I found this in my mail and read the article with some tea. It is interesting, but I've not done a lot of research on the Scopes Trials. Actually, I never really heard of it before. I guess it was due to the private Christian school (we were taught evolution... but it was confusing or skipped or talked more about in Bible class? it is all fuzzy), or I wasn't paying attention (I am selective with memory).
I know it is hard to read on the screen, but I will bring my copy in on Wednesday, or maybe you get this magazine and need to read it!
I'm always disappointed, but no longer surprised, that most of my students say they were not taught a thing about the Scopes Trial. It was not a high-water mark in our state's history. Edward Larson's "Summer for the Gods" is a good place to catch up. https://www.amazon.com/Summer-Gods-Americas-Continuing-Religion/dp/046507510X
ReplyDeleteIt's really quite astonishing, from the post-Holocaust perspective, to reflect on the extent to which eugenics ("good birth") was thought by many to be a good thing, in keeping with "evolutionary progress"... and then to realize that Hitler got a lot of his ideas from American sources. We read & talked about that in Bioethics last semester. See "Eugenics and the Nazis: the California Connection" - https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php