A major museum retrospective on Darwin in New York City and several recent court decisions have ensured that evolution and creation are still under hot debate in the United States. Faith & Reason guest, scientist and believer Sir John Houghton has no trouble making peace between his faith and evolution:

I began to read about evolution and realized...biological evolution was just the way things seemed to have happened at least to some degree. And I thought, "Well, if God makes it that way, that's fine."... He's really made things make themselves."

All materials should be studied with an open mind, studied critically, etcetera. I'm all for that. What's wrong is to single out evolution as though that is any more open to doubt than anything else...Among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know. And that, of course, as you know, is accepted by responsible educated churchmen, as well as scientists.

Read more about the history of the American Darwin battle and then join the discussion.

			CHARLES DARWIN'S DAY Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was published in THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES in 1859. Although Darwin carefully avoided discussion of the evolution of humans in the book, beyond the famous sentence "Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history," readers and critics were quick to acknowledge that the theory had great implications for ideas of human development. Within a decade there were sixteen editions of ORIGIN in England and America and translations into six European languages. Simplified and popularized views of Darwin's theories were both lauded and parodied — as can be seen in the contemporary cartoon to the left which shows Darwin as half-man and half-ape. Victorians could sing a "Darwinian Theory" piano duet and purchase a Wedgewood bowl illustrating the "tree of life." A widely-covered event helped Darwin's theories gain popular acceptance in England. The British Association in Oxford held a debate between evolution foe Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and evolution supporter scientist T. H. Huxley on June 30, 1860. Although he started the debate as underdog, newspaper accounts of the day named Huxley as the winner. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: EVOLUTION on PBS Charles Darwin on Victorian Web BBC Education Web Site: Darwin - the Man and His Legacy THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, plus and illustrated guide

			THE MONKEY TRIAL Popularly known as "The Monkey Trial," the battle between two of America's most famous orators, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, was actually Tennessee v. John Scopes. In 1925 Dayton, Tennessee teacher John Scopes agreed to be a test case against a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the public schools. The case became a national phenomenon — pitting the religious former Presidential candidate Bryan against the American Civil Liberties Union and America's most famous lawyer Darrow. Covered in the press by H.L. Mencken and carried live on a Chicago radio station, the trail riveted the nation. The jury convicted Scopes for breaking the state law, but Darrow's stinging cross-examination of Bryan as a Biblical expert made him the winner in the popular mind. The crusade against evolution in the schools became dormant for several decades. Read more about court challenges of the 1960s and 1980s from EVOLUTION on PBS. Tennessee v. John Scopes, 1925, University of Michigan Law School Great Trials AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: The Monkey Trial

			21ST CENTURY SCHOOLYARD BATTLES new MATERIAL Many observers of the battle view a December 2005 court ruling as a blow to the intelligent design forces. The case concerned a school board policy in Dover, Pennsylvania where the school district mandated that a theory called "intelligent design" be taught along with evolution in public schools. Intelligent design, the counterpart to evolution presented by the creationist movement, maintains that because of its complexity, life on Earth was created by an intelligent being, not by the evolutionary forces of change over time. Federal Judge John Jones ruled that evolution must be taught in science classes, and that intelligent design had no place in those same classes. His ruling stated "We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board's real purpose, which was to promote religion." And, another federal judge in Georgia ruled against a policy of the Cobb Country school district which required that a sticker be placed on science books reading "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." In his ruling Judge Clarence Cooper wrote: "Due to the manner in which the sticker refers to evolution as a theory, the sticker also has the effect of undermining evolution education to the benefit of those Cobb County citizens who would prefer that students maintain their religious beliefs regarding the origin of life." But the battles in the school yard show little sign of abating. In Grantsburg, Wisconsin, school officials revised the science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urge that the decision be reversed. Members of Grantsburg's school board believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum "should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory," said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district. The controversy is reaching beyond school systems. Recently several scientific organizations and the superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park requested that a book presenting a creationist view of the formation of the canyon be removed from the scientific section of the park book store. ONLINE NEWSHOUR on the Dover Decision BBC on the US school battle over evolution Additional sources: THE NEW YORK TIMES; OXFORD DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN HISTORY; "Darwin in Caricature," Janet Browne, Wellcome Center for the History of Medicine, American Philosophical Society, 2001.