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Chicago Tribune
13-07-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Scopes monkey trial, broadcast by WGN radio, held nation in thrall 100 years ago
On July 11, 1925, Mother Nature almost robbed WGN of its place of honor at the intersection of radio and legal history. A electrical storm destroyed telephone poles and wires over a wide area of southern Ohio. The Chicago Tribune, WGN's owner, was using those wires as part of a link between its broadcast facility atop the Drake Hotel in Chicago and a courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee. On trial in that courtroom was John Scopes, a high school teacher, charged with violating Tennessee's Butler Law. It prohibited public schools from teaching 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.' Strictly speaking, neither Darwin's theory of evolution nor the Book of Genesis were on trial. But that subtlety was lost in the script that George W. Rappleyea wrote for the controversy. The manager of a Dayton industrial plant, Rappleyea read an article in the Chattanooga Times about the American Civil Liberties Union wanting to challenge the Butler Law. Rappleyea thought that hosting a big lawsuit could be a shot in the arm for Dayton, which was going through tough times. So he met with Walter White, the superintendent of the county's schools, at the soda fountain in Robinson's Drug Store. They sent a boy who found Scopes on a tennis court, and the young biology teacher proved sympathetic to Rappleyea's proposal. He arranged for Scopes to be arrested. This instantly made Scopes famous. He was awarded a 'degree of doctor of universal religion' by the Liberal Church of Denver, which practiced religious toleration. The American Federation of Teachers endorsed Scopes' fight 'in behalf of freedom of education.' Scopes' sister had a rockier road. Lela Scopes was turned down for a teaching position in Paducah, Kentucky, for refusing to denounce her brother's teaching of evolutionism, but received several other offers and took the one from Winnetka, north of Chicago. Rappleyea was arrested three times in one week for speeding and parking. The town commissioners learning that reporters were planning to be in court, refused to hear the case, 'until all this gang is gone.' As a public relations campaign, Rappleyea's maneuvers were wildly successful. When word got out about what was afoot in Dayton, William Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist leader and three times the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, volunteered to be the prosecutor. Clarence Darrow, a famed Chicago attorney, headed Scopes' team. Dubbed the champion of lost causes, he abhorred both religious and anti-religious dogma. He refused the title of atheist because it implies certainty that God doesn't exist. With that lineup of orators, what quickly became known as the Scopes 'monkey trial' sold papers far and wide. On its opening day, the Chicago Tribune Press Service distributed a story about Dr. Serge Voronoff, a Parisian surgeon, with an anti-aging therapy. He grafted monkeys' testicle tissue onto men. The reporter asked if that could have a reverse Darwinian effect: transforming humans into simians. 'I told you, I don't feel like talking monkeys today,' he replied. In Dayton, Main Street took on a carnival atmosphere. Rival trainers brought chimpanzees to town — including a celebrated simian named Joe Mendi, who wore a plaid suit and a fedora hat. Vendors hawked toy monkeys and Bibles. Shop windows had monkey-theme displays. Over 200 reporters descended on Dayton. WGN's engineer visited it in May. He and Judge John Raulston negotiated the ground rules for broadcasting the trial. All rooms in local homes were rented. 'Graysville sanitarium, four miles from town will be converted into a hotel, and Evansville, five miles away, is being surveyed for rooms,' the Tribune noted. 'Bus service to those towns and to Chattanooga, 29 miles away, relieved the rooming problem to some extent.' Faculty at the University of Chicago and other schools considered refusing to recognize 'degrees and credits from colleges in states where the law prohibits scientific freedom,' the Tribune reported. R.H. Newman, dean of science, and Charles Judd, dean of education at U. of C., and Fay Cooper Cole, an anthropologist at the Field Museum, set out for Dayton as expert witnesses for Scopes' defense. Wilbur Nelson, Tennessee's state geologist, and Kirtley Mather, chairman of Harvard University's geology department, would testify that the Earth's rock formations were far older than the biblical account of the universe's creation. None took the witness stand. The judge ruled that evolution's validity was irrelevant. The issue was only whether Scopes taught the theory. A Tribune editorial noted that in Bible Belt school districts, opinion on many matters scientific and otherwise wasn't monolithic, even on the shape of the Earth. A school superintendent was quoted as saying, 'Where they like it round we teach it round, and where they like it flat we teach it flat.' On a Sunday during the trial, William Jennings Bryan preached a fire-and-brimstone sermon to an enormous crowd on the courthouse lawn. 'Today we need Jesus more than ever,' he said. 'He was unlettered and had no school advantages. No scholar dares add a word to his moral code.' The next day, the trial resumed in a courtroom that WGN's engineer had rearranged. Instead of sitting on a high bench, the judge was face-to-face with the jury. The witness stand was in the foreground, and the lawyers were on either side, facing microphones. The broadcast crew also wired up loudspeakers outside the courthouse. Townspeople could follow the trial, and WGN could air their reactions. Still, so many spectators showed up to watch live that Judge John Raulston feared the floor would collapse and, for reasons that also included the stifling heat of July in a Southern state, moved the proceedings to the courthouse lawn on July 20. Raulston at one point cited Darrow for contempt, saying he'd insulted the court at its session the previous Friday. 'Men may become prominent but should never feel themselves superior to the law or to justice,' the judge said. Darrow apologized, but followed suit for the rest of the trial. He jumped to his feet when a minister offered a prayer on Tuesday. The judge said he'd asked the town's ministerial association to choose a clergyman, with no denominational skin in the game. Darrow said that didn't matter. He didn't want anybody saying any prayer. That didn't sit well with the God-fearing folk of Dayton. 'If Mr. Darrow ever had a chance to have his client acquitted, he lost it in that minute,' the Tribune's correspondent wrote. 'He burned his ships and started into an unknown wilderness for the shining city of his dreams.' Wednesday produced the confrontation everyone had been waiting for. Darrow called Bryan as a witness for the defense and grilled him on a number of biblical stories. He subtly noted the difficulty Adam and Eve's son Cain might have in finding a mate. 'Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?' Darrow asked. 'No sir, I leave the agnostics to hunt for her,' Bryan replied. At the end of that Q&A, the audience applauded and embraced their hero. Darrow asked the jury to find Scopes guilty so the case could be appealed. The jury obliged, and he was fined $100. He did not pay it, and the conviction was eventually set aside by the Tennessee Supreme Court on a technicality. The outcome being predictable, WGN's crew bid goodbye to Toledo, Ohio, before the verdict. Quin Ryan, the 'Voice of WGN,' wrote about his time in Dayton covering the trial in his Tribune column, 'Inside the Loud Speaker.' He thanked some by name, like Robinson the druggist, for a place to sleep. He wrote that he dined in the mayor's home. 'The town charms us by its graciousness, and not because we are its press agents, but its guests,' Ryan said. 'A confidence man would have his heart broken in 10 minutes.'
Deccan Herald
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Deccan Herald
After four decades, Oliver brings a bold, reimagined musical to Bengaluru
The sung-through musical, full of catchy songs, and based on the character of Joseph from the Bible's 'Book of Genesis', is a timeless story of family, mistakes and forgiveness that continues to resonate.
National Geographic
30-06-2025
- General
- National Geographic
Where is Noah's Ark? Here's why it will never be found
A painting of Noah's Ark. The Old Testament tale has not only inspired countless generations of artists, but also more than a century of 'scientific' attempts to locate remains of the fabled vessel. Painting by Simon de Myle via Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty For more than a century, people have sought the precise location of Noah's Ark. Archaeologists say it's a fool's errand. Noah's Ark is among the best known and most captivating of all Old Testament stories. After creating humans, God became so displeased with them that he struck Earth with an all-encompassing flood to wipe them out. But there was one noteworthy (and seaworthy) exception: the biblical patriarch and his family. Accompanied by pairs of each of the planet's animals, all rode out the deluge in an enormous wooden vessel. For people who accept the religious text as a historically accurate account of actual events, the hunt for archaeological evidence of the Ark is equally captivating. It's inspired some intrepid faithful to comb the slopes of Mount Ararat and other sites in eastern Turkey for traces of the wooden vessel among the rock formations. In 1876, for example, British attorney and politician James Bryce climbed the mountain, where biblical accounts say the Ark came to rest. There he claimed a piece of wood that 'suits all the requirements of the case' was in fact a piece of the vessel. More modern 'discoveries' exclaiming 'Noah's Ark found' take place on a regular basis. Most recently, a group called Noah's Ark Scans, led by Andrew Jones, claims that soil samples taken from the Durupinar site in eastern Turkey contains organic matter that differs from the surrounding area. However, many argue the boat-shaped site is a natural geological formation. A shepherd tends his flock near Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. Many people have looked for evidence of the Ark on the mountain's slopes, despite the fact that the Book of Genesis describes the Ark as coming to rest in a yet-unidentified range of mountains in western Asia. Photograph by John Stanmeyer, Nat Geo Image Colllection Such searches for the Ark site draw everything from exasperation to disdain from academic archaeologists and biblical scholars. 'No legitimate archaeologist does this,' says National Geographic Explorer Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, of modern searches for evidence of Noah. 'Archaeology is not treasure hunting,' she adds. 'It's not about finding a specific object. It's a science where we come up with research questions that we hope to answer by excavation.' (Which animals were on Noah's Ark? Here are a few theories.) Was the Old Testament flood fact or fiction? Stories of destructive floods and those who survive them predate the Hebrew Bible, the oldest parts of which are thought to have been written in the 8th century B.C. Legends about a deluge that destroys civilization at the behest of a supernatural deity appear in multiple Mesopotamian texts. They run the gamut, from the Epic of Gilgamesh written around the early second millennium B.C. to a recently deciphered Babylonian cuneiform tablet from about 1750 B.C. describing how the ark was built. Flood and ark accounts very similar to that of the Old Testament predate biblical accounts. One from the early second millennium B.C. Epic of Gilgamesh, shown in this Assyrian depiction, was recorded more than a thousand years before the Bible. Photograph by CM Dixon, Print Collector/Getty Could these flood myths be based in fact? 'There does seem to be geological evidence that there was a major flood in the Black Sea region about 7,500 years ago,' says National Geographic Explorer Eric Cline, an archaeologist at George Washington University. But scientists disagree on the extent of that event, just as historians of the era differ on whether real life inspired writings about a deluge. It seems likelier that floods were simply experienced in different places and at different times—and that those events naturally made their way into the world's oral and written lore, like the Genesis flood narrative. (What do the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal about the origins of Christianity?) Where is Noah's Ark? It's complicated. Scholars differ on the precise location of Noah's Ark according to the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Genesis, the ark came to rest 'upon the mountains of Ararat' located in the ancient kingdom of Urartu, an area that now includes Armenia and parts of eastern Turkey and Iran—not the single, iconic peak that bears its name today. 'There's no way we can determine where exactly in the ancient Near East it occurred,' says Magness. Both Cline and Magness add that even if artifacts from the Ark have been or will be found, they could never be conclusively connected to historical events. 'We have no way of placing Noah, if he really existed, and the flood, if there really was one, in time and space,' says Magness. 'The only way you could determine that would be if you had an authentic ancient inscription.' Even then, she points out, such an inscription could refer to another Noah or another flood. That hasn't stopped the proliferation of pseudoarchaeology that upholds the Bible as literal truth. The fruitless searches are often aligned with adherents of 'young-earth creationism,' the belief that, despite evidence to the contrary, Earth is only thousands of years old. (Inside the search for the oldest pieces of Earth) Same evidence, very different conclusions Such groups use secular archaeological evidence to bolster their literal interpretation of Scripture—and simply disregard or attempt to disprove evidence to the contrary. But they don't all share the same tactics. Answers In Genesis, a self-described apologetics ministry that focuses on scientific issues and even runs a Noah's Ark-themed amusement park in Kentucky, acknowledges the ubiquity of flood-related myths beyond the Old Testament story of Noah, and even concedes that the Ark could never be found. 'We do not expect the Ark to have survived and been available to find after 4,350 years,' says Andrew A. Snelling, a geologist and Director of Research for Answers In Genesis who has spent decades attempting to prove Earth's youth. Snelling differs from archaeologists, however, about why the vessel's remains will never be found. 'With no mature trees available for Noah and his family to build shelters after they got off the Ark, there is every reason to expect they dismantled the Ark (which they didn't need anymore) to salvage timber from it,' he says. While the ministry does not rule out the potential of one day finding the Ark, Snelling rues what he calls 'questionable claims' by Ark-seekers that 'blunt the potential impact of a true discovery.' For Magness, who currently leads excavations at a late-Roman synagogue in Galilee. the search for Noah's Ark not only confuses the public, but diminishes excitement about actual archaeological finds, even ones that offer support for parts of the Bible, such as the existence of the House of David. Cline says when he was younger, he attempted to rebut the purported biblical evidence that enchants the public year after year. Eventually, he quit. Now he focuses on both his expeditions and translating his research for those willing to accept the results of the scientific process. 'People are gonna believe what they want to believe,' he sighs. That won't change any time soon. For now, he's focused on unearthing an 18th-century B.C. Canaanite palace at Tel Kabri in what is now northern Israel. 'For us, [the floor] is incredibly important, because it shows international relations and contacts from almost 4,000 years ago,' he says. 'It's not Noah's Ark, but it's a painted floor,' the archaeologist says, 'which is good enough for me.' This article originally published on November 22, 2022. It was updated on June 30, 2025.
Los Angeles Times
25-05-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
A century after Scopes trial, creationism persists. One proponent in Kentucky built a giant ark
WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. — As a colossal manifestation of the biblical Noah's Ark rises incongruously from the countryside of northern Kentucky, Ken Ham gives the presentation he's often repeated. The ark stretches 1½ football fields long — 'the biggest free-standing timber-frame structure in the world,' Ham says. It holds three massive decks with wooden cages, food storage urns, life-size animal models and other exhibits. It's all designed to try to persuade visitors that the biblical story was literally true — that an ancient Noah really could have built such a sophisticated ship. That Noah and a handful of family members really could have sustained thousands of animals for months, floating above a global flood that drowned everyone else in the wicked world. 'That's what we wanted to do through many of the exhibits, to show the feasibility of the ark,' says Ham, the organizer behind the Ark Encounter theme park and related attractions. And with that, he furthers his goal to assert that the entire Book of Genesis should be interpreted as written — that humans were created by God's fiat on the sixth day of creation on an Earth that is only 6,000 years old. All this defies the overwhelming consensus of modern scientists — that the Earth developed over billions of years in 'deep time' and that humans and other living things evolved over millions of years from earlier species. But Ham wants to succeed where he believes William Jennings Bryan failed. Bryan — a populist secretary of State, congressman, three-time presidential hopeful and fundamentalist champion — helped the prosecution in the famous Scopes monkey trial, which took place 100 years ago this July in Dayton, Tenn. Bryan's side won in court — gaining the conviction of public schoolteacher John Scopes for violating state law against teaching human evolution. But Bryan was widely seen as suffering a humiliating defeat in public opinion, with his sputtering attempts to explain the Bible's fanciful miracles and enigmas. For Ham, Bryan's problem was not that he defended the Bible. It's that he didn't defend it well enough, interpreting parts of it metaphorically rather than literally. 'It showed people around the world that Christians don't really believe the Bible — they can't answer questions to defend the Christian faith,' Ham says. 'We want you to know that we've got answers,' Ham adds, speaking in the accent of his native Australia. Ham is founder and chief executive of Answers in Genesis, which opened the Ark Encounter in 2016. The Christian theme park includes a zoo, zip lines and other attractions surrounding the ark. Nearly a decade earlier, Answers in Genesis opened a Creation Museum in nearby Petersburg, Ky., where exhibits similarly try to make the case for a literal interpretation of the biblical creation narrative. Visitors are greeted with a diorama depicting children and dinosaurs interacting peacefully in the Garden of Eden. The group also produces books, podcasts, videos and homeschooling curricula. 'The main message of both attractions is basically this: The history in the Bible is true,' Ham says. 'That's why the message of the Gospel based on that history is true.' If Ham is the most prominent torchbearer for creationism today, he's hardly alone. Polls generally show that somewhere between 1 in 6 and 1 in 3 Americans hold beliefs consistent with young-Earth creationism, depending on how the question is asked. A 2024 Gallup poll found that 37% of U.S. adults agreed that 'God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.' That percentage is down a little, but not dramatically, from its mid-40s level between the 1980s and 2012. Rates are higher among religious and politically conservative respondents. 'Scopes lost, but the public sense was that the fundamentalists lost' and were dwindling away, says William Vance Trollinger Jr., a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio. But the reach of Answers in Genesis demonstrates that 'a significant subset of Americans hold to young-Earth creationism,' says Trollinger, co-author with his wife, English professor Susan Trollinger, of the 2016 book 'Righting America at the Creation Museum.' Leading science organizations say it's crucial to teach evolution and old-Earth geology. Evolution is 'one of the most securely established of scientific facts,' says the National Academy of Sciences. The Geological Society of America states: 'Evolution and the directly related concept of deep time are essential parts of science curricula.' The issue has been repeatedly legislated and litigated since the Scopes trial. Tennessee repealed its anti-evolution law in 1967. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that a similar Arkansas law was an unconstitutional promotion of religion, and in 1987 it overturned a Louisiana law requiring that creationism be taught alongside evolution. A federal court in 2005 similarly forbade a Pennsylvania school district to present 'intelligent design,' a different approach to creationism that argues life is too complex to have evolved by chance. Some lawmakers have recently revived the issue. The North Dakota Legislature this year debated a bill that would have allowed public school teaching on intelligent design. A new West Virginia law vaguely allows teachers to answer student questions about 'scientific theories of how the universe and/or life came to exist.' The Scopes trial set a template for today's culture-war battles, with efforts to expand vouchers for attendees of private schools, including Christian ones teaching creationism; and to introduce Bible-infused lessons and Ten Commandments displays in public schools. Such efforts alarm science educators such as Bill Nye, the television 'Science Guy,' whose 2014 debate with Ham was billed as 'Scopes II' and has generated millions of video views online. 'What you get out of religion, as I understand it, is this wonderful sense of community,' Nye says. 'Community is very much part of the human experience. But the Earth is not 4,000 years old. To teach that idea to children with any backing — be it religious or these remarkable ideas that humans are not related to, for example, chimpanzees or bonobos — is breathtaking. It's silly. And so we fight this fight.' Nye notes that the evidence is overwhelming, ranging from fossil layers to the distribution of species. 'There are trees older than Mr. Ham thinks the world is,' he adds. One weekday in March, visitors milled about the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, which draw an estimated 1.5 million visits per year (including duplicate visits). 'We are church-going, Bible-believing Christians,' says Louise van Niekerk of Ontario, Canada, who traveled with her family to the Creation Museum. She's concerned that her four children are faced with a public school curriculum permeated with evolution. The Creation Museum, Van Niekerk says, 'is encouraging a robust alternate worldview from what they're being taught.' Many religious groups accommodate evolution, though. Gallup's survey found that among Americans who believe in evolution, more say it happened with God's guidance (34%) than without it (24%). In the Roman Catholic Church, popes have shown openness to evolution while insisting that the human soul is a divine creation. Many liberal Protestants and even some evangelicals have accepted at least parts of evolutionary theory. But among many evangelicals, creationist belief is strong. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest evangelical body, has promoted creationist beliefs in its publications. The Assemblies of God asserts that Adam and Eve were historical people. Some evangelical schools, such as Bryan's namesake college in Tennessee, affirm creationist beliefs in their doctrinal statements. Just as Ham says the creation story is important to defend a larger truth about the Christian Gospel, critics say more is at stake than just the human origin story. The Trollingers wrote that the Answers in Genesis enterprise is an 'arsenal in the culture war.' They say it aligns with Christian nationalism, promoting conservative views in theology, family and gender roles, and casting doubt on other areas of scientific consensus, such as human-made climate change. Nye, too, says the message fits into a more general and ominous anti-science movement. 'Nobody is talking about climate change right now,' he laments. Exhibits promote a 'vengeful and violent' God, says Susan Trollinger, noting the cross on the ark's large door, which analogizes that just as the wicked perished in the flood, those without Christ face eternal hellfire. And there are more parallels to 1925. Bryan had declaimed, 'How can teachers tell students that they came from monkeys and not expect them to act like monkeys?' The Creation Museum, which depicts violence, drugs and other social ills as resulting from belief in evolution, is 'Bryan's social message on steroids,' wrote Edward Larson in a 2020 afterword to 'Summer for the Gods,' a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Scopes trial. The protests that initially greeted the museum and ark projects, from secularist groups who considered them embarrassments to Kentucky, have ebbed. When the state initially denied a tourism tax rebate for the Ark Encounter because of its religious nature, a federal court overturned that ruling. Representing Ham's group was a Louisiana lawyer named Mike Johnson — now speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. And Ham's massive ministry charges forward. Expansion is next, with Answers in Genesis attractions planned for Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and Branson, Mo. — tourist hubs offering more opportunities to promote creationism to the masses. Todd Bigelow, visiting the Ark Encounter from Mesa, Ariz., says he believes that the exhibit vividly evoked the safety that Noah and his family must have felt. It helped him appreciate 'the opportunities God gives us to live the life we have, and hopefully make good choices and repent when we need to,' he says. 'I think,' Bigelow adds, 'God and science can go hand in hand.' Smith writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Dylan Lovan contributed to this report.
San Francisco Chronicle
20-05-2025
- Science
- San Francisco Chronicle
With a massive ark and museum, he spreads creationism a century after Scopes trial. He's not alone
WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. (AP) — As the colossal replica of the biblical Noah's Ark rises incongruously from the countryside of northern Kentucky, Ken Ham gives the presentation he's often repeated. The ark stretches one and a half football fields long — 'the biggest freestanding timber-frame structure in the world,' Ham says. It holds three massive decks with wooden cages, food-storage urns, life-size animal models and other exhibits. It's all designed to argue that the biblical story was literally true — that an ancient Noah really could have built such a sophisticated ship. That Noah and a handful of family members really could have sustained thousands of animals for months, floating above a global flood that drowned everyone else in the wicked world. 'That's what we wanted to do through many of the exhibits, to show the feasibility of the ark,' says Ham, the organizer behind the Ark Encounter theme park and related attractions. And with that, he furthers his goal to assert the entire biblical Book of Genesis should be interpreted as written — that humans were created by God's fiat on the sixth day of creation on an Earth that is only 6,000 years old. All this defies the overwhelming consensus of modern scientists — that the Earth developed over billions of years in 'deep time' and that humans and other living things evolved over millions of years from earlier species. But Ham wants to succeed where he believes William Jennings Bryan failed. Bryan, a populist politician and fundamentalist champion, helped the prosecution in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, which took place 100 years ago this July in Dayton, Tennessee. Bryan's side won in court — gaining the conviction of public schoolteacher John Scopes for violating state law against teaching human evolution. But Bryan was widely seen as suffering a humiliating defeat in public opinion, with his sputtering attempts to explain the Bible's spectacular miracles and enigmas. The expert witness' infamous missteps For Ham, Bryan's problem was not that he defended the Bible. It's that he didn't defend it well enough, interpreting parts of it metaphorically rather than literally. 'It showed people around the world that Christians don't really believe the Bible — they can't answer questions to defend the Christian faith,' Ham says. 'We want you to know that we've got answers,' Ham adds, speaking in the accent of his native Australia. Ham is founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis, which opened the Ark Encounter in 2016. The Christian theme park includes a zoo, zip lines and other attractions surrounding the ark. Nearly a decade earlier, Answers in Genesis opened a Creation Museum in nearby Petersburg, Kentucky, where exhibits similarly argue for a literal interpretation of the biblical creation narrative. Visitors are greeted with a diorama depicting children and dinosaurs interacting peacefully in the Garden of Eden. The group also produces books, podcasts, videos and homeschooling curricula. 'The main message of both attractions is basically this: The history in the Bible is true," Ham says. 'That's why the message of the Gospel based on that history is true.' Creationist belief still common If Ham is the most prominent torchbearer for creationism today, he's hardly alone. Polls generally show that somewhere between 1 in 6 and 1 in 3 Americans hold beliefs consistent with young-Earth creationism, depending on how the question is asked. A 2024 Gallup poll found that 37% of U.S. adults agreed 'God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.' That percentage is down a little, but not dramatically, from its mid-40s level between the 1980s and 2012. Rates are higher among religious and politically conservative respondents. 'Scopes lost, but the public sense was that the fundamentalists lost' and were dwindling away, says William Vance Trollinger Jr., a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio. But the reach of Answers in Genesis demonstrates that 'a significant subset of Americans hold to young-Earth creationism,' says Trollinger, co-author with his wife, English professor Susan Trollinger, of the 2016 book 'Righting America at the Creation Museum.' Leading science organizations say it's crucial to teach evolution and old-Earth geology. Evolution is 'one of the most securely established of scientific facts,' says the National Academy of Sciences. The Geological Society of America similarly states: 'Evolution and the directly related concept of deep time are essential parts of science curricula.' The issue has been repeatedly legislated and litigated since the Scopes trial. Tennessee repealed its anti-evolution law in 1967. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that a similar Arkansas law was an unconstitutional promotion of religion, and in 1987 it overturned a Louisiana law requiring that creationism be taught alongside evolution. A 2005 federal court similarly forbade a Pennsylvania school district from presenting 'intelligent design,' a different approach to creationism that argues life is too complex to have evolved by chance. Science educators alarmed Some lawmakers have recently revived the issue. North Dakota's Senate this year defeated a bill that would have allowed public school teaching on intelligent design. A new West Virginia law vaguely allows teachers to answer student questions about 'scientific theories of how the universe and/or life came to exist.' The Scopes trial set a template for today's culture-war battles, with efforts to expand vouchers for attendees of private schools, including Christian ones teaching creationism, and to introduce Bible-infused lessons and Ten Commandments displays in public schools. Such efforts alarm science educators like Bill Nye, the television 'Science Guy,' whose 2014 debate with Ham was billed as 'Scopes II' and has generated millions of video views online. 'What you get out of religion, as I understand it, is this wonderful sense of community,' Nye says. 'Community is very much part of the human experience. But the Earth is not 4,000 years old. To teach that idea to children with any backing — be it religious or these remarkable ideas that humans are not related to, for example, chimpanzees or bonobos — is breathtaking. It's silly. And so we fight this fight.' Nye says evidence is overwhelming, ranging from fossils layers to the distribution of species. 'There are trees older than Mr. Ham thinks the world is,' he adds. One weekday in March, visitors milled about the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, which draw an estimated 1.5 million visits per year (including duplicate visits). 'We are churchgoing, Bible-believing Christians,' says Louise van Niekerk of Ontario, Canada, who traveled with her family to the Creation Museum. She's concerned that her four children are faced with a public-school curriculum permeated with evolution. The Creation Museum, van Niekerk says, 'is encouraging a robust alternate worldview from what they're being taught,' she says. Many religious groups accommodate evolution, though. Gallup's survey found that of Americans who believe in evolution, more say it happened with God's guidance (34%) than without it (24%). Catholic popes have shown openness to evolution while insisting the human soul is a divine creation. Many liberal Protestants and even some evangelicals have accepted at least parts of evolutionary theory. But among many evangelicals, creationist belief is strong. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest evangelical body, has promoted creationist beliefs in its publications. The Assemblies of God asserts that Adam and Eve were historical people. Some evangelical schools, such as Bryan's namesake college in Tennessee, affirm creationist beliefs in their doctrinal statements. There's a larger issue here, critics say Just as Ham says the creation story is important to defend a larger truth about the Christian Gospel, critics say more is at stake than just the human origin story. The Trollingers wrote that the Answers in Genesis enterprise is an 'arsenal in the culture war.' They say it aligns with Christian nationalism, promoting conservative views in theology, family and gender roles, and casting doubt on other areas of scientific consensus, such as human-made climate change. Nye, too, says the message fits into a more general and ominous anti-science movement. 'Nobody is talking about climate change right now,' he laments. Exhibits promote a 'vengeful and violent' God, says Susan Trollinger, noting the cross on the ark's large door, which analogizes that just as the wicked perished in the flood, those without Christ face eternal hellfire. And there are more parallels to 1925. Bryan had declaimed, 'How can teachers tell students that they came from monkeys and not expect them to act like monkeys?' The Creation Museum, which depicts violence, drugs and other social ills as resulting from belief in evolution, is 'Bryan's social message on steroids,' wrote Edward Larson in a 2020 afterword to 'Summer for the Gods,' a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Scopes trial. More attractions are planned The protests that initially greeted the museum and ark projects, from secularist groups who considered them embarrassments to Kentucky, have ebbed. When the state initially denied a tourism tax rebate for the Ark Encounter because of its religious nature, a federal court overturned that ruling. Representing Ham's group was a Louisiana lawyer named Mike Johnson — now speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite those blips, Ham's massive ministry charges forward. Expansion is next, with AIG attractions planned for Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri — both tourist hubs offering more opportunities to promote creationism to the masses. Todd Bigelow, visiting the Ark Encounter from Mesa, Arizona, says the exhibit vividly evoked the safety that Noah and his family must have felt. It helped him appreciate 'the opportunities God gives us to live the life we have, and hopefully make good choices and repent when we need to,' he says. 'I think,' Bigelow adds, 'God and science can go hand in hand.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
