Evolution, Present Status

Ever since the Dayton, Tenn., "monkey trial" of 1925, which was a technical victory for Fundamentalism because William Jennings Bryan swung a hillbilly jury away from Clarence Darrow and one John Thomas Scopes was fined $100 for teaching Evolution in contravention of the State law, Fundamentalists have been saying not only that Evolution is a "mere guess." but that scientists, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, admit that it is a mere guess. Two States have since passed laws like Tennessee's. Other states ban evolutionary textbooks from the public schools. Therefore, the executive committee of the A.A.A.S. at its spring meeting adopted a resolution, prepared by famed Drs. Edwin Grant Conklin, Samuel Jackson Holmes, Henry Fairfield Osborn, John Campbell Merriam and Robert Andrews Millikun, published in Science, setting forth, "the present status of Evolution" in four points:

1) "No scientific generalization is more strongly supported by thoroughly tested evidences."

2) The evidence is sufficient "to convince every scientist of note in the world."

3) The A.A.A.S. affirms Evolution as "one of the most potent influences for good . . . [in] human experience."

4) Any laws to limit teaching any scientific doctrine so well established, so widely accepted, ''would be a profound mistake,"