Source+Five

www.go-evolution.org/

1** The publication of On the Origin of Speciesbegan a debate that has not yet ended. Many people, including many religious believers, welcomed Darwin’s insights as an advance in knowledge of the natural world. Others were deeply disturbed by two issues Darwin’s theory raised.**

2 **Evolutionism implies that human beings arrived at their present form through the natural process of evolution rather than by a divine plan. **

3 **Darwin addressed this point directly in a later book, The Descent of Man(1871), by arguing that humans, apes, and monkeys were closely related and had descended from the same ancestors.**

4 **Like Darwin’s broad concept of evolution, his view of human origins has been accepted and confirmed by modern scientists, although the details of human evolution—such as when and where modern humans first arose—remain very much open to debate.**

5 **CREATIONISM: cre*a*tion*ism \-shə-ˌni-zəm\ //n// (1880) : a doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by God out of nothing and usu. in the way described in Genesis compare evolution 4b — cre*a*tion*ist \-shə-nist\ //n or adj//**


 * 6 Those who dispute the theory of evolution generally favor an alternate explanation of the origin of life, known as creationism.**

7 **This idea holds that all species were created by God in their present form.**

8** Most creationists are fundamentalists.**

9 **Many of them argue, based on passages in the Bible, that the earth’s age can be measured in thousands of years, not in billions of years as scientists generally claim.**


 * 10 One version of creationism, called creation science or the intelligent design theory, attempts to justify the idea of creationism on scientific grounds **

11 **However, most scientists consider the claims of this group to be inconsistent with scientific evidence.**

12 **The state of Tennessee had passed a law against teaching evolution in public schools, and a teacher named John Scopes had broken that law. **

13 **Two prominent individuals helped attract attention to the case. William Jennings Bryan, a brilliant speechmaker, failed presidential candidate, and fundamentalist, joined the prosecution. Clarence Darrow, a clever and successful criminal lawyer, defended Scopes. Scopes was found guilty of breaking the law and fined a hundred dollars, but many evolutionists considered the case a victory because Darrow exposed the weakness of Bryan’s creationist arguments on the witness stand.**

14** Tennessee’s antievolution law remained in place until 1967.**

15 **The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that no state could pass a law against teaching evolution.**