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Chapter Summary of Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea

Emma P. Haynes

Department of Biology, Sinclair Community College

BIOLOGY 2222: Evolution

Professor Erbe

Jul 21, 2020

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Chapter 13 Summary

What About God they ask? Elizabeth starts the chapter by expressing her opinion and

thoughts on how faith could be an idea of evolution and science. As Christian who is

deeply religious and is also very curious, she finds herself asking tough questions to her

professors at a College in Illinois, Wheaton College. Unfortunately, her professors do

not always have the answers, but she likes to pounder the tough questions with them as

they try to come up with an answer. In her class of evolution, she does believe that the

evidence exampled in class fits for the theory evolution, but she does not blinding go

along with it. She still has her roots in faith and God. Many students choose not to go to

certain colleges because of their curriculum because they teach evolution and go

against what they believe. They believe that God is the creator of everything, and to say

that evolution is true goes against everything. Elizabeth expresses that to take God out

of the equation entirely is presumptuous. It also leads to the question of, where does

God fit into all this talk of evolution?

Throughout the 1800s, many struggles with the concept of God fitting into the equation

of evolution; they are confused with the idea that evolution had made us accidentally or

if God had created us entirely the way we are. Some helped spread the reading of

Darwin’s Origin of Species like Asa Gray. He helped distribute the book into America,

declaring that Americans no longer have to look into the bible to understand how things

are created and how we were created. Unlike Gray, some couldn't believe accepting

this new idea of evolution, doubting God is not want they wanted to do. They struggled

with the idea that God himself did not create us and everything else. That natural

selection is the reason we are here today. They consider the idea that if God did not
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create us, then why do we have to read and rely on the bible. To make sense of the

Scripture, they stated that it is a poetic telling of the creation of Earth and everything in

it, and it was not created in only six days. As the nineteenth century was coming to a

close, the debate of Darwinism began to increase with the addition of public schools

steadily. 

In the early twentieth century, the 1920s, public schools were the primary source

of Darwinism and Creationist's battle. At the start of public school in the 1890s, only a

quarter of a million students attend schools, but in 1920 nearly two million were

attending schools. The textbooks and teacher taught evolution with the absence of God.

This created conflict because it threatens the creationist as their child learns a world not

created by God. Another disagreement between the two sides is that many misuses the

idea of Darwinism, cause creationists to beam with delight as those like Germans are

using Darwinism as an excuse for mass genocide. Therefore, Darwinism could be

deemed faulty and incorrect. Like the Germans were taking the main point and twisting

it to support their cause, their cause that individual races are better, and they must get

rid of all the others to ensure their power. This new form of density became known as

Monism. Not only did the German misuse Darwinism, but it was also being misused to

justify laissez-faire capitalism. Herbert Spencer believed that to become great, evolve to

become great, they struggle since those who survived will become perfect. Just like the

idea of William Graham Sumner, who believes that those born poor are meant to be

poor since they are not made for the rigorous life of a rich person. This concept of

Sumner is called Social Darwinism, not in any way related to that of Darwinism. Social

Darwinism is Darwin's theory misconstrued with Lamarck's theory. Social Darwinism led
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to many inhuman acts of trying to rid the human population of diseased people,

separating them, so they are unbaled to have kids or "sterilizing" them to save the rest

of humanity. All of these conflicts of the misuse of Darwinism and the lack of God's help

in evolution created Fundamentalism. They want to return to Protestantism roots by

taking back the education system and ridding it of evolution. A devoted Fundamentalist

is William Jennings Bryan, who urged the people to recognize that evolution is false.  

Bryan being anti-evolution, suggests that God had to play a part in Earth's creation,

even though he did agree that phrase six days in the bible was metaphoric. Bryan was

on the wave that Darwinism is based on hate, that to reach perfection, humans must kill

off the weak and unwanted. In this case, he is referring to Social Darwinism and or

Monism but not at all Darwinism. He chooses to rid the United States of this awful idea

of hate by having a lawsuit, The Scopes Case, in which wanting to make some noise to

help create attention to the public-school abolishing evolution in the classroom. Again,

not everyone was for the idea to rid of a scientific fact like evolution, American Civil

Liberties Union, ACLU expresses that getting rid of evolution from curriculums gets rid

of teachers' freedom of speech. The accused John Scopes, a Tennessee high school

football coach teaching physics was compliant in his statement that he taught his

students evolution. ACLU initially wanted Scopes to be found guilty so they can appeal

the case and get publicity, but when a defense attorney showed interest in the case,

Clarence Darrow. Darrow had previously allowed two boys not to be killed after killing

another boy for sport in the name of a diseased brain. This way of thinking is more like

Social Darwinism, which Bryan despised the most. The case was now a scorching case,

with two very famous means, Darrow and Bryan, the case was broadcasted throughout
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America. In this, which came to be known as The Scopes Monkey, Darrow pushing

Bryan to state that he agrees that the six days of creation are fictional and have many

interpretations, including evolution. Even though the testimony was critical for the case,

the judge threw it out, and then Scopes was found guilty with a fine of one hundred

dollars. Darrow thought he could appeal; it got rejected. Also, being rejected is the fight

of ACLU on the ban of teaching evolution. They lost the battle in Tennessee for nearly

40 years, but other states also followed, Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida, and Oklahoma. 

As the twentieth century progressed, the United States became more evolutionary

advanced, with Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, and George Simpson.

Unfortunately, these discoveries barely made it into the real world; textbooks

were afraid to lose business if they added even a word of evolution since their main

funders were Creationists. But once the Soviets launched Sputnik into space, textbooks

started featuring evolution again, and law that was made previously had been appealed.

Not all the schools were on the same page with adding evolution back into the

curriculum, but teachers did oppose this idea wanting to include evolution. Susan

Epperson claimed that anti-evolution invoked ideas of religion into the school system.

The case was not strong enough with just Epperson, but ACLU came into the scene

and won the case against the Arkansas law in 1968. The main argument was that

evolution should not be kept out of schools because it is a theory that teachers should

be teaching. Creationists use this form of idea to rebuttable that "creation science" as

they call it is also a theory and using their words against them. The children can choose

which theory for themselves. Simultaneously, the version of evolution does not change
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based on who writes the textbooks or interprets them while creation science; many

forms are not all credible or consistent. 

A creation science textbook could be strictly based on the bible like Genesis

Flood by Henry Morris; he claims that Earth's creation happened in those six days. All

the fossils during Noah's flood. The book also states that radioactive decay is unreliable.

In the creation of his book, Morris inspired others to share their beliefs of how God

created the Earth, like Old-Earth creationists believing the age of the Universe is 13-

billion years old, and the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old. Humans were created solely

by God. These different forms of creationists clashed with each other as the other

arguing and never agreeing on anything except that Darwin's Theory is wrong. 

Since creationists wanted to include in the school curriculum, they settled for half

of the curriculum, one half for evolution and the other for creation science. It did not last

long until creation science is ruled as not even science. The creation theory is not a

theory since it can be proven wrong. Morris's theory is incorrect because he claims that

people only came to be about 6,300 years ago, meaning that there would only be 600

people on the whole Earth during the time of the pyramids. Only six people would be in

Egypt to build the pyramids. That is very hard to believe. Most creationists use parts of

facts to create their support for God's work. Like how the Cambrian era shows that all

animals alive today is made during this time since there is a lack of fossils before that

when, in fact, there are fossils to prove evolution is true. Creationists also only accept

microevolution like beaks evolving, but accepting microevolution is accepting

macroevolution as well.  
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Creationists were using all their ideas until they came up with a new name for

their belief, Intelligent Design, in which life is so complicated that it had to be created by

a designer. Intelligent Design advocates believe that there is irreducible complexity.

How can something like blood clotting evolve when even if one piece is missing, you'll

bleed to death, it had to be implemented by a designer. They believe that there is no

way a series of events can occur to create an action such a blood clotting. When, in

fact, gene duplications and mutations are the cause of blood clotting. With any

modification can develop systems that, if taken away, can die. It takes time to gather

information like how the blood clot forms, took 30 years of work to explain. All the other

phenomena alone in the human body are still being researched and tested. The

creationists use this as an excuse to claim that molecules are too complex to have

evolved and must include an Intelligent Designer. But at what point in time does a

designer use their skill to help species. Creationists have a hard time answering this

question. Intelligent Design cannot be tested.

The battle between Darwinism and Intelligent Design in schools does do the

students any good; they now know nothing about evolution. Learning evolution is

essential for careers that children might want to pursue, like oil and mineral finding, and

the study of vaccines. If a child does not know how evolution works, they will have a

hard time understanding where things come from and why things are ever-changing.

The world will keep undergoing evolution even if we choose to believe it or not. If we

decide to accept it now, we have a better chance of understanding how the world works

and how we work to increase the value of vaccines, fight cancer, and possibly increase

human life. 
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Just because we dig fossils out of the ground and evolution is true does not mean that it

is saying there is no God. Mutations are random, and we have no way of telling if it is

God's doing; that could be a way God is related to evolution. God watching over us and

evolution is called Deism. 

Darwin himself struggled with the concept of religion. During his journey on the Beagle,

he regularly sought churches to attend to and listened to this Capitan’s scripture

readings. Darwin watched his father die, who also had doubts about religion. If his

father was iffy on religion that he would suffer in hell. Still unsure about religion during

his time that he was ill. Darwin completely lost his faith when his favorite daughter Anne

died on 23 April 1851. Despite his loss of faith when he began to feel sick again, his

wife took care of him, and he continually shouted out for God, dying on 19 April 1882.