Theses on Johnson: Some Thoughts on the Design V. Evolution Controversy

A spectre is haunting biology in America the spectre of Creationism. We scientists believed that this religious intruder had been fatally wounded in the aftermath of the Scopes trial. Sharing the ’fifties prestige of science with Our Friend, the Atom, the biology profession had, so we thought, nailed its coffin shut. But now, risen, garbed in the raiment of Intelligent Design, this poltergeist is banging about the country. This, despite our attempts to exorcize it with incantory applications of the religion clause of the First Amendment. Myself an orthodox Darwinian, I enthusiastically profess the Evolutionists’ Creed. As with others of my secular background, I had taken my picture of this struggle from the movie Inherit the Wind. Between the decent but pathetic Bryan figure and the cynical nastiness of the Mencken stand-in, Spencer Tracy seemed to represent a quiet and sensible balance between science and religion (Darrow would have been amused).