WHY IS EVOLUTION CONTROVERSIAL?

A CARTOON




Procedures
Part A: Understanding the Trial

Doug Linder, law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, has assembled a Web site with excerpts and eyewitness accounts from the Scopes Trial. Go to "Famous Trials in American History: Tennessee vs. John Scopes, the 'Monkey Trial'." Read the introduction for an overview. You also may want to read H. L. Mencken's newspaper reports or the Tennessee statute that made the teaching of evolution illegal in public schools and universities.
1. On the main page of the Scopes Trial site above, jump to "Trial Pictures and Cartoons." View the two cartoon sites listed.
2. Explain what you think the artist was trying to depict in each cartoon. Write your descriptions based on your knowledge of evolution and your understanding of the circumstances surrounding this trial. You may need to reexamine the trial facts presented in Professor Linder's Web site to gather additional background information.
Part B: Draw a Cartoon
1. Become an editorial cartoonist yourself. Create your own cartoon about the evolution controversy. Your cartoon should include a drawing, a caption, and an explanation of what you intend to convey.
2. You may wish to view sample editorial cartoons at comics.com before you draw your own. Avoid putting down people with opinions different from your own. Use your cartoon to educate, not humiliate.
3. Give your cartoon descriptions and your original cartoon to your teacher for presentation to the rest of your class.

Part C: Court Decisions

1. Visit the National Center for Science Education's site titled, "Eight Significant Court Decisions."
2. Read about a court case influencing the teaching of evolution in this country and explain it to the rest of your class.



Part A:

The first picture of the first cartoon refers to since as like Clarence Darrow was defending the theory of Darwin's evolution. In the image Darrow says to to the monkey ' father, with this the author was trying to represent the idea that tape-worm Darrow of which the man descends from a low order of the animals.

In the second photo of the first cartoon, the artist tries to represent as Darrow supports the theory of the evolution and William Jennings Bryan was insisting on the history of the Divine Creation of the man, since exposes in the Bible. In the image one sees as Darrow insists Bryan who does not exist Holy Claus. Holy Claus represents to the theory that exposes the bible on the creation of the man.

In the third photo of the first cartoon, the artist tries to represent as bryan was defending the religion

In the second cartoon the two monkeys cannot believe that the violent persons that they are seeing are their descends. This refers to that, in any sectors, the theory of the evolution was not accepted. For this reason there was the trial of John Scopes. After the trial, six days later, Bryan died and fifteen states that were against the teaching of the theory of evolution there were only two states (Arkansas and Mississippi).