Creationism, Darwin and the GOP
by Lenny Flank
(c) copyright 1996
For most of us, the controversy over creation and evolution was settled way back in 1925, when Clarence Darrow eviscerated William Jennings Bryan in a country courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee. However, a growing number of recent attempts to remove evolutionary theory from the schoolroom in favor of the Genesis story of creation--culminating in recent actions by the Tennessee State Legislature and the Alabama State Board of Education--demonstrates that not only is the anti-evolutionist movement alive and well in America, but that it is a card that is increasingly being played by the political Right. And the Republican Party has joined the fundamentalists in beating the anti-Darwin drum. Two recent Presidential candidates have spoken in support of Biblical creationism, and three state Republican Parties have made anti-Darwinism a plank in their platforms.
The post-Louisiana strategy of the creation "scientists" depends on the enormous political pressure that the fundamentalists can focus at the local level. A bill which would allow creation "science" to be taught in school is expected to be introduced shortly into the Tennessee state legislature. In January 1995, a group of fundamentalist school board members attempted to pressure the Plano, Texas, school district into using the creationist textbook Of Pandas and People as a "supplementary text" in its biology classes. This year, an ICR activist spearheaded a local effort to try and pressure the Tulsa Zoo into removing exhibits which depict the evolution of the horse and which state that chimpanzees and humans have a common biological ancestor. The Institute for Creation Research also conducts a number of "Back to Genesis" seminars across the country, where local activists are taught how to go about pressuring local school boards into curtailing their treatment of evolution.
This past March, even NBC gave the creation "scientists" a measure of credibility when it aired a television program, featuring Charleton Heston, which at one point argued that humans and dinosaurs may have lived together and were wiped out in Noah's Flood. The television show presented Carl Baugh of the Creation Evidences Museum, who argues that a series of dinosaur footprints found near the Glen Rose River in Texas show overlapping dinosaur and human footprints (every paleontologist who has examined the alleged "man tracks" has concluded that are merely incomplete dinosaur tracks.)
The creation "scientists" have, however, found powerful allies on the political Right--a partnership which benefits both. The political right needs concrete issues to organize around and foot soldiers to help carry out its campaigns -- which are provided in droves by the fundamentalists. And the GOP has been quick to attempt to tap this resource.
Creationists have been very active in state textbook committees and curricula boards, where they have attempted to pressure various states into dropping biology textbooks which feature evolutionary theory. In June 1996, three families in Cobb County, Georgia asked that the Cobb County Board of Education remove a chapter from a fourth grade science textbook. The offending chapter which discussed the age and formation of the universe. In late May, the Ohio House Education committee rejected (by a margin of just 12-8) a proposed bill that would require that "scientific arguments . . not in support" of evolutionary theory be taught whenever evolution is mentioned.
Most members of these state education boards are political appointees, and the fundamentalists have found willing allies in the state and local Republican Party. In March 1996, Alabama Governor Fob James announced that the creationist book Darwinism on Trial would be sent to all of the state's 900 science teachers, at a cost of almost $3,000. The book was, James declared, "an attempt to improve science education by encouraging healthy and constructive criticism of evolutionary theory." A few months later, Ohio State Representative Ron Hood introduced Bill 692, which mandated:
Whenever a theory of the origin of humans, other living things, or the universe that might commonly be referred to as 'evolution' is included in the instructional program provided by any school district or educational service center, both evidence and arguments supporting or consistent with the theory and evidence and arguments problematic for, inconsistent with, or not supporting the theory shall be included.
State Republican Parties in Texas, Oklahoma and Iowa have all adopted platform planks which advocate teaching creationism in schools.
In the late 1980's, bowing to creationist pressure, the state of Texas mandated that all biology textbooks carry a disclaimer stating that evolution is "only a theory" and "not established fact". This provision was withdrawn under pressure in 1990, but this past year, state officials in Alabama introduced a requirement for all biology textbooks to carry a disclaimer stating that "Any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact". The statement also notes, "There are many unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not included in your textbook", and then goes on to list a number of standard creationist objections to evolution. The Alabama requirement is a transparent attempt to bring "balanced treatment" for creation "science" in through the back door, and several civil rights groups are already considering filing a court challenge.
More recently, however, even the national Republican leadership has demonstrated a willingness to kowtow to the creationists. In its "Contract for America", the GOP asserted, of its proposed "Family Reinforcement Act", that it "will strengthen the rights of parents to protect their children against education programs that undermine the values taught at home"--a code word for removing evolution, sex education, and other things which offend fundamentalist sensibilities. During the campaign, Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan appealed to fundamentalist support by attacking Darwin. When asked by a commentator if he favored the teaching of creationism in public schools, Buchanan replied, "You may believe you descended from monkeys--I don't believe it. I think you're created--I think you're a creature of God." When asked, "Do parents have the right, in your judgement, to insist, if they believe in creationism, that it also be taught in public schools?", Buchanan declared, "I think they have a right to insist that godless evolution not be taught to their children, or their children not be indoctrinated into it."
Several days later, fellow GOP candidate Alan Keyes was asked about creationism and its critics. "I think they ought to take a look at our country's founding document," Keyes replied. "It says, 'All men were created', and 'endowed by their creator with inalienable rights'. . . I don't think it is only a question of Judeo-Christian beliefs. It is of American beliefs."
Apparently, to Keyes, Christian religious tenets and American political programs are one and the same. To the initiated faithful, the creationists also make no secret of their political goals. As Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Science admits, the ultimate goal of the creationists is to bring first science, then the rest of society under Biblical proscriptions: "A key purpose of the ICR is to bring the field of education--and then our whole world insofar as possible--back to the foundational truth of special creation and primeval history as revealed first in Genesis and further emphasized throughout the Bible".