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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 12 Dec 2007 11:50 pm |
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In a year full of drama the strangest thing which happened to me was...
But wait, let me tell the story properly. First, the Earth cooled and then the dinosaurs came...
No, no, much later than that. Let me start again.
When I was a child, two stories about the origin of the species struck my imagination powerfully. Like a gong, if you will.
The first was the story of the debate in 1860 between the biologist Thomas Huxley and Bishop William Wilberforce over the claim in Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species that man is descended from apes. The debate is famous for many reasons, and not least because of its climactic exchange: goaded into rudeness by the silky arguments of his opponent, Bishop Wilberforce asked Huxley whether he supposed that he was descended from an ape on his father's side, or his mother's. Huxley replied that he would rather have descended from an ape than from a man who so misused his great talents as to behave in such an ungentlemanly manner.
The second story was that of the "Monkey Trial", or "Scopes Trial", which took place in Tennessee in 1925. It arose when the Tennessee State Legislature passed a law forbidding the teaching of "any theory which denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible" and, specifically, any claim that "man has descended from a lower form of animal". A teacher, John Scopes, was charged with propagating the theory of evolution by teaching science from a textbook which gave credence to Origin of the Species. Two famous lawyers - Clarence Darrow for the defence and three-time Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution - argued the case.
Like the Huxley/Wilberforce debate, the Monkey Trial had its apogee. This point was reached when the judge persistently refused to hear any expert testimony on the accuracy or otherwise of the biblical version of the creation story. A member of the defence team demanded"
"Where, then, are we to find an expert on the Bible who is acceptable to the court?"
At this point, Bryan interjected "I am an expert on the Bible", and to the amazement of all present volunteered to appear as a witness in the case in which he was also leading the prosecution.
Darrow proceeded to question Bryan:
Was Jonah swallowed by a gigantic fish?
Yes, responded Bryan.
How old is the Earth?
5929 years.
And so on. This farcical exchange continued for two hours, at which point the judge ordered the questioning to cease, on the grounds that it was irrelevant. The jury was sent out, and came back nine minutes later. Scopes was found guilty, and fined $100.
Two years later the Supreme Court of Tennessee set this judgment aside, stating that:
"We see nothing to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case."
In 1967 Tennessee repealed the 1925 law altogether, one year before the Supreme Court of the United States found that the law was in fact in breach of the Constitution.
I could cope with this fellow as a relative. A very, very distant relative, you understand.
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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 13 Dec 2007 07:41 am |
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What I remember about these cases as a child is not, of course, the kind of detail I have provided here but the key fact that man is descended from apes. Those chimpanzees and other simians we see in the zoo, scratching their arses, picking fleas off their companions, and flying through the air with the greatest of ease, are our cousins.
Although this proposition may have been shocking to Anglican bishops in the 1860s, and to residents of Tennessee in 1925, I as a small, snotty-nosed child in the 1950s could live with it comfortably enough. So I was some kind of semi-evolved monkey. So what? For more than fifty years I have lived securely in this knowledge, untroubled by its implications.
Until now.
For it has recently occurred to me for the first time that, like the apes, I am in fact descended from something far, far worse: lizards, snakes, alligators, crocodiles and their horrible, slimy ancestors, slithering about in the primaeval ooze.
In a word, reptiles.
And, gentle reader, I share this unpleasant descent with you.
The next time you see a lizard or a skink, will you be able to greet it as a cousin, however remote? Me, I'm having difficulty with the idea.
The thought that I'm descended from something like this really gives me the willies, however...
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