The Species Maker: A Novel by Kristin Johnson

Author:Kristin Johnson [Johnson, Kristin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, History, United States, 20th Century, Science
ISBN: 9780817360153
Google: wH9AEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0817360158
Publisher: ‎University Alabama Press
Published: 2021-10-25T18:30:00+00:00

Part IV

The Historians

Chapter 13

In the opening months of 1925, public debates between defenders of science and opponents of evolution were broadcast by radio up and down the West Coast. Ordinarily Martin wouldn’t have known this outside of reports from Ben, but during his next trip home, Will purchased a radio and installed it on the table that already served as desk and dining area.

Martin hated that bulky wedge of modern life, though in the interest of domestic harmony he said nothing. It took up a third of the table space and all of the silence that had existed in the pauses between Will’s newspaper clippings. It meant he had to listen to the Baptist minister from Minneapolis William Riley warn that evolution would result in a godless world of adultery and theft, since “in the struggle for existence” only the stronger have rights. He had to listen to the Seventh Day Adventist political scientist Alonzo Baker declare that according to Darwin’s disciples, Christ could not have died for the sins of men, for in their view sin was nothing but “the hang-over from our animal ancestry, the remnants of the tiger and ape in us.” The Baptist minister from New York John Straton joined the radio waves to denounce belief in evolution as an atheistic religion. And if the teaching of the Bible and Christian religion is to be ruled out of public schools to uphold the separation of church and state, Straton thundered, then anti-Bible and anti-religious teachings must be barred as well.*

Then Martin had to listen to the science writer Maynard Shipley try to answer them. Shipley recounted tragic tales of the Church’s persecution of Galileo and Columbus, and argued that public school curricula must be left to those best qualified to judge by education and experience: trained scientists. Shipley argued that evolution should be taught because it supplied students with sanctions for right conduct based, not on someone’s idea of what constitutes right and wrong, or what someone tells a man is good or evil, but on the immutable, unavoidable laws of nature. “From the unchanging operation of these laws no one can hide,” he warned. “From the consequences of violation of these laws none can escape.”*

Reports on developments back east were also constant, thanks to Ben. He reported that Reverend Straton had posted a warning on the door of his Calvary Baptist Church in New York City: “Is the American Museum of Natural History Misspending Taxpayers’ Money and Poisoning the Minds of the School Children with False and Bestial Theories of Evolution?” Henry Fairfield Osborn, director of the museum, was firing back in lectures, books, and the pages of the New York Times and arguing that every act of creation, whether via evolution or no, is an act of God. The entire contents of the museum, Osborn insisted, demonstrated that creation happened via evolution. Ben didn’t like the strategy, but included several versions of “At least he’s engaging!” in his attempt to rouse his colleagues during department meetings.

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