III I I I I I I I I III III Illilll III ALABAMA MUSEUM of Natural History Bulletin 22 November 30, 2002 Andrew C. Moore's "Evolution Once More": The Evolution­ Creationism Controversy from an Early 1920s Perspective Systematics and Biogeography of the Notropis rubellus Species Group (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) BULLETIN ALABAMA MUSEUM OF NATURAL mSTORY The scientific publication of the Alabama Museum of Natural History. Richard L. Mayden, Editor. George E. Hooks, III, Managing Editor. BULLETIN AlABAMA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY is published by the Alabama Museum of Natural History, a unit of The University of Alabama. The BUL­ LETIN succeeds its predecessor, the MUSEUM PAPERS, which was terminated in 1961 upon the transfer of the Museum to the University from its parent organiz­ ation, the Geological Survey of Alabama. The BULLETIN is devoted primarily to scholarship and research concerning the natural history of Alabama and the Southeast. 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When citing this publication, authors are requested to use the following abbrevi­ ation: Bull. Alabama Mus. Nat. Hist. ISSN: 0196-1039 Copyright 2002 by The Alabama Museum of Natural History 111111111111 111 ••••••• 111 ALABAMA MUSEUM of Natural History • Bulletin 22 November 30, 2002 Andrew C. Moore's "Evolution One More": The Evolution-Creationism Controversy from an Early 1920s Perspecive byWillam D. Anderson, Jr. Systematics and Biogeography of the Notropis rubellus Species Group (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) Robert M. Wood, Richard L. Mayden, Ronald H. Matson, Bernard R. Kuhajda, and Steven R. Layman THE UNIVERSIlY OF AlABAMA TUSCALOOSA, AlABAMA November 30,2002 I asserted-and I repeat-that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man-a man of restless and versatile intellect-who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious preju­ dice. Thomas Henry Huxley' Andrew C. Moore's "Evolution Once More": The Evolution­ Creationism Controversy from an Early 1920s Perspective William D. Anderson, Jr. Grice Marine Biological Laboratory College of Charleston 205 FortJohnson Charleston, South Carolina 29412-9110 ABSTRACT: Anderson, William D., Jr. 2002. Andrew C. Moore's "Evolution Once More": The Evolution-Creationism Controversy from an Early 1920s Perspective. Bulletin Alabama Museum of Natural History, Number 22: 1-35. Andrew Charles Moore, for many years Professor of Biology at the University of South Carolina, composed an essay on the dispute between evolutionists and creationists that was approaching the boiling point in the early 1920s. Apparently written in 1923, about two years before the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, Moore's views are remarkably modern and deserve to be disseminated widely. I present here Moore's work, with an introduction, commentary, and annotations, and biographical materials on Moore, James Woodrow (scientist, educator, and theologian), who greatly influenced Moore, and their academic forebear Thomas Cooper (a many-talented genius), who pointed the way towards intellectual freedom. Introduction During a search for materials for a book on the history of about two years before the famous Scopes Trial in Dayton, natural history investigations in South Carolina (Sanders Tennessee, and near the zenith of the antievolution move­ and Anderson, 1999), I discovered in the South ment that blossomed in the United States after the First Caroliniana Library, at the University of South Carolina in World War, Moore's analytical examination of the asser­ Columbia, an unpublished manuscript on the evolution­ tions made by the antievolutionists is as germane today as creationism controversy written by Andrew Charles Moore the day it was written. In an effort to place Moore's compo­ (1866-1928), a little-known biology professor at the Uni­ sition in the context of the intellectual history of South versity. Moore was particularly well suited to write about Carolina, I present commentaries on Moore and on two of the controversy, being both an evolutionary biologist and a his predecessors in Columbia, Thomas Cooper (1759- dedicated Christian layman. Apparently penned in 1923, 1839) and James Woodrow (1828-1907). Bull. Alabama Mus. Nat. Hist. 22:1-35 November 30, 2002 2 BULLETIN 22 November 30, 2002 Setting the Stage wisdom of antievolution laws, but only Tennessee, Missis­ Numbers and Stephens (1998: 59), in a cogent paper, sippi, and Arkansas enacted legislation prohibiting the have discussed the reception given Darwinism in the teaching of human evolution. Two other states demon­ southern United States. While acknowledging that evolu­ strated a lack of tolerance for the concepts of evolution; tionary thinking pervaded the South more slowly than the Oklahoma outlawed the use of textbooks dealing with rest of the coun try, they main tained "that the Sou th was far evolution, and Florida "condemned the teaching of Dar­ less uniform in its opposition to Darwinism than most winism as 'improper and subversive. '" The fact that all of scholarly accounts would suggest. In fact the very success the states forbidding the teaching of evolution were south­ of Darwinism in the South contributed significantly to the ern states, along with the wide attention given to the outburst of antievolutionism in the 1920s." One of the Scopes Trial in 1925, and the carnival atmosphere sur­ most telling observations made by Numbers and Stephens rounding it, certainly contributed to the South's being (1998: 67-68) was that no professor in the South, with the considered by many as a stronghold of antievolutionism. exception ofJames Woodrow (see below), appears to have Nevertheless, the vast majority of state legislatures in the lost a job over Darwinism before the First World War, South never prohibited the teaching of evolution in the despite the fact that evolutionary theory was taught fre­ 1920s (Numbers, 1992: 41; Numbers and Stephens, quently in both state and sectarian colleges. But things 1998:74). That the antievolutionism of the 1920s was not would not remain so calm after the War. simply a regional phenomenon is well illustrated by the fact that "even the United States Senate debated-but The relative tranquility evolutionists in the South enjoyed eventually rejected-an amendment that would have in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries de­ banned radio broadcasts favorable to evolution" (Num­ clined rapidly in the years after World War I, when angry bers, 1992: 41). Numbers and Stephens (1998: 74) noted fundamentalists, convinced that the teaching of human that "a generally overlooked factor that contributed to the evolution was causing many of the nation's social ills, tried outburst of militant antievolutionism in the South was the to dislodge evolutionists from their professorships and to growing popularity of Darwinism among the educated ban the offending doctrine in public schools (Numbers and Stephens, 1998: 73). classes in the region." People in the United States seem to have greater prob­ At the end of the First World War in 1918 the ultracon­ lems understanding the concepts of evolution than citi­ servative religionists, or Fundamentalists, had not yet fo­ zens of any other country in the West. Difficulties in appre­ cused nor even completely developed their antievolution­ hending these fundamental biological principles stem ary fervor; in fact, they had no specific common objective from inadequate education, particularly in the sciences except the "general defense of biblical orthodoxy within but in other areas as well, and from the long-standing the church" (Larson, 1985: 41). The major factor that led belief in the account of creation given in the Book of to an environment conducive to the development of the Genesis, a belief reinforced by the purveyors of ultracon­ virulent antievolutionary campaigns of the 1920s seems to servative religious doctrines. It is little understood by the have been the bitter opposition that had been developing public at large that an appreciation of evolution is basic to over a period of years to the Higher Criticism2 of the Bible an overall understanding of the biological sciences and that was fostered by liberal theologians (Larson, 1985: 28- undergirds all research in those disciplines. Consequently,