History Faculty Publications

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

3-2015

Publication Source

Metascience

Abstract

I was reminded of this while reading Adam Shapiro’s fine book, Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Antievolution Movement in American Schools. Central to Trying Biology is the argument that the Scopes Trial was not the inevitable result of an eternal conflict between science and religion, but instead grew out of "debates over American education that had little to do with either science or religion" (12). As Shapiro nicely articulates, the school antievolution movement that emerged in the early 1920s was a backlash against schools teaching evolution "in a politically charged way" and "to a new population of students" (65). Three developments fueled this backlash. First, there was "a new generation of biology textbooks that … intertwined applications of biology promoting certain cultural and economic worldviews" — an approach known as "civic biology" — and that had as their target audience students in the urban North. The second was a move (particularly in the South and West) "away from local textbook adoption in favor of state-level regulation," a shift driven by intense frustration with monopolistic publishing firms and corrupt textbook salesmen. Finally, there was the "expansion of compulsory high school into the rural South … which brought civic biology textbooks to students for whom other approaches to the life sciences were intended" (66).

Inclusive pages

1-4

ISBN/ISSN

0815-0796

Document Version

Postprint

Comments

The document available for download after the required embargo period is the author's accepted manuscript, provided in compliance with the publisher's policy on self-archiving.

Some differences may exist between the manuscript and the published version; as such, researchers wishing to quote directly from this resource are advised to consult the version of record.

Permission documentation is on file.

Citation information for the book reviewed:

Adam R. Shapiro. Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Antievolution Movement in American Schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780226029597

Publisher

Springer Netherlands

Link to published version

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