A Century After The Scopes Trial, Censorship Still Thrives In Evolution Debate

This month, America commemorates the 100th anniversary of a landmark cultural event that taught us about the dangers of censorship. July of 1925 witnessed the “Scopes Monkey Trial,” where a Dayton, Tennessee, public school teacher was put on trial for violating a state law that prohibited teaching human evolution.

The teaching of scientific ideas should never be banned, much less criminalized. We like to think of censorship as something from the dark ages of the past, before our modern enlightened era vanquished intellectual intolerance. But 100 years after Scopes, we have what the late Supreme Court Justice Scalia once called “Scopes-in-reverse,” where scientists and scholars face reprisals if they challenge neo-Darwinian evolution.

For about 20 years I’ve been collecting examples of academic speech codes that prevent faculty from discussing scientific alternatives to Darwin. For example:

• Back in 2005, Cornell’s interim president devoted a State of the University Address to denounce “intelligent design (ID),” arguing that it has no place in science classrooms. “The answer is that intelligent design is not valid as science, that is, it has no ability to develop new knowledge through hypothesis testing…”
• Also in 2005, the president of the University of Idaho instituted a campus-wide speech-code, where “evolution” was “the only curriculum that is appropriate” for science classes. This was done in retaliation against biology professor Scott Minnich, who had just testified in favor of intelligent design at the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial — a case which ultimately banned ID from public schools in Dover, PA.
• Jerry Coyne, a University of Chicago evolutionary biologist and atheist blogger, once wrote that “adherence to ID…should be absolute grounds for not hiring a science professor.” In 2013, Coyne attacked Eric Hedin, a physics professor at Ball State University (BSU), for briefly teaching about ID in an honors seminar. BSU’s president then caved, and issued a speech code declaring that “intelligent design is not appropriate content for science courses.”
• In 2020, two Norwegian scientists published a paper in Journal of Theoretical Biology citing the work of leading ID theorists and arguing for “a Design Science.” Facing pressure, the journal’s editors then issued a disclaimer addressing no substantive arguments in the paper but implementing another speech code, announcing: “intelligent design is not in any way a suitable topic for the Journal of Theoretical Biology.”

Perhaps the most ironic recent example of evolutionary censorship will take place this month at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, not far down the road from Dayton, as it celebrates a “Scopes ‘Monkey’ Trial Centennial Symposium.” Co-organized by Vanderbilt’s Evolutionary Studies Institute and the National Center for Science Education, the symposium includes many credible speakers from science, philosophy, and law. Intelligent design is on the schedule, and there is an entire session devoted to the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. Yet exactly zero pro-ID scientists or scholars are slated for the symposium.

In February, and again in May, I emailed the organizers of the Scopes Symposium, offering to provide names of credible pro-ID scientists who would be open to participating in their event. No one even replied.

The irony is palpable: a symposium that is supposed to be remembering the dangers of censorship regarding evolution is itself practicing censorship regarding evolution.

An even worse irony is that Vanderbilt’s website hosts an official “Dialogue Vanderbilt” / “Commitment to Free Expression” page which boasts of the university’s supposed commitment to “bringing together people of differing viewpoints for a common purpose.” The page continues:

Transformative education, pathbreaking research and the timeless search for truth all require a wide variety of viewpoints, the uninhibited exchange of ideas, the persistent challenging of conventional wisdom, and courageous and vigorous debate.

A university that dutifully transmits canonical knowledge, but is not at the same time alive with diverse perspectives, probing critique and the practice of query and argument, is a university in name only.

The page then lauds the importance of “institutional neutrality,” quoting former Vanderbilt Chancellor Alexander Heard stating: “A university’s obligation is not to protect students from ideas, but rather to expose them to ideas, and to help make them capable of handling and, hopefully, having ideas.”

The one-sided Scopes Symposium completely rejects these ideals, aiming to “protect” students from non-Darwinian viewpoints — directly violating the Chancellor Heard’s warning. By Vanderbilt’s own standards, apparently it is “a university in name only.”

A century ago, religious fundamentalists excluded evolution from education. Yet today, evolution advocates do the same to intelligent design. Vanderbilt’s Scopes symposium is just the latest reminder that in our modern era of “Scopes-in-reverse,” the power dynamic has shifted 180 degrees, but the problem of censorship still remains.

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Casey Luskin holds a PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg and a law degree from the University of San Diego. He is Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute and co-author of the book “Science and Human Origins.”

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.