Thursday, March 12, 2020

Scopes Trial essays

Scopes Trial essays In 1859, Charles Darwin published his book the Origin of Species, which would forever change the way people thought about the creation of man. In his book, Darwin made two main points. First, he claimed that man evolved into his current physical state over a time period of millions of years. Secondly, he discussed a method for how this evolution worked. For this he gave the term natural selection. Darwin asserted that natural selection was a process through which organisms adapted over time to the climate in which they were situated. The individuals with the stronger traits thus had more surviving offspring. Through this filter of evolution, the strongest individuals survived. So, Darwins evolution worked in that each generation of beings became progressively stronger, and so this continuous process is the source of the evolution of species. As we all know though, the idea of creationism had been written in the Bible long before Darwin had ever been born. Thus creationism was the known and accepted method for the creation of man for several hundreds of years. Shortly after Darwins Origin of Species was published, it seemed as if creationism and evolution could peacefully coexist as alternate theories regarding the creation of man. It was not until after World War I that evolution saw its first opponents. After the war many people believed that German aggression during the war reflected the same survival of the fittest mentality discussed in Darwins Origin of Species. As a result of American Christian Fundamentalist complaints, in the 1920s, 37 anti-evolution bills were passed. The Legislatures of 20 states had now incorporated laws attempting to ban the teaching of Darwins evolution in public schools. Crusades to eliminate Darwinism from American public education began as early as 1917 and were quite successful in the South, where Fundamentalists controlled the b...