Preface
Natural Selection, a term used by Charles Darwin to suggest that all life began in the same way, a single cell in a warm pool of salt water, over time evolution begins to take place. The adaptation, generation by generation, slowly over millions of years and the alteration of the mix of characteristics which categorizes and typifies a species.
Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection is no doubt first explained as a series of statements and effects. First, each generation of species produces more offspring then will survive to breed the next generation. Second, individual members may be inbred but they will not be identical. Third, differences will give a competitive edge in the struggle to survive and breed…and produce the next generation.
These characteristics, if inherited, will show-up in future generations because they have been naturally selected…and survived.
Senator Lang Elliott believed in this epigram as “the survival of the fittest.” And, he argued that man did not descend from an ape, but had his own course, given to him by God.
Manifested in the same warm pool, man crawled into the sea, taking nourishment as other mammals and slowly over time evolving into family units displacing intelligence, dexterity, courage and love.
The orthodox Christian view measured the history of earth in only thousands of years since the Garden of Adam and Eve. Demanding literal acceptance of the origin of all living things as described in the bible in the Book of Genesis.
Senator Lang Elliott did not question the bible…He only postulated that God did not have the time to create anything that was so imperfect, and man from the beginning was a fallible living thing.
It did not matter to Senator Lang Elliott that religious fundamentalist had decided to make his life a daily living hell, but the senator took umbrage when these pious, self-serving folks, took it upon themselves to murder a member of his crew and steal his prized stallion in return for a King’s ransom. The funds he knew to be utilized by this extreme group to develop propaganda to evangelize and offset the liberal media contaminating young minds and Christian soldiers. They would stop at nothing and had murdered once! Welby Thomas Cox, Jr. (Editor)
Dedication
Dedicated to my family of five daughters and a son whose produce of seventeen Grand - Children and two Great-Grandchildren are sufficient to keep me warm in the memory of each of them.
Acknowledgement
Perhaps few others are wholly original as far as their plots are concerned. Indeed, William Shakespeare seems to have created almost nothing original, while Chaucer seems to have borrowed from both the living and the dead. And to bring it down to a common interest, the present scribe is even more derivative, since for this book he has tried in general to keep to authenticated notes and research, doggedly using recorded actions, dispatches, letters and record, and from memoirs and contemporaries. But general appropriation, is not quite the same thing as outright plagiary, and in passing it must be confessed, that several passages and descriptions have been taken from the text of authors listed herein, whose words did not seem capable of improvement.
Introduction
Lang Elliott wasn’t the kind of man who equivocated on any subject.
Ask the senator from Kentucky a question and you would get an answer which was not spoken in “political speak.” If he had no opinion, he would tell you. Hence, he was the darling of the press, although he often took them to task, or, the press would “have at it,” and neither would be the less for the wear. Great thing about telling the truth is that you do not have to remember the lies you have told.
Wednesday was an important day in Senator Elliott’s life. Because on this particular day his committee would open hearings on the provocative issue of Creation Science (The new word for the old one, “creationism.”) vs. Natural Selection. Charles Darwin and his contemporary Russell Wallace would have…and did equivocate as Lang Elliott saw it.
Elliott had read all the books on the subject and in the book, “Essentially Darwin”, the editor, Robert Jastrow states that many Darwin’s books belong to the category, which are much discussed but little read. Elliott had read the book cover-to-cover. Interestingly, both Darwin and Wallace according to Jastrow came to their conclusions at about the same time on the issue of Natural Selection in the bold new era of the discussion of Natural Selection as a method of evolution of the human, versus the widely accepted view of Creationism of all living things by God. Both, Darwin and Wallace credited a member of the Scottish clergy…a Reverend Malthus as the source of their inspiration. It was Malthus’s theories on population in any time period before the 19th century would have seen him burned at the stake as a heretic, or certainly, ostersized as was Galileo. But of course, the world now knows that in time, like so many important issues, the real authorities step forward as did Galileo and proved themselves to be correct.
But these were daunting, challenging times when men and women of science marched forward with new and provocative discoveries and theories to defy scholars of the past just as Copernicus had removed the earth from the center of the universe three hundred years before. Darwin now dares to remove man from the center of the world of living things. In that achievement he joined the ranks of other great men like Einstein; Newton…men who practiced science over prayer as a means to understand the world and man’s rightful place in it.
Twenty-one years in the making, Darwin’s “Origin of the Species,” was revered in the scientific community and reviled in the ministry and much of the underclass.
Coincidentally, Russell Wallace published a paper on the same subject prior to Darwin, and this convenient little triumph troubled Elliott because of its conclusions reached separately, ostensively, were an even greater source of discomfort to him. Why should anyone care about the opinion of a lawyer on a matter of science?
Some wondered if Elliott had gotten his inspiration from another lawyer? Had it come from the learned barrister Clarence Darrow who had defended John Thomas Scopes in the now infamous Tennessee Scopes Monkey trial? There was one thing we knew about Lang Elliott; we would all know his opinion when he took the floor in the Senate hearing room.
Although it was now nearly one hundred years since the State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes, a twenty-four- year old teacher, the case continues to resonate among fundamentalist Christians. During the nearly century old court case after court case, all the courts, including the Supreme Court have ruled against the rights of the states to teach Creation Science. As a result of this decision, most states omit the teaching of the beginning of the universe and the evolution of man altogether. This seems to be the answer from the fundamentalist, “if we can’t have it our way, there will be no way at all!” Obviously demonstrating the power of religion in America under a constitution which mandates a separation of church and state.
This issue was at the heart of the hearings to be held by Senator Elliott’s Committee on Public Education. During these hearings the committee would determine if the states have the right to preclude the teaching of Natural Selection to the exclusion of the teaching of Creation Science? It was to be an epic battle, in one corner the evolution of man without the assistance of God and in the other, a universe designed and created by God in seven (7) days.
One of those expected to testify against the state and the teaching of Creative Science would be the National Academy of Science, perhaps the nation’s leading scientific organization which would be expected to testify that ‘evolution must be a vital part of science instruction, and lessons on creationism do not belong in the science classes.’ The academy also said, “Evolution is supported by overwhelming scientific evidence.” In spite of favorable court decisions, the organization is concerned that there are widespread misunderstandings about evolution and that teachers are reluctant to teach the theory in classrooms today, fearing the majority fundamentalist will object, vociferously, and in mass…and could cost them the teaching positions.
As concerns rise, this organization has produced a guidebook, Teaching About Evolution in basic biology for children beginning in Kindergarten, stating,