Title
The American Association for the Advancement of Science committee on evolution and the Scopes trial: race, eugenics and public science in the U.S.A.: Race, eugenics and public science in the U.S.A.
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Historical Research
Publication Date
2018
Date Added
2022-05-16
Abstract
Instead of viewing racial eugenics, modernist religion and prescriptions for social engineering as discourses tangential to the evolution constructs propounded by top scientists in the build-up to the Scopes trial, this article considers how the American Association for the Advancement of Science's committee on evolution intertwined all of these threads by the early nineteen-twenties. Committee members aimed their evolution models at broad public audiences even as they tried to fulfill the American Civil Liberties Union's request to provide a scientifically-sound view of evolution to help combat Protestant fundamentalism in the build-up to the trial. Racialist eugenics was essential to their multi-layered evolution constructs, as were key religious ideas particular to Protestant modernism.
DOI
10.1111/1468-2281.12208
Keywords
History of racism
Disciplines
History
Recommended Citation
Pavuk, Alexander, "The American Association for the Advancement of Science committee on evolution and the Scopes trial: race, eugenics and public science in the U.S.A.: Race, eugenics and public science in the U.S.A." (2018). College of Liberal Arts. 23.
https://research.paynecenter.org/morgan_cls/23