Creation versus evolution
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
eation Science versus Evolution
The conflict of teaching evolution and creationism in public schools has raged in this country for more than 75 years. The courts first faced this issue in what is called the Scopes trial. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was put on trial in 1925 for violating the Butler Act. The Butler Act forbade the teaching of any theory that denied the story of Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible. The case received a lot of national media attention. Although Scopes was found guilty, it helped to bring the evolution/creation conflict to the forefront.
In the 1950's, the National Science Foundation was instrumental in emphasizing the theory of evolution in high school textbooks. In the 1960's, there was a perception that the Soviet Union had gained the upper hand in science so thus evolution gained prominence in American schools. The 1960's was also the decade in which the court system began to take God totally out of the public school system with the elimination of prayer.
In 1981, Arkansas State Law #590 was passes which mandated the teaching of Creation Science in schools...