The Scopes Monkey Trial And On Debating The Legality Of Teaching Evolution

I. Acceptance of Creation is growing in spite of overwhelming evidence proving Evolution There is no easy resolution for whats true and evolution or creationism. It is a complex topic with profound scientific, religious, educational, and criticism. How can a student or parent come to grips with this issue? Evolution vs. Creationism provides a badly needed, comprehensive, and balanced introduction to the many facets of the current debates about what should be taught in a classroom or in reality itself. Evolution relies on scientific facts while creationism clings on biblical beliefs. But the legal and

Evolution has been taught in all public schools for as long as many can recall. Though the process of evolution is not the only theory, schools have been teaching it as if it is the complete truth, ignoring other aspects and only focusing and targeting on Darwin's theory of Evolution. However, there are still many other ideas that the students should be informed of as well because all are theories, all are hypothetic. Teaching of the evolution theory have yet to be proven reliable and confirmed by all scientists, thus it should not be taught in schools and should be left for students to wonder and discover by themselves.

The debate over teaching evolution in public schools is not new at all but the debate has been elevated through the media over the past few years. Conservative Christians and other conservatives serving on school boards (particularly in the South) have been insisting that if schools are going to buy textbooks that have evolution chapters then they should also have a place in that textbook near the evolution chapter for creationism. Progressives and scholars that understand the scientific basis for evolution argue that there's nothing wrong with putting creationism or "intelligent design" in textbooks but that subject is not science-based and therefore should be published in the "religion" chapter (if there is one). Should evolution be taught in public schools? The answer is yes, most certainly; to ignore evolution is to deprive public school students of some of the most important knowledge relating to our planet and our society. Scientific ignorance is unacceptable in a country that calls itself the "greatest nation on earth."

This idea that we evolved from primates instead of by a God floored the religious/fundamentalist ideas/“traditional American values”. When a teacher, John T. Scopes, got caught teaching evolution in school it sparked a huge debate in America where Mr. Scopes was found guilty. Even still today you see people bickering about whose theory is more concrete and “real”.

Our core values are built upon freedom. Freedom from tyranny, freedom from control, freedom to choose. A student should have the option to learn whatever it is they desire, whether it be evolution, or creationism, because it is our right to choose what to believe. There was a true story based on an argument where science was not allowed to be taught, but religion was. It correlates to the novel Inherit the Wind. The plot settles in a trial held between two defendants lawyers battling it out of the science versus Evolution. A school teacher named Cates, who got arrested and went to jail because he taught evolution in a science class. I believe that evolution should be taught in science classes and that school teachers being arrested due to

My first impression of this article was that McCaffrey was bias on teaching controversial topics, he states that, “There have been numerous court cases since then, and efforts to teach “both sides” of evolution in public schools have been promoted”. Throughout the

In my opinion Evolution should be taught in school but so should Creationism. I think students should be able to choose which theory to learn in school. None of either theory should be forced on students. The argument between teaching each one is that Evolution is a proven historically fact according to the National Academy of Sciences. The majority of those people who desire for creationism to be taught in the public schools cite that it is scientific. They push for the teaching of creation science which is defined as "scientific evidence for creation and the inferences from that evidence" (Tatina 275). The inferences from that evidence are "sudden creation of the universe from nothing, recent formulation of the earth, creation of man and other biological kinds, a worldwide flood", and

Evolution is the most popular theory currently taught in public high schools, and is widely accepted as a sound scientific concept to teach. However, it is equally true that many disagree with evolution and many of its concepts as an explanation of the origin of life on our planet, and it is thus my opinion that evolution should not even be taught in public science classes, as it is not scientifically sound, nor should be a part of a wide variety of concepts taught to students that that should also include intelligent design, creationism, or any other number of theories that have just as much of validity as evolution.

In schools today things have been flipped around, for example evolution is okay to teach since it is a scientific fact and can be backed up with proofs and claims, however a teacher cannot teach about creationism because it is a religious belief and under the law schools have to be religiously neutral. But most of the time public schools ignore the whole thing, but in Colleges every biology class has evolution in their curriculum and the professors have to teach it. But even if that's the case, now-a-days I think that the ideology of creationism is being taught less by the churches themselves, though I am not a Christian and maybe because of that, I have been in several preaching sessions for FCA in middle school and club preaching in high school and I have also attended church few times; and I have never heard of creationism until this trial and some of these preachings talked about Genesis but backed away from many aspects of it, so I believe that creationism is being taught less as, in my opinion, as humankind is focusing more on logic than faith. But even so the debate over the existence of evolution is being argued upon lots of times between: peers, coworkers, preachers, atheist, agnostics, and sometimes even parents; and I believe that it is common sense to doubt these sorts of things because it is eventually affects how one may live or how it may affects one’s after life and it's human nature to have different views. But it is okay when one takes away one side of the argument and only is taught one side, and I believe that it should be up to the person which side to be on, but using evolution to justify one's selfishness is also wrong and is just an excuse which is used by the rich to not help the

Evolution should definitely be taught in schools. If we don't teach evolution now, how will the future know anything about how we came upon this earth? The reasons I believe that evolution should be taught in schools is that it goes along with all the rest of the sciences, (Physics, Biology, and Astronomy) and is backed up by them, schools are meant to teach

“If religion is not allowed to be taught in schools then why is evolution being taught? Evolution requires much faith in order to believe that the big bang happened and that the Earth is billions of years old. It is not a fact, it is based on assumptions, and it takes more faith in order to believe that nothing made something.” In addition to this, due to the flawed logic in studies and making false facts, evolution should not be taught in

In America, public schools are allowed to teach any philosophy explaining the existence of all species on Earth. This ranges from christian creationism to scientific punctuated equilibria. Many have disputes about what should be taught in public schools but there is one obvious reason why Evolution should be regulated, it is the truth. Evolution is fact and is the most effective method for explaining our existence to present day society.

In an article published in the New York times, by Laurie Goodstein, she revealed that a poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, revealed that 64 percent said they were open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution, while 38 percent favored replacing evolution with creationism. It is important to note by this poll that the idea of teaching our children other theories of how this world was created was supported by more than half of the polled population. It needs to be understood that when these teachings are given the opportunity to be introduced in the public school settings, teachers must maintain a very bias approach as to not sway their students into believing one side or the other but, rather let them decide for themselves through research and study what they will believe in.

Public schools are a place to learn proven facts and some very well—known and accepted theories. These schools have been led this way for a long time and show no signs of changing. Many states around the country have rejected the teaching of creationism in public schools, since the subject is so controversial among teachers and parents. In Ohio, a bill to develop new science content standards was not successfully passed. Many creationists were upset when they discovered that the first drafts of the standards were filled with evolutionary content, without any allowance for alternative explanations of life’s origins. In the uproar, the state board held a special meeting to investigate the process that the writing team and advisory committee used to draft the science standards (Matthews, Answering Genesis). This is why learning the facts about evolution should be taught at school. By doing this, there would be much less confrontation between teachers, students, and parents. If one has the desire to learn about creationism or any other beliefs of how the world came to be, one should learn it at a place outside of school, such as church or at home.

Creationists say that teaching evolution in school would go against what they believe about the origins of man. But Evolution does not cover the origins of man, but how entire species have changed with time. US public schools should teach evolution as scientific fact because there is fossil evidence, bacterial evidence, and there is evidence hidden inside of the genes in all living things.