Texas wades into evolution debate at textbook hearing

[happyslug]

45. Even in the Scopes Trial, this position was NOT taken

In fact the book in question TAUGHT evolution and had Darwin's photo on its front cover. The Issue in the Scopes trial was teaching of Human Evolution and that ban came about do to the push for Social Darwinism among our Social Elite, that most Americans at that time opposed (Americans opposed the concept that the poor should die out so the more fit rich can survive).

http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/tennesse.html

Teaching of evolution was permitted under the Statute (The Actual Statute in question in the Scope's Trial):

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, [u}to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/tenness4.html

I know it is a technical difference, but it shows that even Bryan accepted the theory of Evolution (Bryan had problems with it, but he understood it for he had read Darwin's book on it and had written comments on the book and the Theory). Bryan's objections was if the teaching of evolution was extended to humans in the Public Schools, it would be advocating the concept of Social Darwinism, and it was Social Darwinism that Bryan opposed much more then Evolution.

William Jennings Bryan was a well read man, he was familiar with the theory of evolution (and willing to leave it be taught as theory, and may be the only theory taught, but NOT as fact for under the rules of logic it can NOT be called a fact, which is the case involving most scientific theories). Bryan even mention the Theory of Relativity when he was testifying (a reference that seems to have gone over Darrow's head when it was made for it upset the line of questioning Darrow was doing).

My point is this hard attitude to the teaching of evolution is relatively recent. No one had a real objections to Evolution till the 1970s (Some people did, but they were rare till the 1970s, most objections to teaching evolution died when Eugenics was rejected at the end of WWII for Eugenics was one of the Justification the Nazis used for the Holocaust). In the 1960s the US Supreme Court ruled law like the Butler act involved in were unconstitutional

Side note: The US Supreme Court Court had to go through some loops to get to the issue of ruling the Butler Act and similar Acts unconstitutional. Had these acts said no teaching of evolution, that would have been easy, that would have been a clear violation of the First Amendment. The Act instead says No one, whose pay is from tax dollars, can teach evolution of man as part of their job paid with state funds (They could teach it in their own, on their own property, but not on state funded property or during the time period they were being paid by the State). That was a hurtle, and why it took till the 1960s for the court to strike down these laws.

The Wording of these laws go to the issue of who pays for what. Under our system of Government the power of the purse is reserved to the Legislative branch of Government. Thus if that branch does NOT want to fund something, how can the Court rule it must? i.e. if a State Legislature says no state funds will go to paving of roads, how can the court order the STATE to pay for such paving?

The same with the teaching evolution, how can a court ORDER the State to pay for teaching something the State does not want taught? Notice the issue then is NOT evolution but separation of powers AND the power of the purse. When it comes to the power of the Purse, The Court has a hard problem, the power of the purse is in the exclusive hands of the Legislative branch of Government NOT the Courts. People get upset when the Court rules on this concept i.e. this is a power of the purse and thus the how the money is spent is up to the legislative branch. The Court will sometime violate this principal and rule a spending (or lack of spending) is unconstitutional, but in such cases the court is more comfortable forbidding spending then requiring spending.

Just a heads up on how the Courts can rule on this issue. They may just rule this is a legislative area of government activity and thus the courts have no say in how the state spends its money.