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Thesis ID: CBB001560659

Losing the Word: The Scopes Trial, Biology Textbooks and the Evolution of Biblical Literalism (2007)

Richards, Robert John
University of Chicago
Johns, Adrian
Publication date: 2007
Language: English

Publication Date: 2007
Edition Details: Advisor: Johns, Adrian; Robert J. Richards
Physical Details: 327 pp.

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Science and religion Biology Science education and teaching Evolution Textbooks Controversies and disputes Science and politics Primary and secondary education 20th century, early United States

The dissertation examines how trends in textbook publishing and regulation, biology pedagogy, and education reform came to intersect with the rhetoric of science-religion conflict that led to controversies over teaching evolution in American public schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Concerns over monopoly and corruption led Southern and Western states to regulate textbook adoption practices during this period. Although not initially concerned with control of content, textbook sales practices that were not oriented towards statewide uniformity compelled state boards to make content- oriented decisions. Biology curricula, developed in the 1910's, synthesizing botany and zoology, and explicitly combining core principles of life sciences with the application of scientific knowledge to social problems. Textbook publishers promoted new "civic biology" textbooks for urban schools, while issuing more traditional books for rural schools. This strategy conflicted with statewide adoption processes. This coincided with efforts to expand compulsory public high school education into the rural South. Coupled with state-level textbook uniformity and the urban/industrial focus of the adopted biology textbooks, many Southern agrarians perceived education reforms as a threat to their society. The antievolution law was part of a response to these concerns over cultural identity. The antievolution movement culminated in the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee. As a result of this trial, and the presence of public figures such as Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, concerns over education and local culture were dwarfed by the rhetoric of science-religion conflict that was used to give moral valence to the trial. In effect, claims of a science- religion conflict became self-fulfilling. The trial changed religious objections to evolution, and highlighted contrasting views of Biblical "literalism." The idea of literalism as a profession of faith in literal inspiration was conflated with that of literalism as a reading practice or mode of interpretation. The "literalist" revision of biology textbooks after the trial, their acceptance in the South, and other cultural responses to the trial suggest that literalism came to be accepted as a widespread reading practice--not only for the Bible--but for a wide array of authoritative texts.

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Description “Examines how trends in textbook publishing and regulation, biology pedagogy, and education reform came to intersect with the rhetoric of science-religion conflict that led to controversies over teaching evolution in American public schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” (from the abstract) Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 68/05 (2007). Pub. no. AAT 3262301.

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