Tracking How Evolution Theory Came to Be

DATE October 4, 2005 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Edward J. Larson discusses the continuing debate over
science and religion
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Edward J. Larson, has written extensively about evolution and the
continuing debate over science and religion. He won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize
for history for his book about the Scopes trial called "Summer for the Gods."
His latest book is called "Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific
Theory." Larson is a professor of science history and science law at the
University of Georgia.

The teaching of evolution remains controversial in some parts of the country.
A court case now under way in Dover, Pennsylvania, is challenging a recent
school board decision mandating that teachers who teach evolution also read a
four-paragraph statement that says, `Evolution is a theory, not a fact.' The
statement offers intelligent design as an alternative explanation of the
origin of life. I spoke with Edward J. Larson about some of the challenges
over the decades that have been mounted to the teaching of evolution.

Let's talk a little bit about the climate that led to the Scopes trial. And
you described how in 1925, Billy Sunday, who was then the nation's best-known
Protestant evangelist, did a series of revival meetings in Tennessee. And
among the things he said was this: `Many a minister today has lost his
vision. He's standing up in the pulpit preaching tommyrot to the people; that
we came from protoplasm instead of being born of God Almighty, instead of being
created of the Lord. I don't believe the old bastard theory of evolution. I
believe I am just as God made me.'

Now these revival meetings that he was leading in Tennessee coincided with the
Tennessee state Senate considering legislation banning public schools from
teaching human evolution. And this legislation was rejected, but after Billy
Sunday attracted such big crowds, the Senate reversed itself. So this led to
the nation's first anti-evolution law. What did the law say?

Professor EDWARD J. LARSON (University of Georgia; Author, "Evolution: The
Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory"): The Tennessee anti-evolution law
was really quite simple. It was only a couple lines long. It said that
public school teachers in Tennessee could not teach the theory of human
evolution in so much as it denied the divine theory of creation. And it made
it a misdemeanor subject to a fine of 100 to $500 for any teacher who violated
the law.

GROSS: So the teachers would be individually fined.

Prof. LARSON: The teacher would be individually fined for violating the law.
It made it illegal for those teachers to teach the law. Now, interestingly,
the main proponent of these laws nationally, William Jennings Bryan, the
three-time candidate for president and the fundamentalist religious leader--he
thought that was trouble. He thought that would just create martyrs. What
his goal would--was that the state should simply pass a law barring the
teaching of evolution, and then any teacher who violated that law would look
like an ungrateful public employee. This was the type of law that he had
campaigned for throughout the country. It wasn't a Tennessee issue; it was a
national issue.

GROSS: So after the Tennessee Legislature passed this law saying that
teachers who taught evolution would be fined, the ACLU put out a call that any
teacher who was willing to challenge this law would be represented through the
ACLU. And John Scopes volunteered for that position and thus the Scopes
trial. I'd like you to talk about the different sides in this trial and their
approach to making their case. Let's start with William Jennings Bryan, who
was the prosecutor. What were some of his key scientific and religious
arguments against the teaching of evolution?

Prof. LARSON: From the very beginning, the Scopes trial was a show trial. It
was orchestrated by the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the
Tennessee anti-evolution law, which, in itself, was the result of a national
crusade by William Jennings Bryan. Now he wasn't the local prosecutor; he
didn't even live in Tennessee. But when Dayton, Tennessee, decided to test
this law in court, to take up the ACLU challenge, William Jennings Bryan
volunteered as a co-prosecutor, as it were, with the local prosecutor to
prosecute Scopes.

But he made a point that he wasn't trying to prosecute Scopes. He didn't care
whether Scopes was fined or not. Indeed, he volunteered to pay the fine.
What he wanted to do was go to Tennessee and defend the law, defend a
restriction against teaching the theory of human evolution in public schools.
And he was afraid that that concept was being--would be ridiculed and attacked
by the ACLU and in the lawsuit as a violation of academic freedom. So he went
with a number of ideas.

One point that he made continually was, `This law was passed by a popular
majority, and public schools should be run by the local people. So if the
state of Tennessee is supporting public schools and state taxpayers are, they
should decide what's taught in the curriculum.' That was his main argument
for strictly defending the law. But then reaching beyond that, he made
arguments that evolutionary thinking led to bad behavior. As he put it, `If
you teach schoolkids that they descended from monkeys, then they'll act like
monkeys.' And it wasn't just in a small sense of acting like monkeys. He
brought in eugenics; he brought in survival of the fittest for leading to
World War I; he brought in the robber barons justifying laissez-faire
capitalism through Darwinian mechanisms.

All these issues he had opposed as a politician. He saw them rooted in
evolutionary thinking. And so he brought these social concerns to Darwinian
teaching to the fore. That was his public argument of why the public is
justified for restricting this theory.

GROSS: Did he make religious arguments against evolution?

Prof. LARSON: Bryan certainly thought that evolutionary belief, evolutionary
naturalism, Darwinism, undermined religious belief because it made God not the
creator of humans. To put it more graphically, he said, `What makes humans
special is the Bible says humans are created in God's image. Well, if they
had simply descended from lower forms of animals, they're not special in that
way, and, therefore, that--they're not God's special creation.' That would
undermine their religious beliefs, and for him, religion was the base of
social morality. So for Bryan, he could never separate social morality and
the public good from religion because they were all linked to together. You
undermined one, you undermined the whole.

GROSS: Was this problem just with the teaching of human evolution? Could you
teach, say, the evolution of fish and animals but just not human evolution?

Prof. LARSON: Bryan's sole concern was with human evolution. Indeed, he
looked at the Genesis account. When asked about it--on the witness stand in
Dayton, Tennessee, at the Scopes trial, he was asked, `Was the world created
in six days?' And he replied, `Not six literal days. Each of those days in
Genesis symbolize vast ages of geological time.' And in his private writings,
he had said, `I don't care if the animals had all evolved and the plants have
all evolved.' What he cared about was humans, and there he claimed the Bible
was much more specific. It talked about God directly creating humans in God's
image. That was the issue that he was fighting for; that was the issue on
which he would take his stand.

GROSS: Now at the Scopes trial, the defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, wasn't
allowed to call his witnesses, scientists or liberal theologians, who would
support evolution. Why not?

Prof. LARSON: Originally the trial had been billed by both sides as literally
a show trial, a public debate, where they would--both sides would discuss the
idea and theory of evolution, its pros and its cons. And it sounded like both
sides would proceed down that route. Well, going down that route, the
defense, led by Clarence Darrow, assembled a large band of scientific experts
and theologians, who were going to come in and testify that evolution was a
widely accepted concept and that theologians would testify that it did not
necessarily conflict with a liberal reading of the Bible and of a deep
religious belief.

The problem for Bryan became--was he wasn't able to find experts to defend his
side; couldn't find scientists who would attack the theory of evolution and
defend the idea of the special creation of humans. And the only theologians
he could find were, really, fundamental evangelists rather than educated
theologians. And so it looked like if Bryan and the prosecution proceeded
down that route, that they would be bested by Darrow. So they changed their
strategy just before trial and, instead, sought a narrow trial, where the only
issue would be: Did Scopes violate the law? And if he violated the law, then
he should be convicted and leave it to the appellate court to decide whether
the law itself was constitutional or not constitutional.

GROSS: Well, I guess the judge sided with Bryan on this, and he didn't allow
Clarence Darrow to call scientists and theologians as witnesses. So, instead,
what Darrow did was he called Bryan as a witness. So what are some of the
questions that Darrow asked Bryan?

Prof. LARSON: Well, first, we got to realize what Bryan thought he'd be
asked. Bryan, of course, thought he'd be asked about the theory of evolution
and about the divine story of creation. And Bryan was more than ready. I
mean, he was a stump speaker, but he usually spoke from prepared addresses,
but he had memorized them. And so he thought he was going to get questions
about evolution, and those he had set answers to, answers that, while they
might not appeal to us scientists, certainly would have resonated with the
general public.

Clarence Darrow took it differently. I mean, if you're a lawyer, you know you
never ask a witness a question unless you know the answer's going to help you.
It's just a rule of thumb for a lawyer. And Clarence Darrow was the best
trial lawyer we ever had, and he wasn't going to break that rule. And so
instead what he asked--and this caught Bryan totally off guard--he asked him
about a lot of other miracles from the Bible, from Genesis, issues like, `Did
Joshua lengthen the day by making the sun stand still?' Well, under the
Copernican theory, it's got to be the Earth that stands still and not the
sun, which Bryan noted in his response. Or, `Did Jonah live inside the whale
for three days?' Or, `Where did Cain get his wife if he was one of the first
people? There hadn't been any other people talked about.'

And Darrow knew that there were no good answers to them. You either gotta
swallow hard and say, `Yes, yes, the sun did stand still, or the--Jonah lived
inside the whale for three days,' or deny them and say, `No, no, they're sort
of lessons. They're moral lessons.' And he knew that either way he had Bryan
because if Bryan denied them, then his obvious point of it was, `Well, if
you're interpreting those stories, well, why can't you interpret the account
of creation in Genesis?' But if Bryan did say he accepted them, well, then
the general public would ridicule Bryan's whole belief system and realize that
it had no place in science education. Either way Clarence Darrow won.

GROSS: So what did Bryan respond?

Prof. LARSON: He tried both approaches. Sometimes he sort of equivocated,
and he pointed out that some of the stories could be interpreted. He pointed
out that he didn't believe the Earth was created in six literal days, but that
each day represented a vast geological period. But at other times he hung
firm, and when pressed--when he was pressed about Jonah inside the whale, he
said, `Well, it could have happened. God could have chosen to do it that
way.' And then Darrow kept pressing and says, `But did he? Did he do it that
way?' And finally he just hunkered down and said, `Yes, I believe in
miracles, and I can believe that God can intervene in nature. And for me, one
miracle is as easy to believe as another.' Now Darrow immediately commented
back, `For me, it's just as hard to believe those miracles--one miracle and
another.' And that really captured the difference between the two men. It
was a very telling moment.

The other sort of comical moment, when he tried to laugh off the questions,
came when Clarence Darrow asked, `What about where did Cain get his wife?'
Bryan answered, `I leave the agnostics to hunt for her.'

GROSS: My guest is Edward J. Larson. His latest book is called "Evolution:
The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory." We'll talk more after a
break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Edward J. Larson. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his book
"Summer for the Gods" about the 1925 Scopes trial. We were talking about the
Scopes trial when we left off.

So what was the outcome of the trial, and what precedent did it set?

Prof. LARSON: The technical outcome of the trial was that Scopes was
convicted and the law was upheld. That was important because it suggested
that states and communities could limit evolutionary teaching, and many of
them began doing so. After the Tennessee law was upheld, several other states
and many local school districts imposed restrictions on evolutionary teaching,
and they stood for 30 years. But on another sense, the defense won because
they had ridiculed the ideas of William Jennings Bryan, ridiculed not with
Bryan's core constituency but with the larger general public. And so both
sides claimed victory at Dayton.

Now when I look back, I think they're both right in their claims. It's the
funny thing about the Anglo-American legal system: What we do is we have both
sides presenting their own ideas, and then neutral observers are supposed to
draw the truth out of those two ideas and reach a conclusion. Well, in this
case we had two of the greatest orators in American history, Clarence Darrow
and William Jennings Bryan. And they both effectively communicated their
concerns in Dayton--oh, maybe not well enough to win many converts but enough
to energize their own constituency and make this relatively obscure issue into
a fighting issue, where people on both sides have viewed this as an issue that
really matters. And those words, that voice they gave to this issue has
continued to resonate ever since. And it pops up in countless trials, leading
right up to the current one in Dover, Pennsylvania.

GROSS: So what did the Scopes trial do to set the tone for, you know, the
next few decades in terms of whether--you know, how evolution would be taught
and how the religious view of creation would be taught?

Prof. LARSON: It's important to remember that William Jennings Bryan never
argued that the biblical story of creation should be taught in the public
schools. He thought that was a religious concept, and religion didn't belong
in the public schools. What he wanted was--that if creation wasn't taught,
at least then the opposite view, then the view that he viewed as irreligious,
should not be taught either, and, therefore, basically origins would disappear
from the curriculum. And if you look at public school textbooks that were
printed between the time of the Scopes trial in the--1960, for example, you
see that happening. You see the concept of evolution basically dropping out
of the textbooks, and basically biology textbooks just didn't cover the issue
of origins very extensively. And that process continued because the issue was
so controversial.

On the other hand, I must say that the Scopes trial became a topic of
derision. You had books like "Only Yesterday"--best-selling books like "Only
Yesterday" and Broadway plays like "Inherit the Wind" that ridiculed Bryan's
position. So you had a split in America. You had the cultural elite
ridiculing the ideas of restricting science education. But the actual
practice that was happening in the local schools because of public opposition,
you had--evolution virtually disappeared.

GROSS: Was this just in the South that you're talking about?

Prof. LARSON: Actually that was nationwide. You look at textbooks used
throughout the country. This wasn't an issue ever limited just to the south;
you had school districts throughout the Midwest, on the West Coast. You had,
as a practical matter, people just avoiding the topic of evolution, and that
continued right up into the 1960s.

GROSS: And what changed it in the '60s?

Prof. LARSON: Well, a couple things intervened to change it. One was
science education tied most famously, of all things, to Sputnik. When the
Russians beat America into space, it was a shock to the Americans. And the
Congress passed the American Defense Education Act, which, among other things,
called for greater federal funding of science textbooks, so that we could beef
up our science education, and it called upon scientists rather than science
educators to write these textbooks. The result in biology was the Biological
Studies Curriculum, the BSCS, that came out in the early 1960s. Those
textbooks, written by evolutionary biologists and top biologists, reinstituted
evolution into the science curriculum. And when those textbooks did it,
others did as well.

Then there were developments on the legal front, and most particularly during
that--late 1940s and early 1950s, the United States Supreme Court
reinterpreted and gave new life to the Establishment Clause. Before that
time, at the time of the Scopes trial, the Supreme Court had not interpreted
the Establishment Clause as applying against state action. It only limited
what Congress could do. Well, starting in 1948--and Justice Hugo Black was a
main actor in this change--the Supreme Court interpreted the Establishment
Clause to include state and local actions, as long as it was done by
government.

Well, the result was that because the Establishment Clause hadn't applied
against public schools, public schools were doing all manner of things, such
as school prayer and religious instruction and limits on the teaching of
evolution, that would run afoul of the Establishment Clause if that clause
applied to them. Well, once it did, one by one those public practices were
declared unconstitutional; first, religious instruction, then school prayer in
1962. And then in 1967 and '68 the United States Supreme Court struck down
the old anti-evolution laws, in particular the Arkansas, but the Arkansas law
had been modeled after the Tennessee law. That brought them down. So you
have a combination of factors.

GROSS: Edward J. Larson will be back in the second half of the show. His
latest book is called "Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific
Theory." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Announcements)

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, more with Edward J. Larson on evolution and the debate over
science and religion. Also, Ken Tucker reviews new albums from Paul McCartney
and the Rolling Stones.

(Soundbite of "It Won't Take Long")

Unidentified Man: Baby, it won't take long to forget you. Time, it passes
fast. It'll all be over in a minute. You'll be in the past. You can lose
the love of a lifetime in a single roll. You can gain a fortune in a instant,
or you can lose your soul. Well, it won't take long to forget ya. You know
I'm never wrong. It'll all be over in a minute, and it won't take long.
Yeah, it won't take long to forgive you, but it's hard to forget 'cause it
seems like it's yesterday, the day that we...

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Edward J. Larson.
He's written several books about evolution and the debate over science and
religion. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his book about the Scopes trial. His
latest book is called "Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific
Theory."

Let's skip to 1970 now.

Prof. LARSON: OK.

GROSS: You know--so we're in a climate where the law has changed and you
can't ban the teaching of evolution in the schools. And this is the time, in
1970...

Prof. LARSON: Right.

GROSS: ...when the Institute for Creation Research, the ICR, is established
at Christian Heritage College in San Diego. The college was founded by Tim
LaHaye, who's now famous for his series of novels, the "Left Behind" series.
This is a series of novels that says the Apocalypse is imminent. And you
describe the Institute for Creation Research as opening a second front against
evolution. What do you mean by that?

Prof. LARSON: The Institute for Creation Research, which was led by a person
named Henry Morris, who had been a professor at Virginia Tech--he developed in
the 1960s in a book called "Genesis Flood"--tried to pull together scientific
evidence that supported the Genesis account of creation, right down letter for
letter. That includes that the Earth was created in six literal days, within
the last 10,000 years, that all land animals were created on the sixth day, so
that meant humans were created the same time as dinosaurs and lived together
for a while, and that one great flood at the time of Noah basically shaped the
Earth's features, such as the Grand Canyon. And he came up with a variety of
different scientific evidence to support that viewpoint.

Now his book became a classic within the Christian subcommunity, among
fundamentalists, somewhat among Pentecostals, among some evangelical
Christians. He called it creation science, and that gave the creationism
something that Bryan never had. Bryan could just argue against the teaching
of evolution; now they had an alternative hypothesis, an alternative approach.
And the goal became, `Well, if the Supreme Court decision based on the idea of
the separation of church and state says that you can't, for religious reasons,
ban the teaching of evolution, OK, we'll teach evolution. But let's balance
it. Let's give equal time or balanced treatment to the concept of creation
science.' That launched a whole second phase in this historical battle.

GROSS: In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that the teaching of creation science
was unconstitutional. What did the ruling say?

Prof. LARSON: The Supreme Court ruling in 1987, called Edwards vs. Aguilar,
involved a Louisiana creationism law, and that law had been directly inspired
by the Institute for Creation Research and the work of Henry Morris. The law
had said you give balanced treatment to the idea of creation science along
with evolution science. Similar laws had been passed in two other states and
in a scad of local school districts around the country. And what the court
did is it looked at those restrictions. It had already ruled 30 years before
that you couldn't have religious dogma taught in the public schools. And the
Supreme Court ruled that creation science was virtually nothing other than a
religious dogma.

The key opinion there were written by Lewis Powell. It was concurring
opinion, but what it did was it looked at the teaching of creation science and
the work of the Institute for Creation Research, and it concluded that this
was nothing less--or nothing more than religious dogma, that this religious
apologetics, that this was taking science and not acting like scientists
do--where you come up with a hypothesis and test it and find out if nature
matches the hypothesis--but rather, this was a religious idea that its
proponents, like Henry Morris, believed were true and they simply looked
out--and they got those ideas from the Bible, from Genesis, and they looked
out to nature to find things in nature that confirmed their pre-existing
religious views. That, the court, ruled was a religious dogma, and as a
religious dogma, it was banned along with other types of religious instruction
from being included in the public school classroom.

GROSS: If you describe creation science as a second front in the fight
against the teaching of evolution, or at least the fight against teaching
evolution--about teaching alternatives, I suppose you could describe
intelligent design as the third. Intelligent design was founded by Philip
Johnson. Who was he, and how does intelligent design compare with creation
science?

Prof. LARSON: Philip Johnson was a professor at Berkeley; he was a law
professor. He had gone to Harvard Law School--he attended Harvard Law School,
graduated from Harvard Law School, had been a clerk for Chief Justice Warren
and he was--but in addition to that background, he was also, and is also, a
deeply religious evangelical Christian. And politically, he's very
conservative. He was obsessed with--and he would almost use those terms
himself--obsessed with Richard Dawkins' view of evolution, that the Darwinian
theory of evolution virtually disproves Christianity and proves that there
isn't a God. Now Philip Johnson...

GROSS: This is what he says Dawkins says.

Prof. LARSON: This is the way Johnson...

GROSS: This is the way he interprets Dawkins.

Prof. LARSON: This is how Johnson interprets Dawkins, but it's a pretty fair
interpretation. Richard Dawkins does take that approach, that science
disproves God and that evolution disproves God, and I think that Phil Johnson
basically has that reading right.

Now there are many scientists who totally disagree with that. There are many
leading scientists who say that evolution is totally compatible with
Christianity and religion, but Dawkins isn't really part of that crowd. And
those were the books--and they're best-sellers--that Phil Johnson picked up
when he was on sabbatical one year in England. And he decided that as a
lawyer, he could make the counterarguments, and that led to his book "Darwin
on Trial," where he tried to show the weaknesses in evolutionary thought.

Now Phil Johnson is not necessarily a young Earth creationist. He's not
necessarily in the same group as Henry Morris and the Institute for Creation
Research. But he is an evangelical Christian who deeply believes that God can
act in nature and, working with others, argues the point that nature reflects
God's intelligent design, almost lifting the line from the Bible that `the
heavens declare the glories of God.'

GROSS: My guest is Edward J. Larson. His latest book is called "Evolution:
The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory." We'll talk more after a
break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Edward J. Larson. He's a professor of law and the history
of science at the University of Georgia. He's written several books on
evolution and the debate over science and religion.

So how does intelligent design, as laid out by Philip Johnson, compare to what
was described as creation science?

Prof. LARSON: Intelligent design, broadly interpreted, is simply the concept
that nature reflects an intelligent designer. And in this sense, it has a
long pedigree in Western thought, going back to the likes of William
Paley--who wrote the famous book "Natural Theology" in 1801--and even back
beyond that going throughout Western thought, especially Christian thought,
both in the Catholic and Protestant denominations, that one way we can
understand God is through God's creation and that the wonderful design in
nature, the balance in nature--the butterflies and the bees, the design of the
eye, the shape of the butterfly's wings, all these examples--testify to the
fact that there is a God who designed these things, that these things couldn't
exist without a designer, and also gives us evidence of the character of God,
that God is a loving God who creates a good creation. So that has been a part
of the Western sort of religious tradition separate from any defense of a
literal reading of Genesis.

And that's the tradition that intelligent design fits into. Not to defend the
literal reading of Genesis; no, that could be taken as allegory, as metaphor,
as typology, but rather the whole idea of design testifies to a designer and,
therefore, is, in a sense, apologetic because it defends religion.

GROSS: On what grounds do the proponents of intelligent design argue that
that should be taught or referred to at least in the schools since this--I
mean, after the Supreme Court has said that the teaching of creationism
violates the clause saying--violates the amendment saying that there can be no
establishment of religion?

Prof. LARSON: That's a very good question because it's a tight rope that the
intelligent design advocates have to walk. And, remember, one of their
leaders is a Berkeley law professor, and many of the people involved in the
movement are very well educated. And they look at this law--the law says you
can't teach--you've got the established Supreme Court decision that the
separation of church and state prohibit promoting a religious dogma, religious
doctrine, religious instruction in the public schools. So how do we get
around it? Well, the way to get around it--this doesn't mean you can't teach
alternative scientific ideas or you can't teach scientific ideas that are
critical of the theory of evolution.

And so what they see as that, `All right, let's teach the controversy. Let's
expose students to the gaps in evolutionary theory. Let's stress that
evolutionary theory is just that, is just a theory.' Now, in part, that mixes
up the meaning of what theory means, but for people in the intelligent design
movement, the neo-Darwinian synthesis, the technical scientific theory that
everything evolved from naturalistic process, they don't buy that. They
believe that God--even if there is evolution happening at some level, God
intervenes in the process. Well, if they can point to those gaps where you'd
need a God to step in, they can open the door to students looking in that
direction.

GROSS: OK. So intelligent design says that, you know, all of nature is so
intricate in its design that there had to be some kind of higher intelligence
and, whether you use the word `God' or not there, that science just isn't
adequate to explain creation, which leads us to the current case in Dover,
Pennsylvania. And this case mandates--this case is based on a school board
that mandated that if evolution is being taught, then teachers must also read
a statement that includes this quote: "Because Darwin's theory is a theory,
it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a
fact. Gaps in the theory exist, for which there is no evidence." And the
quote goes on to say that, you know, students who were learning about
evolution should consider getting out of the library a book called "Of Pandas
and People." So why don't you describe what you think the larger issue here is
in the Dover, Pennsylvania, case?

Prof. LARSON: The Dover, Pennsylvania, case really raises a couple different
issues, and that's what makes it such a complicated case to follow. Indeed,
it raises so many issues that even the core intelligent design group, led by a
group called the Discovery Institute based in Seattle, Washington, have
backed away from it and pulled their own witnesses out from testifying.
That's because the statement was pulled together by people who apparently had
a deeply religious motive. And so on one hand, they wanted to raise the
intelligent design issues, that there are gaps in the theory of evolution and
that it's just a theory, which we've heard before, such as in the case coming
out of Cobb County, Georgia, last year.

But then they include an alternative. Then they say, in addition to this
idea, there's also what they call the explanation of intelligent design. And
if you want to learn about that explanation, go to the library and take out
the book "Of Pandas and People," of which they put 60 copies or some large
number of copies in the library for the students to read.

Now on one hand that raises the core intelligent design issues; that is, that
nature is just too complex to have ever been produced by a purely naturalistic
mechanism, as envisioned by the neo-Darwinian synthesis. But then it gives
content to the opposing idea, and if you looked at that content, you'll see
the idea that God created all the different species, and therefore that there
isn't common descent, that all the species didn't evolve from a common
ancestor. Well, you can, of course, have intelligent design mixed with the
idea of common descent; it's called theistic evolution, and it's been--that
idea has been around ever since the time of Darwinism as a version of
evolution.

You're cutting that out, and you're--by pointing out the book "Of Pandas and
People," which has already been ruled in other courts to be a religious book
promoting a religious idea. And that's what's made this promulgation by the
school board in so much trouble, and that's why the intelligent design people
have backed away from it, not what it--that it's trying to raise issues about
evolution, but rather that it's providing an alternative, and when you look at
that alternative, the alternative looks pretty religious.

GROSS: We've been talking about the teaching of evolution. So finally...

Prof. LARSON: Yeah.

GROSS: ...why do you think teaching evolution is so important?

Prof. LARSON: I believe that it's important to teach the theory of evolution
because that's the concept underlying modern biology. When you think about
it, all the great scientific breakthroughs in the world of biology over the
past 150 years, be it in medicine, in biotechnology, in ecology, have come
from people who take an evolutionary worldview. And if we want our students
to learn about evolution so that they can make the next generation of
breakthroughs, they can continue to build on this research, build on these
developments, and it has practical value. Medical developments,
biotechnology, all these areas, they're built on evolutionary concepts, and
that's why it's important that it be in our classroom and that our students
learn about it.

GROSS: Ed Larson, thank you very much for talking with us.

Prof. LARSON: Thank you for having me on the show. It's been a delight.

GROSS: Edward J. Larson's latest book is called "Evolution: The History of
a Remarkable Idea."

In a blatant attempt to make themselves relevant to today's interview about
science and religious, the Rolling Stones have released a CD called "A Bigger
Bang," while Paul McCartney has a new one called "Chaos and Creation in the
Back Yard." Ken Tucker will review both after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: New releases by Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones
TERRY GROSS, host:

The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney have new albums out and are currently on
American tours. Rock critic Ken Tucker couldn't pass up the opportunity to
review two releases by some of the most influential musicians in rock history.

(Soundbite of song)

Sir PAUL McCARTNEY: A-one, two...

(Singing) There is a fine line between recklessness and courage. It's about
time you understood which road to take. It's a fine line, and your decision
makes a difference. Get it wrong, you'll be making a big mistake. Come home,
brother, all is forgiven. We all cried when you were driven away. Come home,
brother, everything is better, everything is better when you come home and
stay. Whoo!

KEN TUCKER reporting:

That's a pretty terrific Paul McCartney song, especially by the measure of his
very uneven 19 previous solo albums. This new one, called "Chaos and Creation
in the Back Yard," is typically uneven, but it's a lot less winsome and
pandering to Beatle nostalgists. It harks back to his very first 1970 solo
album in that he plays nearly every instrument on it, including fluegelhorn.
But it also looks forward in its choice of producer, Nigel Godrich, whose work
with Radiohead and Beck has represented one kind of state-of-the-art
production, downplaying catchy choruses for moody atmospherics. Thirty years
younger than 63-year-old Sir Paul, Godrich has encouraged McCartney's
melancholy, even bitter side, as can be heard on the fascinatingly chilling
"Riding to Vanity Fair," as I hear it, a song about decided at a certain point
that some relationships just aren't worth the effort.

(Soundbite of "Riding to Vanity Fair")

Sir PAUL: (Singing) I bit my tongue. I never talk too much. I try to be so
strong. I did my best. I used the gentle touch. I've done it for so long.
You put me down, but I can laugh it off and act like nothing's wrong. But why
pretend? I think I've heard enough of your familiar song.

TUCKER: McCartney may have made an admirable move in hiring an ambitious
young producer and taking two years to craft a more meticulous album than he's
used to, but much of "Chaos and Creation" is aimless, airless stuff. There's
a reason why, for all their hype, Radiohead and Beck never come close to the
intimacy or soulfulness of even average Lennon-McCartney music. And clever
guys like producer Nigel Godrich are one reason why such well-reviewed music
rarely seems to last longer than their breakthrough albums.

By contrast, the Rolling Stones do best by offering cranked-up versions of
what they know best.

(Soundbite of "Rough Justice")

Mr. MICK JAGGER: (Singing) One time you were my baby chicken. Now you've
grown into a fox. Once upon a time I was your little rooster, but am I just
one of your cocks?

ROLLING STONES: (Singing) It's rough justice on ya. You're gonna have to
trust me. It's rough justice, but you know I'll never break your heart.

Mr. JAGGER: (Singing) So put your lips...

TUCKER: Like McCartney, the Stones seem eager to prove that they're still
rolling on their new album called "A Bigger Bang." And, yes, I can hear Mick
Jagger snickering when he came up with that title, too. But where McCartney
demonstrates his timeliness via style and mood, the Stones do it with attitude
and instrumental chops. Charlie Watts, who's reportedly recovered from throat
cancer, demonstrates all over this disc why he's the most versatile and
emphatic drummer rock 'n' roll has ever hear. And Mick and Keith want you to
know that they don't need reading glasses to read between the lines of today's
headlines on the topical "Sweet Neo Con."

(Soundbite of "Sweet Neo Con")

Mr. JAGGER: (Singing) You call yourself a Christian. I think that you're a
hypocrite. You say you are a patriot. I think that you're a crock of
(censored). And, listen, I love gasoline. I drink it every day. But it's
getting very pricey, and who is gonna pay? How come you're so wrong, my sweet
neo con? Yeah.

TUCKER: The problem all aging rockers face, of course, isn't really relevance
at all--their fans are with them for the long haul and high ticket prices as
long as the band never drops "Brown Sugar" from its set list--but rather,
convincing those of us on the fence about them that they can still find a few
fresh ways to refurbish their sound. They locate one fine solution on this
song, "Rain Fall Down," thanks to Keith Richards' funky chicken-scratch guitar
riff.

(Soundbite of "Rain Fall Down")

Mr. JAGGER: (Singing) It was a filthy block of flats. Trash was on the
floor. A stink was in my nose. Hinges off the doors. She took me in her
room. All was spick-and-span. Fixed me up a drink, turned down all the
lamps. And the rain fell down on the cold, hard ground, and the phone kept
ringing, and we made sweet love.

TUCKER: I'm sure we'll still be parsing Radiohead or Beck or, for that
matter, Kanye West records if those acts continue recording 40 years into
their existence, which proves that the present generation of lively geezers
have, like their forebears in blues and jazz, ended up creating bodies of work
and influence that merit close listen beyond their prime pop-star moment.

One song on the Stones' album is called "Oh No, Not You Again." The biggest
compliment I can pay McCartney and the Stones is that that's not the reaction
I had after hearing their new albums.

GROSS: Rock critic Ken Tucker reviewed "A Bigger Bang" from the Rolling
Stones and Paul McCartney's "Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard."

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.

We'll close with more music from the Rolling Stones' new CD.

(Soundbite of "She Saw Me Coming")

Mr. JAGGER: (Singing) She saw me coming. She had me dead to rights. Her aim
was stunning. I was lined up in her sights. She worked so fast and she
didn't mess around. It was all over before the sun go down, before the sun go
down. She saw me coming, yeah. She saw me coming. She saw me coming. She
moved in for the kill. She saw me coming. She served up on a grill. She
busted in and she burglarized my soul. But now the bad news, she's out on
parole.
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