Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy Report

Evolution is an idea that has been controversial from its inception by Charles Darwin. The theory of evolution by natural selection was first published in 1859 in Charles Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species”; the National Center for Science Education (2017) defines the main components of Darwin’s theory as species change, related species descend from a common ancestor, species become distinct through natural selection and species are geographically close to their ancestors. This theory while backed by scientific research and fact remains controversial, due largely to it being contrary to religious thought about God’s creation of all. In the United States there have been many court cases and laws determining how or if evolution would be

The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy began in the Presbyterian Church, resulting in a schism creating two groups, the Evangelicals who believed strongly in Christian Orthodoxy and the Modernists who thought beliefs should be modified for modern times (Longfield 2000). This schism between conservatives and traditionalists in churches spread to other Christian denominations, including Baptists, Protestants and Lutherans (Hart, 2008). As a result of the schism large groups of fundamentalist Christians who opposed anything that challenges the bible were created. This schism showed that in American Christianity you either look for truth biblically or evolutionarily. These conservative Christians lobbied for legislation that would prevent evolution from being taught in schools as they saw natural selection as undermining both the church and

In 2005 intelligent design was determined to be a religious teaching, not an area of legitimate scientific research and could not be taught in public school science class, by a federal judge in Kitzmlller v. Dover Area School Board (Discovery). However, this ruling did not prevent intelligent design from being taught in other states, in 2014 South Dakota passed a bill preventing schools from preventing intelligent design from being taught similar bills have been introduced in Virginia, Missouri and Oklahoma (Neuman, 2014) By teaching intelligent design teachers are giving credit to a theory that is not even a scientific theory, this weakens all other actually scientific theories, as the standards of theory have been lowered to the standards of intelligent design. Intelligent design is not the only way that states attempt to weaken the teachings of evolution. In 2008 Louisiana passed the Louisiana Science Education Act and in 2012 Tennessee passed bill HB 368/SB 893, both encourage teachers to explore the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories such as evolution and climate change (Timmer 2008 and Branch 2012) By disguising anti-evolution legislation as academic freedom legislation it becomes harder to argue that the laws change the academic standards of a state. This new