Stephen Jay Gould Nonoverlapping magisteria Natural History, March 1997 Science and religion are not in conflict, for their teachings occupy distinctly different domains. Incongruous places often inspire anomalous stories. In early 1984, I spent several nights at the Vatican housed in a hotel built for itinerant priests. While pondering over such puzzling issues as the intended function of the bidets in each bathroom, and hungering for something other than plum jam on my breakfast rolls (why did the basket only contain hundreds of identical plum packets and not a one of, say, strawberry?), I encountered yet another among the innumerable issues of contrasting cultures that can make life so interesting. Our crowd (present in Rome for a meeting on nuclear winter sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) shared the hotel with a group of French and Italian Jesuit priests who were also professional scientists. At lunch, the priests called me over to their table to pose a problem that had been troubling them. What, they wanted to know, was going on in America with all this talk about “scientific creationism”? One asked me: “Is evolution really in some kind of trouble. and if so, what could such trouble be? I have always been taught that no doctrinal conflict exists between evolution and Catholic faith, and the evidence for evolution seems both entirely satisfactory and utterly overwhelming. Have I missed something?” A lively pastiche of French, Italian, and English conversation then ensued for half an hour or so, but the priests all seemed reassured by my general answer: Evolution has encountered no intellectual trouble; no new arguments have been offered. Creationism is a homegrown phenomenon of American sociocultural history— a splinter movement (unfortunately rather more of a beam these days) of Protestant fundamentalists who believe that every word of the Bible must be literally true, whatever such a claim might mean. We all left satisfied, but I certainly felt bemused by the anomaly of my role as a Jewish agnostic, trying to reassure a group of Catholic priests that evolution remained both true and entirely consistent with religious belief. Another story in the same mold: I am often asked whether I ever encounter creationism as a live issue among my Harvard undergraduate students. I reply that only once, in nearly thirty years of teaching, did I experience such an incident. A very sincere and serious freshman student came to my office hours with the following question that had clearly been troubling him deeply: “I am a devout Christian and have never had any reason to doubt evolution, an idea that seems both exciting and particularly well documented. But my roommate, a proselytizing Evangelical, has been insisting with enormous vigor that I cannot be both a real Christian and an evolutionist. So tell me, can a person believe both in God and evolution?” Again, I gulped hard, did my intellectual duty, and reassured him that evolution was both true and entirely compatible with 1 Christian belief— a position I hold sincerely, but still an odd situation for a Jewish agnostic. These two stories illustrate a cardinal point, frequently unrecognized but absolutely central to any understanding of the status and impact of the politically potent, fundamentalist doctrine known by its self-proclaimed oxymoron as “scientitic creationism”— the claim that the Bible is literally true, that all organisms were created during six days of twenty-four hours, that the earth is only a few thousand years old, and that evolution must therefore be false. Creationism does not pit science against religion (as my opening stories indicate), for no such conflict exists. Creationism does not raise any unsettled intellectual issues about the nature of biology or the history of life. Creationism is a local and parochial movement, powerful only in the United States among Western nations, and prevalent only among the few sectors of American Protestantism that choose to read the Bible as an inerrant document, literally true in every jot and tittle. I do not doubt that one could find an occasional nun who would prefer to teach creationism in her parochial school biology class or an occasional orthodox rabbi who does the same in his yeshiva, but creationism based on biblical literalism makes little sense in either Catholicism or Judaism for neither religion maintains any extensive tradition for reading the Bible as literal truth rather than illuminating literature, based partly on metaphor and allegory (essential components of all good writing) and demanding interpretation for proper understanding. Most Protestant groups, of course, take the same position— the fundamentalist fringe notwithstanding. The position that I have just outlined by personal stories and general statements represents the standard attitude of all major Western religions (and of Western science) today. (I cannot, through ignorance, speak of Eastern religions, although I suspect that the same position would prevail in most cases.) The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise— science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains— for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. In the context of this standard position, I was enormously puzzled by a statement issued by Pope John Paul II on October 22, 1996, to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the same body that had sponsored my earlier trip to the Vatican. In this document, entitled “Truth Cannot Contradict Truth,” the pope defended both the evidence for evolution and the consistency of the theory with Catholic religious doctrine. Newspapers throughout the world responded with frontpage headlines, as in the New York Times for October 25: “Pope Bolsters Church’s Support for Scientific View of Evolution.” Now I know about “slow news days” and I do admit that nothing else was strongly competing for headlines at that particular moment. (The Times could muster nothing more exciting for a lead story than Ross Perot’s refusal to take Bob Dole’s advice and quit the presidential race.) Still, I couldn’t help feeling immensely puzzled by all the attention paid to the pope’s statement (while being wryly pleased, of course, for we need 2 all the good press we can get, especially from respected outside sources). The Catholic Church had never opposed evolution and had no reason to do so. Why had the pope issued such a statement at all? And why had the press responded with an orgy of worldwide, front-page coverage? I could only conclude at first, and wrongly as I soon learned, that journalists throughout the world must deeply misunderstand the relationship between science and religion, and must therefore be elevating a minor papal comment to unwarranted notice. Perhaps most people really do think that a war exists between science and religion, and that (to cite a particularly newsworthy case) evolution must be intrinsically opposed to Christianity. In such a context, a papal admission of evolution’s legitimate status might be regarded as major news indeed— a sort of modern equivalent for a story that never happened, but would have made the biggest journalistic splash of 1640: Pope Urban VIII releases his most famous prisoner from house arrest and humbly apologizes, “Sorry, Signor Galileo... the sun, er, is central.” But I then discovered that the prominent coverage of papal satisfaction with evolution had not been an error of non-Catholic Anglophone journalists. The Vatican itself had issued the statement as a major news release. And Italian newspapers had featured, if anything, even bigger headlines and longer stories. The conservative Il Giornale, for example, shouted from its masthead: “Pope Says We May Descend from Monkeys.” Clearly, I was out to lunch. Something novel or surprising must lurk within the papal statement but what could it be?— especially given the accuracy of my primary impression (as I later verified) that the Catholic Church values scientific study, views science as no threat to religion in general or Catholic doctrine in particular, and has long accepted both the legitimacy of evolution as a field of study and the potential harmony of evolutionary conclusions with Catholic faith. As a former constituent of Tip O’Neill’s, I certainly know that “all politics is local”— and that the Vatican undoubtedly has its own interna1 reasons, quite opaque to me, for announcing papal support of evolution in a major statement. Still, I knew that I was missing some important key, and I felt frustrated. I then remembered the primary rule of intellectual life: when puzzled, it never hurts to read the primary documents— a rather simple and self-evident principle that has, nonetheless, completely disappeared from large sectors of the American experience. I knew that Pope Pius XII (not one of my favorite figures in twentieth-century history, to say the least) had made the primary statement in a 1950 encyclical entitled Humani Generis. I knew the main thrust of his message: Catholics could believe whatever science determined about the evolution of the human body, so long as they accepted that, at some time of his choosing, God had infused the soul into such a creature. I also knew that I had no problem with this statement, for whatever my private beliefs about souls, science cannot touch such a subject and therefore cannot be threatened by any theological position on such a legitimately and intrinsically religious issue. Pope Pius XII, in other words, had properly acknowledged and respected the separate domains of science and theology. Thus, I found myself in total agreement with Humani Generis— but I had never read the document in full (not much of an impediment to stating an opinion these days). 3 I quickly got the relevant writings from, of all places, the Internet. (The pope is prominently on-line, but a Luddite like me is not. So I got a computer-literate associate to dredge up the documents. I do love the fracture of stereotypes implied by finding religion so hep and a scientist so square.) Having now read in full both Pope Pius’s Humani Generis of 1950 and Pope John Paul’s proclamation of October 1996, I finally understand why the recent statement seems so new, revealing, and worthy of all those headlines. And the message could not be more welcome for evolutionists and friends of both science and religion. The text of Humani Generis focuses on the magisterium (or teaching authority) of the Church— a word derived not from any concept of majesty or awe but from the different notion of teaching, for magister is Latin for “teacher.” We may, I think, adopt this word and concept to express the central point of this essay and the principled resolution of supposed “conflict” or “warfare” between science and religion. No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority— and these magisteria do not overlap (the principle that I would like to designate as NOMA, or “nonoverlapping magisteria”). The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the arch cliches, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven. This resolution might remain all neat and clean if the nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) of science and religion were separated by an extensive no man’s land. But, in fact, the two magisteria bump right up against each other, interdigitating in wondrously complex ways along their joint border. Many of our deepest questions call upon aspects of both for different parts of a full answer— and the sorting of legitimate domains can become quite complex and difficult. To cite just two broad questions involving both evolutionary facts and moral arguments: Since evolution made us the only earthly creatures with advanced consciousness, what responsibilities are so entailed for our relations with other species? What do our genealogical ties with other organisms imply about the meaning of human life? Pius XII’s Humani Generis is a highly traditionalist document by a deeply conservative man forced to face all the “isms” and cynicisms that rode the wake of World War II and informed the struggle to rebuild human decency from the ashes of the Holocaust. The encyclical, subtitled “Concerning some false opinions which threaten to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine” begins with a statement of embattlement: Disagreement and error among men on moral and religious matters have always been a cause of profound sorrow to all good men, but above all to the true and loyal sons of the Church, especially today, when we see the principles of Christian culture being attacked on all sides. Pius lashes out, in turn, at various external enemies of the Church: pantheism, existentialism, dialectical materialism, historicism. and of course and preeminently, communism. He then notes with sadness that some well-meaning folks within the 4 Church have fallen into a dangerous relativism— “a theological pacifism and egalitarianism, in which all points of view become equally valid”— in order to include people of wavering faith who yearn for the embrace of Christian religion but do not wish to accept the particularly Catholic magisterium. What is this world coming to when these noxious novelties can so discombobulate a revealed and established order? Speaking as a conservative’s conservative, Pius laments: Novelties of this kind have already borne their deadly fruit in almost all branches of theology.... Some question whether angels are personal beings, and whether matter and spirit differ essentially.... Some even say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation, based on an antiquated philosophic notion of substance, should be so modified that the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist be reduced to a kind of symbolism. Pius first mentions evolution to decry a misuse by overextension often promulgated by zealous supporters of the anathematized “isms”: Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution... explains the origin of all things.... Communists gladly subscribe to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism. Pius’s major statement on evolution occurs near the end ot the encyclical in paragraphs 35 through 37. He accepts the standard model of NOMA and begins by acknowledging that evolution lies in a difficult area where the domains press hard against each other. “It remains for US now to speak about those questions which. although they pertain to the positive sciences, are nevertheless more or less connected with the truths of the Christian faith.”1 Pius then writes the well-known words that permit Catholics to entertain the evolution of the human body (a factual issue under the magisterium of science), so long as they accept the divine Creation and infusion of the soul (a theological notion under the magisterium of religion): The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as 1 Interestingly, the main thrust of these paragraphs does not address evolution in general but lies in refuting a doctrine that Pius calls “polygenism,” or the notion of human ancestry from multiple parents— for he regards such an idea as incompatible with the doctrine of original sin, “which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.” In this one instance, Pius may be transgressing the NOMA principle— but I cannot judge, for I do not understand the details of Catholic theology and therefore do not know how symbolically such a statement may be read. If Pius is arguing that we cannot entertain a theory about derivation of all modern humans from an ancestral population rather than through an ancestral individual (a potential fact) because such an idea would question the doctrine of original sin (a theological construct), then I would declare him out of line for letting the magisterium of religion dictate a conclusion within the magisterium of science. 5 far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter— for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. I had, up to here, found nothing surprising in Humani Generis, and nothing to relieve my puzzlement about the novelty of Pope John Paul’s recent statement. But I read further and realized that Pope Pius had said more about evolution, something I had never seen quoted, and that made John Paul’s statement most interesting indeed. In short. Pius forcefully proclaimed that while evolution may be legitimate in principle, the theory, in fact, had not been proven and might well be entirely wrong. One gets the strong impression, moreover. that Pius was rooting pretty hard for a verdict of falsity. Continuing directly from the last quotation, Pius advises us about the proper study of evolution: However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure.... Some, however, rashly transgress this liberty of discussion, when they act as if the origin of the human body from preexisting and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question. To summarize, Pius generally accepts the NOMA principle of nonoverlapping magisteria in permitting Catholics to entertain the hypothesis of evolution for the human body so long as they accept the divine infusion of the soul. But he then offers some (holy) fatherly advice to scientists about the status of evolution as a scientific concept: the idea is not yet proven, and vou all need to be especially cautious because evolution raises many troubling issues right on the border of my magisterium. One may read this second theme in two different ways: either as a gratuitous incursion into a different magisterium or as a helpful perspective from an intelligent and concerned outsider. As a man of good will, and in the interest of conciliation, I am happy to embrace the latter reading. In any case, this rarely quoted second claim (that evolution remains both unproven and a bit dangerous)— and not the familiar first argument for the NOMA principle (that Catholics may accept the evolution of the body so long as they embrace the creation of the soul)— defines the novelty and the interest of John Paul’s recent statement. John Paul begins by summarizing Pius’s older encyclical of 195O, and particularly by reaffirming the NOMA principle— nothing new here, and no cause for extended publicity: In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation. To emphasize the power of NOMA, John Paul poses a potential problem and a sound resolution: How can we reconcile science’s claim for physical continuity in human evolution with Catholicism’s insistence that the soul must enter at a moment of divine infusion? 6 In conclusion. Pius had grudgingly admitted evolution as a legitimate hypothesis that he regarded as only tentatively supported and potentially (as I suspect he hoped) untrue. John Paul, nearly fifty years later, reaffirms the legitimacy of evolution under the NOMA principle— no news here— but then adds that additional data and theory have placed the factuality of evolution beyond reasonable doubt. Sincere Christians must now accept evolution not merely as a plausible possibility but also as an effectively proven fact. In other words, official Catholic opinion on evolution has moved from “say it ain’t so, but we can deal with it if we have to” (Pius’s grudging view of 1950) to John Paul’s entirely welcoming “it has been proven true; we always celebrate nature’s factuality, and we look forward to interesting discussions of theological implications.” I happily endorse this turn of events as gospel— literally “good news.” I may represent the magisterium of science, but I welcome the support of a primary leader from the other major magisterium of our complex lives. And I recall the wisdom of King Solomon: “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country” (Prov. 25:25). Just as religion must bear the cross of its hard-liners. I have some scientific colleagues, including a few prominent enough to wield influence by their writings, who view this rapprochement of the separate magisteria with dismay. To colleagues like me— agnostic scientists who welcome and celebrate thc rapprochement, especially the pope’s latest statement— they say: “C’mon, be honest; you know that religion is addle-pated, superstitious, old-fashioned b.s.; you’re only making those welcoming noises because religion is so powerful, and we need to be diplomatic in order to assure public support and funding for science.” I do not think that this attitude is common among scientists. but such a position fills me with dismay— and I therefore end this essay with a personal statement about religion, as a testimony to what I regard as a virtual consensus among thoughtful scientists (who support the NOMA principle as firmly as the pope does). I am not, personally, a believer or a religious man in any sense of institutional commitment or practice. But I have enormous respect for religion, and the subject has always fascinated me, beyond almost all others (with a few exceptions, like evolution, paleontology, and baseball). Much of this fascination lies in the historical paradox that throughout Western history organized religion has fostered both the most unspeakable horrors and the most heart-rending examples of human goodness in the face of personal danger. (The evil, I believe, lies in the occasional confluence of religion with secular power. The Catholic Church has sponsored its share of horrors, from Inquisitions to liquidations— but only because this institution held such secular power during so much of Western history. When my folks held similar power more briefly in Old Testament times, they committed just as many atrocities with many of the same rationales.) I believe, with all my heart. in a respectful. even loving concordat between our magisteria— the NOMA solution. NOMA represents a principled position on moral and intellectua] grounds. not a mere diplomatic stance. NOMA also cuts both ways. If religion can no longer dictate the nature of factual conclusions properly under the magisterium of science, then scientists cannot claim higher insight into moral truth from any superior knowledge of the world’s empirical constitution. This mutual humility has important practical consequences in a world of such diverse passions. 7 Religion is too important to too many people for any dismissal or denigration of the comfort still sought by many folks from theology. I may, for example, privately suspect that papal insistence on divine infusion of the soul represents a sop to our fears, a device for maintaining a belief in human superiority within an evolutionary world offering no privileged position to any creature. But I also know that souls represent a subject outside the magisterium of science. My world cannot prove or disprove such a notion, and the concept of souls cannot threaten or impact my domain. Moreover, while I cannot personally accept the Catholic view of souls, I surely honor the metaphorical value of such a concept both for grounding moral discussion and for expressing what we most value about human potentiality: our decency, care, and all the ethical and intellectual struggles that the evolution of consciousness imposed upon us. As a moral position (and therefore not as a deduction from my knowledge of nature’s factuality), I prefer the “cold bath” theory that nature can be truly “cruel” and “indifferent”— in the utterly inappropriate terms of our ethical discourse— because nature was not constructed as our eventual abode, didn’t know we were coming (we are, after all, interlopers of the latest geological microsecond), and doesn’t give a damn about us (speaking metaphorically). I regard such a position as liberating, not depressing, because we then become free to conduct moral discourse— and nothing could be more important— in our own terms, spared from the delusion that we might read moral truth passively from nature’s factuality. But I recognize that such a position frightens many people, and that a more spiritual view of nature retains broad appeal (acknowledging the factuality of evolution and other phenomena, but still seeking some intrinsic meaning in human terms, and from the magisterium of religion). I do appreciate, for example, the struggles of a man who wrote to the New York Times on November 3, 1996, to state both his pain and his endorsement ofJohn Paul’s statement: Pope John Paul II’s acceptance of evolution touches the doubt in my heart. The problem of pain and suffering in a world created by a God who is all love and light is hard enough to bear, even if one is a creationist. But at least a creationist can say that the original creation, coming from the hand of God was good, harmonious, innocent and gentle. What can one say about evolution, even a spiritual theory of evolution? Pain and suffering, mindless cruelty and terror are its means of creation. Evolution’s engine is the grinding of predatory teeth upon the screaming, living flesh and bones of prey.... If evolution be true, my faith has rougher seas to sail. I don’t agree with this man, but we could have a wonderful argument. I would push the “cold bath” theory: he would (presumably) advocate the theme of inherent spiritual meaning in nature, however opaque the signal. But we would both be enlightened and filled with better understanding of these deep and ultimately unanswerable issues. Here, I believe, lies the greatest strength and necessity of NOMA, the nonoverlapping magisteria of science and religion. NOMA permits— indeed enjoins— the prospect of respectful discourse, of constant input from both magisteria toward the common goal of wisdom. If human beings are anything special, we are the creatures that must ponder and talk. Pope John Paul II would surely point out to me that his magisterium has always 8 recognized this distinction, for “in principio, erat verbum”— “In the beginning was the Word.” Stephen Jay Gould teaches biology, geology, and the history of science at Harvard University. He is also Frederick P. Rose Honorary Curator in Invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History. Postscript Carl Sagan organized and attended the Vatican meeting that introduces this essay; he also shared my concern for fruitful cooperation between the different but vital realms of science and religion. Carl was also one of my dearest friends. I learned of his untimely death on the same day that I read the proofs for this essay. I could only recall Nehru’s observations on Gandhi’s death— that the light had gone out, and darkness reigned everywhere. But I then contemplated what Carl had done in his short sixty-two years and remembered John Dryden’s ode for Henry Purcell, a great musician who died even younger: “He long ere this had tuned the jarring spheres, and left no hell below.” The days I spent with Carl in Rome were the best of our friendship. We delighted in walking around the Eternal City, feasting on its history and architecture— and its food! Carl took special delight in the anonymity that he still enjoyed in a nation that had not yet aired Cosmos, the greatest media work in popular science of all time. I dedicate this essay to his memory. Carl also shared my personal suspicion about the nonexistence of souls— but I cannot think of a better reason for hoping we are wrong than the prospect of spending eternity roaming the cosmos in friendship and conversation with this wonderful soul. 9 RELIGION AND SCIENCE SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL 1925 •The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes •Violation of Tennessee’s Butler Act •Dayton, TN •Scopes found guilty and fined $100 •Verdict was overturned on a technicality • William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate, argued for the prosecution •Clarence Darrow, an ACLU attorney defended Scopes I KANT BELIEVE IT • “I had to destroy reason to make room for faith.” • We cannot get at God via natural theology/reason. • Ontological argument – Perfection implies existence • Cosmological argument – There must be a first cause • Teleological argument – Design implies a designer • “There will never be a Newton of the blade of grass.” • Søren Kierkegaard • Irrational leap of faith KANT • “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it?” • We created the idea of God and we no longer need it. HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE? • Are they at odds or at peace? • Why is it that we so often hear about the clash of religion and science? • On what sorts of topics do these clashes often occur? CONFLICT • Common understanding of the relationship between science and religion • extreme positions garners more attention • Scientific Materialism, Biblical Literalism • Two extremes that only see conflict between the two fields INDEPENDENCE--NONOVERLAPPING MAGISTERIA • Stephen J. Gould • Facts vs. Values • Science is sovereign in the domain of facts • Religion is sovereign in the domain of values DIALOGUE/INTEGRATION • The two influenced each other • In some cases this has caused conflict. • In other cases, it has led to advancements and, or greater understanding for both sides. • Some argue that full integration is possible, and that all of science can explain the whole of religion. • Natural theology- the existence of God can be inferred from the evidence of design nature. Science makes us more aware of this design • Theology nature- the main sources of theology lie outside science, but scientific theories may affect the reformulation of certain doctrines, particularly the doctrines of creation in human nature. • Systematic synthesis-both science and religion contribute to the development of an inclusive metaphysics such as, process philosophy. IN-CLASS WRITING • Are science and religion compatible? Why or why not? 150 words (about 1/2-2/3 of a page) WHEN SCIENCE & CHRISTIANITY MEET Edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers The University oj Chicago Press Chicago and London AVII) L. LI NI)6CRG is the Hilldnlc Professor Emeri: us of the I lisIOI'Yof Science at ih University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has written or edited a dozen books on topics in the history of medieval and early modern science, including Theories oj V!sionjrolll al-Kindi (1976), TIe Beginnings oj Western Science (1992), and Roger Bacon and the Origins oj Perspectiva Ages (1996). He and Ronald L. Numbers to Kepler ill the Middle have edited God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science (1986) and are editing the eight-volume Cambridge History of To Susan E. Abrams, loyal friend, editor par excellence, and indifatigable Science (the first two volumes of which appeared in 2003). A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has been a recipient of the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, of which he is also past president (1994-95). RONALD L. NUMBERS is the Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. two dozen books, including The Creationists (1992), Darwinism Disseminating Darwinism: He has written or edited some Comes to America (1998), and The Role oj Piace, Race, Religion, and Gender (1999)' edited with John Stenhouse. With David C. Lindberg, he has edited God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science (1986) and is editing the eight-volume Cambridge History of Science. He is currently writing a history of science in America. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and past president of the American Society of Church History and of the History of Science Society. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2003 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2003 Printed in the United States of America 12 II 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN:0-226-48214-6 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication When science and Christianity Data meet / edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-226-48214-6 (alk. paper) L Religion and science-e-Hiscory, I. Limltm~, I )nvid C. II. Numbers, Ronald L. BLz45 .B35 2003 261·5'5-dc21 J(H\J.I~SS69 @ The papel' lIH(d ill dll~ 1\llhlll 11111111 11Irrl~Ihr nunimum requirements of the American Nnrionnl SIIIIHlnl'li till' lililli 111111 11111 SI Irlll r~ Perrnnncnce of Paper for Printed Library Mnll')'il\l~, ANNI/IIH~ 1I)Ij.!, supporter of scholarship on the history of science. 1,1 J!lN II. I~!I~"I! I ,omplt'x ,'('IIlt\onship betw "I hrl('H~, OS I he CIlCOUnLcr V,'II Iii nnme (' h('1 ween people sl ilill worldview, th I lit' II ,'III' Scopes Trial in History and Legend Ackllowlcdgmcnts Edward J. Larson ([he Scopes trial may be the most famous encounter between science and religion to have occurred on American soil. It took place in 1925, soon after Tennessee enacted a statute forbidding public school teachers to instruct students about the theory of human evolution. The new law attracted national attention, with some conservative religious leaders praising it but many mainstream cultural leaders scorning it. Interest soon focused on the small Tennessee town of Dayton, where a local science teacher named John T. Scopes accepted the invitation of the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the new law in court. As this young teacher (backed by the nation's scientific, educational, and cultural establishment) stood against the forces of fundamentalist religious lawmaking, the news media promptly proclaimed the encounter "the trial of the century." The trial gained attention in part because it captured so many of the contradictions that characterize America. In the eighteenth century, the United States had become the first modem nation officially to separate church and state-and yet this trial involved a state statute that linked church and state by seeking to conform public education to religious belief. During the nineteenth century, American cultural leaders had generally embraced a civil religion that endorsed Protestant Christian norms and values for society and public education-and yet in this case the cultural elite turned against Tennessee for placing the biblical story of Creation above the established 245 ~'I 1!IIWAIlIl ), I.AIIN\IN or scientific theory cvolurion. By the twcruierh ccnillry, the United Stull'. I"itl risen to the forcfront in scientific research, especially in the biological Sci(~11 and yet the enactment of the Tennessee statute suggested that significnru ) 1111111 cal support existed for accepting religion over science on a matter ccnera] t 111111111 ern biology. For many Americans at the time and ever after, the Seopr. III~I represented a landmark in the seemingly inevitable conflict between Illi11" II scientific thought and traditional religious belief. In time, the Scopes trial became part of American folklore. As widl Ilil legend, the story evolved with each retelling. In its most enduring version, wll\II appeared in the 1955 Broadway play and 1960 Hollywood movie Inherit llir Willd mob of townspeople stirred by the preaching of Reverend Jeremiah BrOWl1 whose name evokes images of the fanaticism of the biblical Jeremiah and Ihi' IIII olitionisr John Brown-drags a young science teacher from his public ~dllllli classroom and throws him in jail for telling his students about the DaIWIIlj,11I theory of human evolution. Such teaching supposedly undermines their /ilil" in the biblical account of human creation. "Do we curse the man who dl'lIll the Word?" Brown rhetorically asked the assembled townspeople at one 1'"1111 "Yes," they reply in unison. "Do we cast out this sinner in our midst?" he ndd prompting a mightier affirmation from the crowd. "Do we call down hell fil'r 1111 the man who has sinned against the word?" Brown shouts. The mob ront'NII assent.' Although real names and dates are not used, viewers of this scene prcSIIIII ably know that the teacher was John Scopes and that his trial had occurred dill ing the summer of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. In both the play and movie, III main characters (except Brown and Scopes's fiancee, who had no parallel- II! Dayton) are given soundalike pseudonyms; the time is set as "summer, not 1111t long ago." The stage directions begin, "It is important to the concept of the pJII) that the town is always visible, looming there, as much on trial as the individu.i] defendant." The movie version opens with the mob hauling Scopes out of III' classroom for teaching evolution. Limited to a few sets, the play begins will, II jailed Scopes explaining, "You know why I did it. I had the book in my hmu], Hunter's Civic Biology. I opened it up, and read to my sophomore science cln Chapter 17, Darwin's Origin oj Species." For innocently doing his job, Scopes "I threatened with fine and imprisonment," according to the script.' It makes /111 powerful drama-a scene seared into the national consciousness-but it ncv«I happened that way. Indeed, the movie prompted the great American journalist Joseph Wood Krutch, who had covered the Scopes trial for The Nation, to rebut, "The little town of Dayton behaved on the whole quite well. The atmosphen was so far from being sinister that it suggested a circus day."3 1'1111 -II111'1 )111111 17 in i92S IIIldlremembered the episode well.It was no witch hunt Ied by a fundamentalI~Iluvbrand, but a bizarre publicity stunt concocted by secular civic leaders. EarIIII' ill 1925,the Tennessee state legislature had passed a statute making it a mis./1IIirnnor, punishable by a maximum fine of $500, for a public school teacher "to 11'111 " :1I1ytheory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught III1Ill' Bible, and to teach instead that man had descended from a lower order of 11111111:11./1'1 Upon learning of the restriction, the fledgling American Civil Liber11i'~Union (ACLU) in New York City issued a press release offering to assist any 1I'III,herwilling to challenge the constitutionality of the new law in court. The (:LU statement appeared in its entirety on 4 May in the Chattanooga Times, which had opposed enactment of the antievolution statute. "Our lawyers think II[ricndly test case can be arranged without costing a teacher his or her job," the A( :LU release stated. "Distinguished counsel have volunteered their services. All WI' need now is a willing client,"? John Scopes became that willing client at the IIIVilarion of Dayton school officials. Although technically under arrest, Scopes WIIS neither jailed nor threatened with imprisonment; he spent much of the time 11111 iI his trial traveling and talking with reporters. "Why Dayton, of all places?" a Saint Louis Post Dispatch editorial asked shortly Iii I('1'Scopes's arrest. Civic boosters adopted this question as the title for a promotional booklet sold during the trial. "Of all places, why not Dayton?" the hooklet asked back." Midway between Knoxville and Chattanooga, in the valley I .uvcd by the Tennessee River in the rising foothills of east Tennessee, Dayton lacked both a sense of tradition and confidence in the future. Only a few farmhouses existed in the area at the time of the Civil War, which, in 1925, remained II vivid memory for many Tennesseans. The town sprang up in the late nineteenth I'('ntury with the coming of the railroads and became the commercial and governmental center for Rhea County. It was part of the so-called New South. Northern money financed laying the rail lines, digging nearby coal and iron mines, and building a blast furnace that attracted hundreds of Scottish immi~rants and underemployed Southerners to the new town. Optimistic county oflicials erected a handsome, three-story courthouse on a spacious downtown ~quare. By linking Dayton to northern markets, the rail lines facilitated the development of commercial farming in the surrounding valley, with Rhea County becoming a major center for strawberry production by the 1920S. But though Ihe berry crop flourished and mining continued, the blast furnace went cold. A hosiery mill opened early in the new century, but it could not offset the loss of jobs at the furnace. New commercial construction slowed, leaving the downtown with three blocks of one- and two-story storefronts and two sides of the III HIIWAI'" I, I.AIIHIlN urthousc squarc undeveloped. Concerned civic leaders nctivcly courted new industry as they watched their town's population cut almost in half, from of about 3,000 around the turn of the century to fewer than 1,800 by the tin. the Scopes trial." A native New Yorker with some training in civil engineering at Ohl11 Northern College, George W. Rappleyea managed the largely dormant locnl coal and iron facilities for their northern owners in 1925. Only thirty-one yenl' old, Rappleyea had drifted from religion while in college, accepted the th of human evolution, and written letters to the Chattanooga Times opposing enact ment of Tennessee's antievolution law. Upon reading in that newspaper about the ACLU's offer to help any Tennessee schoolteacher challenge the new law ill court, Rappleyea saw a chance to strike the statute, and he set about drawil1p other townspeople into his scheme." Rappleyea hurried down to Fred E. Robinson's drugstore with newspaper ill hand, or at least that is how the most credible version of this legend goes. Robin son chaired the Rhea County school board, and the soda fountain at his down town drugstore served as the watering hole for the town's business and profcs sional elite during those days of national prohibition. "Mr. Robinson, you and [local attorney] John Godsey are always looking for something that will get Dayton a little publicity. I wonder if you have seen the morning paper?" Robin son later recalled Rappleyea asking.9 Robinson had seen the morning paper bur had not noted the ACLU's offer. Rappleyea then related his scheme of staging 11 test case in Dayton and boasted of having connections to the ACLU in New York. Robinson slowly warmed to the idea, as did school superintendent Walter White, a former Republican state senator who liked the antievolution law but loved publicity for his town even more. Godsey agreed to assist the defense. Be fore long Rappleyea was confident enough of local support to place his initin] call to New York, asking whether the ACLU would make good on its offer if Dayton indicted one of its own schoolteachers. Other key participants signed Oil by the next day, when the ACLU accepted the arrangement. Then the drugstore conspirators summoned the high school's twenty-foul'> year-old general science instructor and part-time football coach, John T. Scopes, "Robinson offered me a chair and the boy who worked as a soda jerk brought m a fountain drink," Scopes later wrote. '''John, we've been arguing: said Rappleyea, 'and I said that nobody could teach biology without teaching evolution.' 'That'! right,' I said, not sure what he was leading up to." Scopes then pulled down, copy of George W. Hunter's Civic Biology from a sales shelf (the enterprising Rob. inson also sold public school textbooks) and opened it to the section on human evolution. This was the state-approved text, prescribed for use in all Tenness high schools. '''You have been teaching 'em this book?' Rappleyea said. 'Yes,' I said. I explained that I had got the book out of storage and had used it for 1'1'. 11111 HI UPII. flill.l~INrllMIIIIIV ANI! 1,IIIIIINIl view purposes while (illing in [or' the principal during his illness. lie [the prinipal] was the regular biology teacher," Scopes recalled. '''Then you've been vioIill ing the law,' Robinson said." The school board official then told Scopes about the ACLU offer. Scopes remembered the fateful question: "'John, would you be willing to stand for a test case?' Robinson said. 'Would you be willing to let your nnme be used?' I realized that the best time to scotch the snake is when it starts 10 wiggle. The snake already had been wiggling a good long time."? Scopes presented an ideal defendant for the test case. Single, easygoing, and without any fixed intention of staying in Dayton, he had little to lose from a summertime caper-unlike the regular biology teacher, who had a family and administrative responsibilities. Scopes also looked the part of an earnest young I cachet, complete with horn-rimmed glasses and a boyish face that made him appear academic but not threatening. Cooperative, well liked, and naturally shy, he would not alienate parents or taxpayers with soapbox speeches on evolution or give the appearance of a radical or ungrateful public employee. Yet his friends knew that Scopes disapproved of the new law and accepted an evolutionary view of human origins. He knew little about the issue-he coached football and taught physics and math, not biology-but he had been a student at the University of Kentucky when that institution's president led the fight against antievolution legislation in the Bluegrass State, and he admired the president's ourage. Further, Scopes's father, an immigrant railroad mechanic and labor organizer, was an avowed socialist and agnostic who, as the Chattanooga Times reported, "could talk long and loud against the political and religious system of America,"!' John Scopes inclined toward his father's views about government and religion, but in an easygoing way. Indeed, he liked to talk about sports more than politics and occasionally attended Dayton's northern Methodist church as 3 way of meeting people. The defendant was an establishment's rebel who would test the law without causing trouble. "Had we sought to find a defendant to present the issue," ACLU counsel Arthur Garfield Hays later confided, "we could not have improved on the individual."I2 Despite Scopes's ideal casting for his role, he played a bit part in Inherit the Wind and at the actual trial. In both, the prosecutors and defense attorneys assumed the leading roles. William Jennings Bryan (fig. 1l.1) and Clarence Darrow t (fig. II.2) stole the show. William Jennings Bryan In Inherit the Wind) Bryan appears almost out of thin air. The audience learns simply that he ran for president three times, remained an influential political orator ("the biggest man in the country-next to the President, maybe," Scopes's II I'.llWAJlliI, 1,~il.IIN lil1m'(-(' OhSI'I'VI'S),I,1 illIlll'('ll1illNI n Illlldi\IlIl'IIIIIIINI Ihilll ill I Ill' I\iblt" Only nllh II. I., Mcuckcn explain, "Somerhin~\ Hc becomes n 11nt ionnl unloved child ... [and I unloved children, of all ages, insinuate themselves into spotlights." 14 In this in stnncc, however, the real-life Bryan did much more man insinuate himself into 1 he Scopes trial; he all but ignited mat spotlight by focusing public attention 011 ('ml of' Ihe piny docs the famed journnlis: happens to an Also-Ran"., the social implications of Darwinism. I lver since Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution in 1859, some conscrvative Christians objected to what they regarded as the atheistic implicnIions of its naturalistic explanation for the origin of biological species, particuIndy of humans. Early in the twentieth century, these objections intensified with 1 he spread of fundamentalism as a reaction by some traditional American PrOt cstnnts to increased religious liberalism ("modernism:' they called it) within chi' 111:,ir,lincdcnominations, Fighting for the fundamentals of biblical orthodoxy, mnny fundamcntalist leaders denounced evolutionary thinking as the heart Ihi' nlodem iSI' heresy. Figure 11.1. William Jennings 1\I'yan, n poliliC'l1llib~I'1\1 with dl'l'idNlly l'OIISI'IVlltiVI' 1'('Ii~illll" Iwlil'/M,lIddl'd Ids voice I'() rhis chorus rollowing the \:i1'sl World Wal', as 1\(, cnmc to $('1' \)111'wininn survival-of-thc-'filtcst thinking (known :1Ssocial Darwinism whcn applied to human society) behind excessive militarism, imperialism, and laissezInirc capitalism, the three greatest sins in Bryan's political theology. With his Progressive political instinct of seeking legislative solutions to social problems, Bryan called for the enactment of state restrictions against teaching the Darwininn theory of human evolution in public schools, campaigning for such laws 11(1'05S America during me early 1920S. Following a near miss in Kentucky during 1922, antievolution bills inspired by Bryan appeared in state legislatures 2 1hroughout the country, culminating in passage of the Tennessee law in 19 5. Bryan's antievolutionism was compatible with his progressive politics because both involved reform, appealed to majority rule, and sprang from Chris1 ian convictions. Bryan alluded to these issues in his first public address dealing with Darwinism, which he composed at the height of his political career, in 1904. From this earliest point, he described Darwinism as "dangerous" for both Figure Il.2. Clarence Darrow. A Bryan. Newspapers throughout the United States published this newspaper photographer took this picture during a break in the action photograph of Bryan scowling during the Scopes trial. Bryan of the Scopes trial. With piercing suffered greatly from the oppressive visage, this photograph captures the public image of the famed heat in the courtroom during the trial, and had removed his collar on the day this picture was taken. eyes looking out from a rumpled litigator. ~'J IJIIIVAIW I. l./dt.IIN religious and social reasons, "I object LO the Dnrwininn theory," Bryan said with respect to the religious implications of a purely naturalistic explanation FOJ' human development, "because I fear we shall lose the consciousness of God' presence in our daily life, if we must accept the theory that through all the ag no spiritual force has touched the life of man and shaped the destiny of nations." Turning to the social consequences of the theory, Bryan added, "But there is another objection. The Darwinian theory represents man as reaching his prese11l perfection by the operation of the law of hate-the merciless law by which d strong crowd out and kill off the weak."ISThese abiding convictions drew Bryan to the Scopes trial to defend Tennessee's antievolution statute, a law that he had inspired and endorsed. In Inherit the Wind, Darrow accounts for the late-in-life antievohitionism of his once-liberal adversary with the words, "A giant once lived in that body. But [Bryan] got lost. Because he was looking for God too high up and too f31' away."16Bryan's best biographer, Lawrence Levine, rejected this view. "In William Jennings Bryan, reform and reaction lived happily, if somewhat incongruously, side by side," Levine concluded. "The Bryan of the 1920Swas essentially the Bryan of the 1890s: older in years but no less vigorous, no less optimistic, n less certain." 17 Clarence Darrow Inherit the Wind provides a fuller rationale for Darrow's participation in the smalltown misdemeanor trial than it does for Bryan's appearance in it, but even her the drama diverges sharply from the historical record. In the actual historical episode, Darrow volunteered his services directly to Scopes. In the play, however, a jailed Scopes appeals to Mencken's newspaper for help in getting a lawyer. Mencken then announces that his paper was sending "the most agile legal mind of the Twentieth Century," Clarence Darrow. "The agnostic?" the Reverend Brown gasps. "A vicious, godless man!,,18 Both descriptions capture historically valid perceptions of Darrow. By the twenties, Darrow unquestionably stood out as the most famoussome would say infamous-trial lawyer in America. Born into an educated working-class family in rural Ohio, Darrow first gained public notice in th 1890S as a Chicago city attorney and popular speaker for liberal causes. He secured the Democratic nomination to Congress in 1896, but spent most of his time campaigning for the party ticket, headed by presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, and lost by about one hundred votes. About this time Darrow took up the cause of labor, beginning with the defense of the famed socialist labor lender Uugcm' Y. Debs ngninst crimiun] charges growing out 01" the 1t!94. Pullman strike. "For the next fifteen years Clarence Darrow was the country's outstanding defender of labor, at a time when labor was more militant and idealistic and employers more hardened and desperate than ever before or since," an article in The Nation observed during the Scopes litigation. 'The cases he was called upon to defend were almost invariably criminal prosecutions in bitterly hostile communiries.T'? The final such case, a dramatic 19II murder trial involving two union leaders accused of blowing up the Los Angeles Times building, tarnished Darrow's reputation with labor when the lionized defendants confessed their guilt to avoid the death penalty. Thereafter, Darrow gradually shifted his practice to criminal law, defending :10 odd mix of political radicals and wealthy murderers. These activities kept Darrow's name in newspaper headlines, such as during the 1924 Loeb-Leopold ase, one of the most sensational trials in American history. In it, Darrow used arguments of psychological determinism (informed by notions of evolutionary naturalism) to save two wealthy and intelligent Chicago teenagers from execurion for their cold-blooded murder of an unpopular schoolmate, a crime that rhe defendants apparently committed for no other reason than to see if they ould get away with it. Although Darrow's defense outraged many Americans who believed in individual responsibility, it reflected his longstanding and oftproclaimed belief in materialistic determinism.r" Not content with simply questioning popular notions of criminal responsibility, Darrow delighted in challenging traditional concepts of morality and religion. One historian has described Darrow as "the last of the 'village atheists' on a national scale," and in this role he performed for America the same part that his father once played in his hometown.:" "He rebelled, just as his father had rebelled, against the narrow preachments of 'do gooders,''' Darrow biographer Kevin Tierney concluded. "He regarded Christianity as a 'slave religion,' encouraging acquiescence in injustice, a willingness to make do with the mediocre, and complacency in the face of the intolerablef" In the courtroom, on the lecture circuit, in public debates, and through dozens of popular books and articles, Darrow spent a lifetime ridiculing traditional Christian beliefs. He called himself an agnostic, but he sounded like an atheist. In this, he imitated his intellectual mentor, nineteenth-century American social critic Robert G. Ingersoll. According to Ingersoll, "The Agnostic does not simply say, 'I do not know [if God exists].' He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know .... He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know-he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact."23 Darrow welcomed the hullabaloo surrounding the antievolution crusade. It rekindled interest in his legalistic attacks on the Bible, which had begun to ~~'I HIlW"'"1I I, 1••••/I.11N appear hopelessly out-of-date in light of modern developments in mninliu. Christianity. In response to comments about evolution made by William )rll nings Bryan in 1923,for example, Darrow again made front-page headlines in III Chicago Daily Tribune by simply asking Bryan such questions as: "Did Noah build the ark?" and, if so, "how did Noah gather [animals] from all the continents?" JI Leading Chicago ministers complained that both Bryan's comments and Dill' row's questions missed the point, but the public loved it.25 And so did Darrow, When the Scopes trial began two years later, Darrow volunteered his service 1\1I the defense, the only time he ever offered free legal aid. He saw a chance to gl'nh the limelight and debunk Christianity. "My object;' Darrow later wrote, "was III focus the attention of the country on the programme of Mr. Bryan and the otlin fundamentalists in America."26 Thus, contrary to Inherit the Wind, Darrow did ))01 need to be-nor was he-sent to Dayton by Mencken's newspaper. (COiJ1C'/ dentally, Mencken and Darrow had been together when word of the pendin trial first broke, and they had discussed whether Darrow should defend SCOpl", The sixty-eight-year-old attorney had just announced his retirement, however, and let the matter pass.) The ACLU would not want his help anyway, Darrow surmised, because his zealous agnosticism might transform the trial from a nnrrow appeal for free speech to a broad assault on religion. As the ACLU later Q sured its many liberal religious supporters, it did not want Darrow anywhcn near Dayton. Darrow's initial surmise about the ACLU, and his later machinations to ill sinuate himself into the trial by appealing directly to Scopes and reporters (whn welcomed the colorful litigator ) rather than going through the ACLU, highligl II a telling omission from the version of events in Inherit the Wind. Scopes need nol have (and did not) ask Mencken's newspaper to obtain defense counsel for hilll because he agreed to test the law only after the ACLU offered to defend him. II was the ACLU's case from the start, and Darrow would not have joined it if Bryan had stayed out. Once he did, however, Darrow demanded inY Despite aN suming a leading role at trial, Darrow served merely as one member of a Se;)I' studded defense team assembled by the ACLU that included Arthur Garfield Hays, a wealthy Park Avenue attorney who regularly defended free-speech case for the ACLU, and Dudley Field Malone, an even wealthier New York divor« lawyer, drawn to the spotlight of the Scopes litigation. These other attorneys, who actually argued more of the case than Darrow, and the ACLU itself are never mentioned in Inherit the Wind. The omission sim plifies the script, but it also serves another purpose. As they later explained, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee wrote the play during the mid-1950S as II means of awakening public concern about the innocent victims of the mass hyl teria then feeding McCarthy-era assaults on alleged communists and leftists." 11111 HI:tli'IIN '1'111 A I, IN IIIHIIIIIY ANII 1.IIII1INII Because the ACLU I'cmnined n much maligncd target or those assnulrs, idcl1tifying its role in the Scopes trial would have made it harder to portray Scopes as an innocent victim. Thus the ACLU disappeared from the legend of its own most famous trial. National Interest The prospect of the two renowned orators Bryan and Darrow actually litigating the profound issues of science versus religion and academic freedom versus popular control over public education turned the trial into a media sensation then and the stuff of legend thereafter. News of the trial dominated the headlines during the weeks leading up to it and pushed nearly everything else off American front pages throughout the eight-day event. Two hundred reporters covered the story in Dayton, including some of the country's best correspondents, representing many of the major newspapers and magazines. Thousands of miles of telegraph wires were hung to transmit every word spoken in court, and pioneering live radio broadcasts carried the oratory to the listening public. Newsreel cameras recorded the encounter, with the film flown directly to major northern cities for projection in movie houses. The media billed it as "the trial of the century" before it even began, and it lived up to its billing. By its end, Dayton civic leaders could only marvel at the success of their publicity stunt and dream of ways to capitalize on their town's new notoriety. Because the judge permitted radio microphones, newsreel cameras, and telegraph tickers in the courtroom, the encounter looked more like a popular debate before a national audience than a criminal prosecution tried before local jurors. HIhave set the date when all universities and schools will be through their terms of school in order that scientists, theologians and other school men will be able to act as expert witnesses," he commented before trial. "My suggestion is that a roof be built over a large vacant lot ... and seats be built in tiers. At the very least, the place should seat twenty thousand people,'?" At the time, Dayton's population stood at less than one tenth of that figure. Ultimately, most of the trial occurred in the town's oversized courtroom, with inside seats reserved for reporters and loudspeakers carrying the proceedings outside and to the high school auditorium (fig. 11.3). The courtroom arguments and speeches by both sides addressed the nation rather than the jurors (who missed most of the oratory anyway, because it had so little to do with the facts of the case that it was delivered with the jury excused). The defense divided its arguments among its three principal attorneys. Hays presented the standard ACLU argument that Tennessee's antievolution statute into lill.' public 8dHloIH , , , nlld rench ry." Legislators, "who are responsible co their constuucnts, LO the citizens cf'Tcnnesscc," should control public education, he asserted." Inherit the Wind !-livesdue billing to Stewart, but the other local prosecutors and the younger 1\l'yandisappear in that account. The elder Bryan, who had not practiced law for I hree decades, stayed uncharacteristically quiet in court, saving his oratory for lecturing the assembled press and public outside the courtroom about the vices teaching evolution and the virtues of majority rule. He also prepared a thunderous three-hour-long address on these points that he planned to deliver as the prosecution's closing argument. As the actual trial played itself out, however, I)arrow managed to frustrate Bryan's plan by waiving his own close because, under Tennessee practice, the defense determined whether there were to be closing statements. In this and other major scenes from the trial, events unfolded roughly or in the order presented in Inherit the Wind. The Trial Unfolds Figure 11.3. Clarence Darrow defends his client before the courtroom and jurors, who are seated in I'hl front of the crowd with ties and black coats. violated the individual rights of teachers. Malone, a liberal Catholic, mostly 31' gued that the scientific theory of evolution did not necessarily conflict with nil open-minded reading of Genesis. Darrow, for his part, concentrated on d bunking fundamentalist reliance on revealed Scripture as a source of knowledge about nature suitable for setting education standards. Their common goal, n Hays stated at the time, was to make it "possible that laws of this kind will hereafter meet the opposition of an aroused public opinion,'?" Elements from all three lines of argument appear in the words attributed to Darrow in Inherit thr Wind, which makes him sound unduly tolerant of Christian beliefs when he gives voice to arguments originally articulated by Hays and Malone. The prosecution countered with a half dozen local attorneys, led by the state's able prosecutor and future U.S. senator, Tom Stewart, plus Bryan and hi son, William Jennings Jr., a California lawyer. In court, they focused on proving that Scopes had broken the law and objected to any attempt to litigate t11 merits of that statute, mainly because they could not find expert witness opposed to the theory of evolution capable of matching those assembled by th defense in support of that theory. "Mr. Scopes might have taken his stand 011 the street corners and expounded until he became hoarse," Stewart maintained First came jury selection. Darrow typically stressed this part of a trial as critical for the defense and often spent weeks going through hundreds of persons summoned for jury duty (called veniremen) before settling on twelve jurors who just might be open to his arguments and acquit his typically notorious defendant. Darrow had a different objective at the Scopes trial, however. He wanted to convict the statute rather than acquit the defendant, and only judges could do this. Jurors simply applied the law to the facts of the case. Darrow could have won an acquittal by arguing that Scopes (who, after all, was not even a biology teacher) never violated the statute, but that would have left the law intact. Instead, the defense sought either to have the trial judge strike the statute, which was all but beyond his role, or to have Scopes convicted. If the latter happened, the defense could appeal to a higher court, which could review the statute. Rather than spend weeks seeking sophisticated jurors open to acquitting Scopes despite the law, Darrow quickly accepted the simplest of veniremen. Their presence on the jury, the defense reasoned, would dramatize to the watching nation the spectacle of nonexperts sitting in judgment on a scientific theory, which constituted a key objection to the antievolution law. This strategy paid off when one of the veniremen turned out to be illiterate. His exchange with Darrow became the subject of countless news stories and needed little exaggeration in later accounts. "Ever read anything in a book about evolution?" Darrow asks in Inherit the Wind. "Nope," answers the man, giving a typical reply at the trial. Darrow follows up, "I'll bet you read your Bible." Again: "Nope." When a puzzled HH -TIi'lWAiilTF I;A1llmf----~-~ __ ' 'I Y I'rp I'I('H, "I"\ ,nil I I'r[\~,I" 'J'0 ensure ( IJill I'I'OW nSK~ W IlY, ( I1~ V('IlIJ'C/111111 Nllllp vi('w('I'S gOI the point, the pbywl'ighls called rOI' "n few iiucrs through the COlliI room," before Darrow declares "He'll do,"J~ Aftel' I'elnting several such hnnQCS stressing the jury's ignorance about the theory of evolution, Mcnckm the situation to newspaper readers across America just as th uch a jury, in a legal sense, may be fair, but it would certainly be SI"I ye of reason to call it irnpartial.l'P No sooner was the jury selected than it was excused from the courtroom d:lys-as the parties wrangled over defense motions to strike the statutr ,I unconsti tutional, Although these arguments occasionally soared into dra 11111I II pi ens for either individual freedom or majority rule, their technical nature rnnk, them difficult to follow by nonlawyers. The trial judge denied the motions. {llberilibe Wind skips ahead to the prosecution's case. The scene begins widl " schoolboy named Howard (Howard Morgan in the actual trial) testifying dlill Scopes taught his class about evolution. On cross-examination, Darrow n,~k I Ioward rhc famous question, "Did it do you any harm?" and coaches out n dl II ill1:\"Morgnn remains an all-American boy. Dropped from the legend is Bryn II', ll'lling retort: "Mr. Darrow asked Howard Morgan, 'Did it hurt you?' Why did lit' IIllI ask the boy's mother?":" Instead, the play inserts testimony from SCOP('' fit'lional Iianccc, whom Bryan mercilessly grills about Scopes's agnosticism. III 1l)(IO, when paid to tout the movie for its makers, Scopes dismissed this femlll, IMI'I: "They had to invent romance for the balcony set."J6 More likely, the WI'II I'I'S created the scene to discredit McCarthyite inquisitions of the families nil" ricnds of alleged communists. It gave a dark taint to the trial wholly miss1", Irorn the actual episode, in which Scopes had to instruct his students to test II)' that he had violated the law. however, illMIIIIC't I )nll'Ow (0 IIPPI'II), "(Jllhlll'I'HII/II((·(Tr, llliil (o'loul li's~ly" until "thel'c's 11glint of nn kll'lI ill hlN ~yl'.''''' '1'i1IN NI'IH up the nl! marie moment I/lhrrll the Willd, when the defense calls Brynn to the sl'nnd :IS a \'xpel'Con religion. It was equally dramatic at the actual trial, although Darrow lind quietly planned it for days. It has become the most famous scene in the folklore of American legal history. And it really happened, though not quite as port rnyed in Inherit the Wind. or (()!. Following the prosecution's brief presentation, the defense offered the tesll mony of fifteen experts in science and religion, all prepared to testify againsr ill statute. The prosecution immediately objected. The admissibility of such tC~(I mony was the key issue at trial. It passes quickly in Inherit the Wind but collSI.II1H,,1 days at trial. The script captures the heart of the matter, however. "Their rcsu mony is basic to the defense of my case," Darrow pleads. "For it is my intent III show this court that what [John Scopes] spoke quietly one spring afternoon III the [Dayton] High School is no crime! It is incontrovertible as geometry in ever )' enlightened community of minds!" Bryan formally objects to the testimony II irrelevant to the question of whether Scopes violated the law. He then adds III real complaint: "And I refuse to allow these agnostic scientists to employ d II courtroom as a sounding board, as a platform from which they can shout eh(')1 heresies into the headlines!" Not surprisingly given legal limits on expert tC6( I mony, the judge sides with the prosecution. Stage directions for Inherit the Will'!, nryan's Testimony II was Hays, not Darrow, who called Bryan as the defense's expert on the Bible. The volunteer prosecutor proved cooperative. Up to this point, Stewart had masterfully controlled the proceedings and confounded his wily opponents. Indeed, Tennessee's governor had just wired the young prosecutor, "You are handling the case like a veteran and I am proud of yoU."J8But Stewart could not control his impetuous cocounsel, especially because the judge seemed eager to licar Bryan defend the faith. "All the lawyers leaped to their feet at once," Scopes recalled." At least one of the local prosecutors formally objected. Stewart seethed with anger. But Bryan vainly welcomed the opportunity to face his adversaries. "They did not come here to try this case," Bryan explained early in his Icstirnony, "They came here to try revealed religion. I am here to defend it, and I hey can ask me any questions they please."40Darrow did just that. Thinking the trial all but over, except for the much awaited closing oratory, and hearing that cracks had appeared in the ceiling below the overcrowded second-floor courtroom, the judge moved the afternoon session outside, onto I he courthouse lawn. The crowd swelled as word of the encounter spread. From Ihe five hundred persons that evacuated the courtroom, the number rose to an estimated three thousand people spread over the lawn-nearly twice the town's normal population. The participants appeared on a crude wooden platform erected for the proceedings, looking much like Punch and Judy puppets perForming at an outdoor festival. Enterprising youngsters passed through the crowd hawking refreshments. "Then began an examination which has few, if any, parallels in court history," the Nashville Banner reported. "In reality, it was a debate between Darrow and Bryan on Biblical history, on agnosticism and belief in revealed religion."4! Darrow posed the well-worn questions of the village skeptic, much like his father would have asked fifty years before: Did Jonah live inside a whale for three days? How could Joshua lengthen the day by making the Sun (rather than the earth) stand still? Where did Cain get his wife? In a narrow sense, as Stewart persistently complained, Darrow's questions had noth- (III II\vAIlIl I, I,AII.IIN tll iog to do with the case because they 'leVCI'inquired nboct human cvclurion, III a broad sense, as Hays repeatedly countered, they had everything to do with dll case because they challenged biblical literalism. Best of all for Darrow, no gl)1 Ii I answers existed. The queries compelled Bryan "to choose between his crude hi liefs and the common intelligence of modern times" or to admit ignorance, II Darrow later observed.42 Bryan tried all three approaches at different times din ing the afternoon, without appreciable success. Darrow questioned Bryan as a hostile witness, peppering him with qucri and giving him little chance for explanation. At times it seemed like a firing lillt Darrow: "You claim that everything in the Bible should be literally inrcr preted?" Bryan: "I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is give» there; some of the Bible is given illustratively .... " Darrow: "But when you read that ... the whale swallowed Jonah ... do you literally interpret that?" how Bryan: "... I believe in a God who can make a whale and can make a mO'1 and make both of them do what he pleases .... " Darrow: "But do you believe he made them-that it was big enough to swallow Jonah?" he made such a fish and Bryan: "Yes sir. Let me add: One miracle is just as easy to believe as another." Darrow: "It is for me ... just as hard." Bryan: "It is hard to believe for you, but easy for me .... When you get beyond what man can do, you get within the realm of miracles; and it is just as easy to believe the miracle of Jonah as any other miracle in the Bible."43 Such affirmations undercut the appeal of fUndamentalism. On the stump, Bryan had effectively championed the cause of biblical faith by addressing th great questions of life; the special creation of humans in God's image gave purpose to every person, and the bodily resurrection of Christ gave hope to believers for eternal life. But Darrow did not inquire about these grand miracles. For many Americans, laudable simple faith became laughable crude belief when applied to Jonah's whale, Noah's Flood, and Adam's rib. Yet Bryan acknowledged accepting each of these biblical miracles on faith and professed that all miracles were equally easy to believe. Bryan fared little better when he tried to explain two of the biblical passages raised by Darrow. In an apparent concession to modern astronomy, Bryan suggested that God had extended the day for Joshua by stopping the earth rather than the Sun. Similarly, in line with nineteenth-century evangelical scholarship, Bryan affirmed his understanding that the Genesis days of Creation represented periods of time. This led to the following exchange: or I )OI'I'()W: "[law you nny itlt'll 01' the /engt h these periods?" I\l'ynn: "No; J don't." I)nrrow: "Do yOll think the sun was made on the fourth day?" Bryan: "Yes." I)nn'ow: "And they had evening and morning without the sun?" 1~l'yan:"I am simply saying it is a period." Darrow: "They had evening and morning for four periods without the sun, do yOllthink?" Bryan: "I believe in creation as there told, and if I am not able to explain it I will accept it."44 ven in saying that Creation might have taken as long as six hundred million Y\'nrs,Bryan did not venture beyond the accepted bounds of biblical inerrancy. Nevertheless, the defense made the most of it, perhaps unaware that fUndamentnlists routinely interpreted Scripture but more likely simply seeing a good argumcnt in the battle for general public opinion. "Bryan had conceded that he inrcrpreted the Bible," Hays gloated. "He must have agreed that others have the same right."45 Scopes later recalled, with questionable accuracy, that "the Bible literalists who came to cheer Bryan were surprised, ill content, and disappointed that Bryan gave ground."46 As Darrow pushed his various lines of questioning, Bryan increasingly admitted that he simply did not know the answers. He had no idea what would have happened to the earth if it had stopped for Joshua, or about the antiquity of human civilization or the age of the earth. "Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?" Darrow asked. "No sir; I leave the agnostics to hunt for her," came the bittersweet reply.47 "Mr. Bryan's complete lack of interest in many of the things closely connected with such religious questions as he had been supporting for many years was strikingly shown again and again by Mr. Darrow," the New York Times reported." Stewart tried to end the two-hour-Iong interrogation at least a dozen times, but Bryan refused to stop. "I am simply trying to protect the word of God against the greatest atheist or agnostic in the United States," he shouted, pounding his fist in rage. "I want the papers to know I am not afraid to get on the stand in front of him and let him do his worst.t'"? The crowd cheered this outburst and every counterthrust he attempted. Darrow received little applause but inflicted the most jabs. "The only purpose Mr. Darrow has is to slur the Bible, but I will answer his questions," Bryan exclaimed. "I object to your statement," Darrow shouted back, both men now standing and shaking their fists at each other. "I am examining your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.P? The judge, having finally heard enough, abruptly adjourned court for the day. He never let the interrogation resume. Inherit the JiVind grossly oversimplifies this encounter and in doing so trans- I11II 262 EDWARD J. THE LARSON forms Bryan into a mindless, reactionary creature of the mob. In the play and movie he assails evolution solely on narrow biblical grounds (never hinting at th. broad social concerns that largely motivated him) and denounces all science a "Godless," rather than only the so-called false science of evolution." Rather than accepting the popular "day-age" interpretation of the Genesis account of Creation week, which he did in real life, the Bryan of Inherit the Wind follow. Bishop Ussher's traditional computation that God created the universe in si twenty-four-hour days beginning "on the zjrd of October in the Year 4,004 B.". at-uh, at 9 A.M.!"The crowd gradually slips away from him as he babbles on, reciting the names of the books of the Old Testament. "Mother. They're laughing at me, Mother!" Bryan cries to his wife at the close of his testimony in thl play. "I can't stand it when they laugh at me!" Even though Bryan opposed in cluding a penalty provision in antievolution laws, Inherit the Wind ends with hi. character ranting against the small size of the fine imposed by the judge befor fatally collapsing in the courtroom while the now-hostile crowd ignores his clo. ing speech. ''The mighty Evolution Law explodes with a pale puff of a wet fir cracker," the stage directions explain, just as McCarthyism died from ridicuh and disgust. 52 As Lawrence and Lee debunk Bryan in the eyes of the audience, they uplill Darrow. In Inherit the Wind, Darrow makes his entrance in a "long, ominou shadow," the stage directions instruct, "hunched over, head jutting forward." A young girl screams, "It's the Devil!" But he softens as the play proceeds. "All I want is to prevent the clock-stoppers from dumping a load of medieval nonsci IHI in the United States Constitution," he explains at one point, "You've got to S( I 'I' 'em somewhere." 53Thus Darrow remains a self-proclaimed agnostic but loses III crusading materialism. At the end, it is Mencken who delivers Darrow's famou slur of Bryan's "fool religion," and it is Darrow who reacts with anger: "Yilil smart-aleck! You have no more right to spit on his religion than you have a ri~11I to spit on my religion! Or lack of it!" The writers have Darrow issue che IIi, eral's McCarthy-era plea for tolerance, saying that everyone has the" right III III wrong"! The cynical Mencken then calls the defense lawyer "more relig/oll than Bryan, and storms from the scene. Left alone in the courtroom, 0:\111, picks up the defendant's copy of the Origin of Speciesand the judge's Bible. A IIII "balancing them thoughtfully, as if his hands were scales," the staging d i['('(,111111 state, the attorney" jams them in his briefcase, side by side," and slowly wn Ik~I" I the now-empty stage. 54"A bit of religious disinfectant is added to the t1!-1I\(l~II' legend for audiences whose evolutionary stage is not yet very high," chl' 1111,1 Voicesneered in its review of the movie.55 Lawrence and Lee thus reduced Brynn nod 1);1I'I'OW r nc-dimcnsionnl 1111 icaturcs or themselves nnd simplified rhe I rin 1 iMIl /I 111J' -net 111()I'nlily 1,111\III I, SCOPES TRIAL IN HISTORY AND LEGEND 263 which tolerance happily triumphs over bigotry. To ensure that the audience appreciate the point, the writers have Scopes ask Darrow after the jury convicts him, "Did I win or did I lose?" Darrow answers, "You won .... Millions of people will say you won. They'll read in their papers tonight that you smashed a bad law. You made it a joke!":" It is fine theater but hobbles efforts to understand the trial's complex historical legacy. Legacy Although partisans on both sides claimed victory, at the time most neutral observers viewed the Scopes trial as a draw, and none saw it as decisive. America's ndversarial Iegal system tends to drive parties apart rather than to reconcile Ihem. That was certainly the result in this case. Despite Bryan's stumbling on Ihe witness stand (which his supporters attributed to his notorious interrogator's wiles), each side effectively communicated its message from Dayton-maybe not well enough to win converts but at least sufficiently to energize those al1'1':1dy predisposed toward its viewpoint. If, as Inherit the Wind declares, millions of people thereafter dismissed antievolutionism as a joke, millions more saw it as a rnuse. When Bryan died a week later in Dayton, the fundamentalist movement acquired a martyr. Huge crowds turned out to watch as a special train carried I\ryan's body to Washington for a state funeral in Arlington National Cemetery. lhree months after the trial, Mencken could only sneer about the man he so despised: "His place in the Tennessee hagiocracy is secure. If the village barber .ivcd any of his hair, then it is curing gallstones down there today:'57 Darrow's lollowers lionized him too, and granted him an elevated place in agnostic IllIgiography because of his deeds at Dayton. The pace of antievolution activism actually quickened following the trial, I\III it encountered heightened popular resistance. Two states, Mississippi and Arkansas, soon enacted antievolution statutes modeled on the Tennessee law. An 11111 icipated victory in the Minnesota legislature turned into a demoralizing dek.II, however. When one Rhode Island legislator introduced such a proposal in 11)/.7.his bemused colleagues referred it to the Committee on Fish and Game, ",111'1'(' it died without a hearing or a vote. With time and countless retellings, the Scopes trial became part of the fabIII American culture. It grcw to symbolize not simply antievolutionism, but 1I.Iij.\iouslymotivated intrusions into public policy generally. Inherit the Wind's ,11'1I11I:11 ie plea ror rolcrnncc m:1y have till'gcccd MeCarchyitcs, using fundamenliliiNIN only ns SII'nWmen, "lIl 1'1)(' SlJ'nw nW1 proved 10 be more durable rhn: 1111'l't'1I111lI'Ill'l~, nlld I hI' lill't,,,t l\\ indiv/dllollilw!'ly I1l1l'ibull'd III them lWC'1I11l or 264 EDWARD J. LARSON increasingly ominous for some Americans as the power of government grew over the ensuing years. Indeed, the issues raised by the Scopes trial and legend en dure precisely because they embody the characteristically American struggle between individual liberty and majority rule and cast it in the timeless debate ovci science and religion. For many twentieth-century Americans, the Scopes trial b came both the yardstick by which the former battle was measured and the glas.. through which the latter debate was seen. In its review of Inherit the YHnd's 19 Broadway revival, the New York TImes described the original courtroom confron tation as "one of the most colorful and briefly riveting of the trials if the centu,y that seemed to be especially abundant in the sensation-loving 1920's."58Dozen of prosecutions have received that designation over the years, but only the Scop trial fully lives up to its billing by continuing to echo throughout the centurv. 12 Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs Ronald L. Numbers 'Nothing has come to characterize modern science more than its rejection of appeals to God in explaining the workings of nature. Numerous scientists, philosophers of science, and science educators have made this claim. In 1982 a United States federal judge, eager to distinguish science from other forms of knowledge, especially religion, spelled out "the essential characteristics of science." At the top of his list appeared the notion that science must be "guided by natural law." No statement, declared the judge, could count as science if it depended on "a supernatural intervention." Five years later the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the judge's reasoning.' Students of nature have not always shunned the supernatural. It took centuries, indeed millennia, for naturalism to dominate the study of nature, and even at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as we shall see, a tiny but vocal group of "theistic scientists" is challenging what they regard as the arbitrary exclusion of the supernatural from science. In exploring how naturalism came to control the practice of science, I hope to answer some basic questions about the identity and motives of those who advocated it. In particular I want to illuminate the reasons why naturalism, described by some scholars as the great engine driving the secularization of Western society, attracted so much support from devout Christians, who often eagerly Il1brnc('d il as rhc method of choice for understanding nature. Nat1II'n!j~l\liol1, II,~WI' shnll see, did not lend inevitably [0 secularization.
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