Spring Break
Charles Darwin's legacy lives on at ECU
John Tucker
Issue date: 1/13/09 Section: Features
|
The author of Creationism vs. Evolution: An Introduction, Scott is also the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, a pro-evolution nonprofit science education organization with members in every state. Scott holds a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of Missouri, and honorary D.Sc degrees from McGill University and Ohio State University and several other institutions.
Scott is also an outspoken advocate of the separation of church and state. She serves on the National Advisory Councils of both Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union. She also serves on the Advisory Council of the AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion committee. Scott has also served on the Board of Directors of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. An internationally-recognized expert on the creation/evolution controversy, she has consulted with the National Academy of Sciences, several state departments of education, and legal staffs in both the United States and Australia. Scott is co-editor, with Glenn Branch, of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools.
Scott is not the first to discuss Darwin and evolution in Wright Auditorium. Long before the auditorium was named after him, the first President of the East Carolina Teachers' Training School, Dr. Robert Wright, addressed the student body about the controversy over Darwinism and evolution that resulted from the "Scopes Monkey Trial" in the summer of 1925. Wright stated that while some might claim "that if you prove that Darwin's theory is correct, then all of our religion is thrown away, it is ruined, it is absolutely destroyed. Now, those folks who take that position are just as bad as those folks who follow this monkey theory through and through. These religionists are carrying the theory, that is all. You mean to tell me that if you can establish a truth that it will destroy God's word? No, it could not destroy God's word because God's word is the truth, and this part that we call the Bible is just part of the record, that is all. It does not contain it all. It is a part of it. It is the part they found and preserved. I don't want anybody to have the kind of religion that can be destroyed by finding the truth. Why, it is God's truth that makes us free, and this Bible was not written to teach us science or geography," he said.
Although skeptical of Darwinism as a theory, President Wright was adamant that it have its hearing on campus.
Tickets for the event are available through the ECU Central Ticket Office in Mendenhall (328-4788). For more information, please contact the director of the Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series, John Tucker (328-1028).
The Department of Biology is also celebrating the bicentennial of Darwin's birth with various events. See http://www.ecu.edu/educ/csmte/darwin.cfm.
This writer can be contacted at features@theeastcarolinian.com.
Be the first to comment on this story