer Of The Gods. In this earlier work Edward J. Larson is even handed and objective. He presents the facts and history of each court case in understandable terms. This book shows how both sides are really the same, fundementalists, unwilling, really, to listen to what the other side has to say. Anyone interested in this aspect of American history can do no better than to consult Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution by Edward J. Larson.

This is an issue that will not go away, despite the hopes of both sides in this fight. In light of the pending Dover, PA court case it is a good idea to keep any of Larson's books handy.

In the Twentieth Century United States, the long war of Christianity to quell reason achieved a new intensity. There, the casualities weren't a reticent Copernicus or a timorous Galileo, but uncountable thousands of innocent schoolchildren. In that nation, supposedly founded on the separation of religion and the secular, the battleground shifted. Instead of the contestants clashing in academic debating rooms, the confrontations occured in lawcourts. Larson offers the first comprehensive survey of Christian forays into public education in the United States, and the legal disputes that ensued. He does it with a sense of detachment not easily attained in dealing with this topic.

Larson outlines the background to American forms of Christianity [which have few counterparts elsewhere], before homing in on the 1925 landmark trial in Dayton, Tennessee. Although "fundamentalism" may have germinated early in the 19th Century, it was the post WWI years that brought fruition and gave it voice, according to Larson. The voice came to be centred in the three-time Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. Although a "reformer" with many causes, it is his role as an anti-Darwinist that captured enduring attention. A "Biblical literalist", Bryan found all social values stemming from "the Bible". As a fundamentalist champion, once he overcame an initial reluctance, he endorsed state legistlation banning Darwin from the classroom.

The famous "Scopes trial" set in motion a sequence of enactments in various States, not all Southron ones, to prevent Darwin's Idea from polluting young minds. Many of these laws were sketchily enforced, but their very existence led to a wave of self-censorship among text-book publishers. It isn't necessary to ban what isn't there, as Larson makes clear. Two generations of children passed through school without learning how life works.

An unexpected trigger led to a fresh wave of challenges to the vacuities of science teaching in the United States. Larson cites the Soviet Union's launching of a silvery sphere in orbit around the planet as prompting a new outlook. Cries of betrayal led to sharp looks at how science was considered in American schools. Among the topics, of course, evolution was given fresh attention. With many States banning or eroding the topic, a fresh wave of court cases resulted. However, State control of education was a given - how then to proceed against restricted curricula?

It was also a given that religion and government remain apart. Challenges to the new legislation focused on The Establishment clause of the constitution which prohibited laws favouring religion. Since evolution was forbidden, what to teach inevitably meant reverting to biblical texts. Various laws were successfully overturned as promoting religion in public schools. Larson takes us carefully through the various cases, particularly the 1981 Arkansas "McLean" decision. For the first time, expert witnesses were allowed to cinch the case for evolution. This decision, and a succeeding one in Louisiana, seemed to some to have finished the disputations. Enter the ICR and a new Christian wave eroding Darwin's insight.

Larson describes Henry Morris' Institution for Creation Research as a prime mover in launching the new challenges to reason. Although Morris was a key figure, Larson, keeping with his legalist theme, brings lawyer Phillip Johnson's "Darwin On Trial" to front stage. Johnson's books, which have been described as Christian "legal briefs", express a dichotomy: life is either spiritual or material. He opts for spiritual, condemning evolution as "athiestic" and lacking morals. Johnson is joined by Michael Behe's "intelligent design" movement that is now struggling for recognition. Aspects of life, Behe argues, is too complex to have emerged without a "guiding hand". Larson depicts this without judgmental asides, leaving the reader to form their own conclusions.

This book is the result of painstaking research, ably presenting a wealth of complex issues. Legal disputes rarely permit frivolous narrative, but Larson's book offers clarity and succinctness. A text that might have been horribly ponderous, given the legalist basis, proves a delight to read. He's to be congratulated for taking up this theme and how well he describes events and the people involved. The book will remain a fundamental resource for any future studies and should be read by a wide audience. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Edward J. Larson (author of the excellent history of the Scopes "Monkey Trial," Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion) is a professor of history.

He states in the Introduction to this 1985 book, "This study analyzes the (creation/evolution) legal controversy both as a central manifestation of the popular response to evolutionary thought in America and as an episode in the use of law to redress the relationship of science and society."

He notes, "public opinion surveys during the period consistently found at least as many Americans believing in creation as in evolution. Most of these surveys were amateur local polls conducted by creationists to boost their cause, but a 1979 survey by the Gallup polling organization confirmed their results by finding that '[h]alf of the adults in the U.S. believe God created Adam and Eve to start the human race.'"

He concludes on the note, "Both sides then agreed on the importance of science education to any ultimate resolution of the legal controversy over creation and evolution. That is precisely why they had fought so hard over the content of public biology teaching. But this point simply underscored the dilemma: a lasting legal victory on the issue of evolutionary teaching awaited a verdict of popular opinion on evolution while that verdict was itself at least partially dependent on the content of public instruction."

Mr. Larson's book covers the history of the conflict between creationism and evolution from its beginning in 1860 up to the year 2000. The author has an academic, somewhat dry, writing style, but it didn't cause me to develop MEGO (My Eyes Glazed Over) Syndrome. He shows how evolution's threat to creationists' beliefs fired up evangelicals into an all-out war against "Godless" science. The bible thumpers focused not on verifiable proof (because they had none) to support the Book of Genesis and instead appealed to popular opinion in dictating what science material should be permitted in schools. Mr. Larson is to be commended for laying out each side's arguments and not lampooning them. This is quite a feat considering the preztel-like logic used by the hardcore religious to defend creation science and its ugly stepsister, Intelligent Design. Biblical literalism is the bedrock of Protestant fundamentalist churches and even an ark full of rock-solid proof will not convince them to accept evolution. Their loss. This is a wonderful overview of how the argument has evolved since Darwin's brilliant "Origin of Species" was published in 1859.