The Evolution Controversy in America

by George E. Webb

Book Overview

For well over a century, the United States has witnessed a prolonged debate over organic evolution and teaching of the theory in the nation's public schools. The controversy that began with the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species had by the 1920's expanded to include theologians, politicians, and educators. The Scopes trial of 1925 provided the growing antievolution movement with significant publicity and led to a decline in the teaching of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813190495
• ISBN13: 9780813190495
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

required reading

In this excellent book, George Webb, a professor of science history at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee, reviews the enduring controversy created in America by Darwin's theory of evolution. Beginning almost immediately after the Origin of Species was published in 1859 scienticists in America began debating the impact on religious belief that the theory of evolution implied. Setting the terms of the debate that would continue to define it to our day scientists like Asa Gray and Louis Agassiz defended or accused Darwin's theory. Agassiz argued that it was only a theory and not a fact and that it could not be definitively proven. He also argued, most importantly, that it ran counter to the story of creation told in Genesis and was, therefore, atheistic. Gray countered by arguing that the need for divine creation in biology had not been eliminated and that there was scientific evidence to support the theory. Webb traces the debate from this early reception through the famous Scopes trial of the 1920s, the boost to scientific eductation following the Soviet launch of Sputnick, and down to the early 1990s, reaffirming throughout the book the continuity in the arguments from both sides. Anti-evolutionists continued to point out the supposed lack of proof and used debates among evolutionists about details to show the theory was false, or at least just as plausible as the Genesis story and that both should be taught in schools or not taught at all. Webb judiciously lets the antievolutionists speak for themselves throughout the text; in his analysis, however, he clearly comes down in favor of the teaching of evolutionary theory. This book is an indispensable survey about a specific debate but also a call for better science education in an increasingly scientific and technological world. Required reading for students of American history and all educators.