TP O’Mahony: Themes of religion and science still clashing

The argument between evolutionists and creationists is especially prominent in America, but Edwin Poots’ leadership of the DUP has brought it into focus here, writes TP O'Mahony

The new leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Edwin Poots. Creationists have not gone away.

It would take the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracy and Fredric March, to make a new generation aware of one of the most controversial trials of the 20th century, and one dealing with themes of religion and science which are still relevant today.

Tracy played Clarence Darrow who defended a young schoolteacher named John T Scopes who was arrested for teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925 and March played William Jennings Bryan who prosecuted him.

The trial would become a clash between the “creationists”, who believed in the literal truth of the account of creation contained in the Bible, and “evolutionists” who accepted the scientific explanation on which Darwin’s theory was based.

It was a clash which still reverberates today because creationists have not gone away. One proof of this was the recent election of Edwin Poots as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. Poots is a man who believes in and espouses “creationism”.

British naturalist Charles Darwin who developed  the theory of evolution by natural selection. Photo: Time Life Pictures/Mansell/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Nearly a century after Tennessee v Scopes, the argument between evolutionists and creationists rages on, especially in America where fundamentalist Christians continue to gain ground.

Far from being an historical curiosity, the events in the courtroom in Dayton in 1925 merely foreshadowed a debate over the origins of life that continue to cause deep divisions in the 21st century.

At the heart of the controversy were questions about the literal truth of the Bible. 

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If Darwin’s theory of evolution (first formulated in his 1859 book The Origin of Species and applied to humans in The Descent of Man published in 1871) was correct, then the account of creation contained in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, had to be incorrect.

Initially, this caused consternation within all the Christian churches. Darwin was posing a major challenge to Christian orthodoxy. Richard Tarnas in his book The Passion of the Western Mind explained why: “It was now less certain that man came from God than that he came from lower forms of primates”.

The 'Monkey Trial'

This, of course, was why in the first place the legal proceedings in Dayton became popularly known as the “Monkey Trial”: opponents of evolution who wanted to mock or disparage those who subscribed to Darwin’s theory said they believed that humans were descended from monkeys or apes.

This is the opening line of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”. And in Genesis 1:27 we read “So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”.

Was the Earth made in six literal days? Did God create man on the sixth day and rest on the seventh? Or is that meant to be an allegory? Was Eve literally made from the rib of Adam? And was evolution an unproven hypothesis? These questions would be front and central in the Dayton courtroom.

On July 8, 1925, on the eve of what would become one of the great American trials (known in the law textbooks as State of Tennessee v Scopes), the Chicago Daily Tribune carried a banner headline: “Scopes Case a ‘Duel to Death’.” And the editorial said: “Mr Bryan seems to feel so sure of the outcome of this case that he is willing to risk the whole Bible and the entire Christian religion on the outcome”.

Defending Scopes, the young school teacher accused of teaching evolution, was Clarence Darrow, a legendary trial lawyer. The themes of religion and science which Darrow confronted, in what became known as the Scopes “Monkey Trial”, continue to resonate today.

The revival of Bible-justified politics in the USA since the 1970s, especially with the emergence of the Moral Majority which insisted upon reliance on a strict Christian interpretation of the Bible, brought a new focus on creationism.

The Moral Majority's continued influence in the US

The Moral Majority supported Ronald Reagan in the presidential election of 1980, and is credited with contributing in a big way to his landslide victory over Jimmy Carter.

Later the Christian Right, powered by the fundamentalist Churches of the South and the Bible Belt, taking over the role played by the Moral Majority, would back George W Bush and, more controversially, Donald Trump.

It was no accident that Inherit the Wind (which was first of all a 1955 play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee) was revived on Broadway in April 2007, with Christopher Plummer as Darrow and Brian Dennehy as Bryan. This was during George W Bush’s second term in the White House, and the 43rd President had made statements which showed him to be a fundamentalist Christian, and he had waded into the debate about creationism versus evolution.

In August 2005, President Bush advocated the teaching of intelligent design side-by-side with evolution in public schools. His remarks brought instant criticism.

Describing intelligent design as creationism by another name, the Washington Post in an editorial said: “To pretend that the existence of evolution is somehow still an open question, or that it is one of several equally valid theories, is to misunderstand the intellectual and scientific history of the past century”.

The debate outside the US

But it wasn’t only in the United States that controversy over creationism - sometimes described as “intelligent design (ID)” - flared. In Europe, too, evolutionists and creationists have clashed. And there is still an effective creationist/intelligent design lobby, especially when it comes to what should be taught in science classes in schools.

Intelligent design, which might be regarded as an expanded version of creationism, has been described as “the proposition that biological life is too complex to have evolved randomly. Some intelligence force - God, an alien species from a galaxy far, far away, whatever - must have had a hand in the process.

Opponents considered ID as only a slightly more sophisticated repackaging of creationism, an overtly religious doctrine” (Kenneth D Wald in his book Religion and Politics in the United States).

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI published a book entitled Creation and Evolution in which he said that researching the origins of life was an interplay between faith and science. The German-born Pontiff, who caused a shock in 2013 when he resigned, very firmly rejected the view that faith and science are in conflict. 

T.P. O'Mahony. Today many people of faith readily accept Darwin’s theory of evolution while Creationism has a long tradition behind it. 

He did, though, have some critical words for evolutionary theory, calling it “not a complete, scientifically verified theory”.

God can be factored in. The processes of evolution must begin somewhere.

The world-renowned theologian Fr Hans Kung, who died in April, was a supporter of evolutionary theory. “But if a question arises of what existed before the Big Bang, that is a question where all sensible scientists reach their limits and where questions of belief begin,” he said.

Today many people of faith readily accept Darwin’s theory of evolution, secure in the knowledge that Darwinism does not lead ineluctably to atheism.

Those, on the other hand, who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and cleave to the “world-was-created-in-six-days” thesis deserve respect. Creationism - the doctrine that ascribes all things to God’s acts of creation rather than to evolution - has a long tradition behind it. 

And even though Darwin may have driven a coach-and-horses through creationism in the 19th century, the Bible as a sacred text and a source of literal truth still has enormous potency for a sizeable number of Christians. Edwin Poots is by no means alone.