Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

seedless plants, evolution of
the husband in Bewitched) played Bertram T. Cates, the fictitious
John Scopes; and Henry Morgan (later Sergeant Joe
Friday’s Dragnet sidekick) was the judge. Interestingly,
both March (in 1931) and Tracy (in 1941) had starred in
movie versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a story that also
explores the uneasy connection between human and animal
natures. In 1960 Inherit the Wind became the world’s first
“in-flight movie,” shown by TWA to first-class passengers on
some flights.
As is always the case in historical fiction, the events of
the Scopes Trial were altered by the authors of Inherit the
Wind in such a way as to focus attention on what they considered
the important themes of the event. In particular, the
play and movie depict the trial as a dramatic battle between
hate-filled, benighted fundamentalists and the calm saints
of scientific light and truth. Examples are provided in the
accompanying box. Probably every researcher and teacher
of evolutionary science has experienced fanatical opposition
from fundamentalist creationists (as has the author
of this encyclopedia and many of his acquaintances). Such
vehement opposition, as depicted in the play and movie, is
in fact less common than many anti-creationists suppose.
The author of this encyclopedia teaches evolutionary science
in Bryan County, Oklahoma, squarely in the Bible Belt and
named after none other than William Jennings Bryan. The
overwhelming majority of people who oppose evolutionary
science have been courteous to the author, even when
he puts on his Charles Darwin costume to teach. Inherit the
Wind, by depicting creationists as benighted, makes a point
worth considering, but those who see the movie should recognize
that not all creationists should be painted with the
same brush.
In particular, William Jennings Bryan was not the antiscientific
dogmatist portrayed in Inherit the Wind. Though
he would be considered a fundamentalist by most observers
today, his main political and personal motivation was
not the squashing of evolutionary science but the defense of
individual freedoms against the threat of scientific eugenics
and social Darwinism, and the perceived effect of secularism
on demeaning the worth of the individual. Creationism itself
began as an organized movement in the 20th century, not in
the 19th, ignited largely by fears of the same secularism that
concerned Bryan.
NBC produced TV versions of Inherit the Wind in 1965
and again in 1988. In 1999 MGM released its second movie
version, starring George C. Scott as Bryan and Jack Lemmon
as Darrow, both in nearly the final roles of their careers. The
later productions did not portray the citizens of Hillsboro as
being quite as vehement in their fundamentalism, although
whether this resulted from the fear of conservative backlash
or from a more accurate fairness is difficult to say. The 1999
version, like all modern movies based on actual incidents, carries
a disclaimer that “any resemblance to real persons, living
or dead, is accidental.”
The scene that perhaps remains most in people’s minds
is the final one. Drummond (Darrow) leaves the empty courtroom,
holding first the Bible, then the Origin of Species, and
deciding to take both of them with him.
Further Reading
Davis, Edward B. “Science and religious fundamentalism in the
1920s.” American Scientist 93 (2005): 253–260.
Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s
Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Lawrence, Jerome, and Robert E. Lee. Inherit the Wind. New York:
Bantam Books, 1955.
Moore, Randy A. “Creationism in the United States, VII. The Lingering
Impact of Inherit the Wind.” American Biology Teacher 61
(1999): 246–250.
Overton, William R. “McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education.”
Available online. URL: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-varkansas.html.
Accessed May 10, 2005.
United States Supreme Court. “Epperson v. Arkansas.” Available
online. URL: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/epperson-v-arkansas.
html. Accessed May 10, 2005.
seedless plants, evolution of Seedless plants are bryophytes
(mosses and their relatives) and pteridophytes (ferns,
horsetails, and club mosses, and their relatives). (Algae are
sometimes considered to be seedless plants, but they are actually
photosynthetic protists; see eukaryotes, evolution
of). Seedless plants must live in moist environments on land,
for two reasons:
• Vascular tissue is the plumbing system of higher plants.
Vascular tissue consists of xylem, which brings water
up from the soil to the leaves, and phloem, which carries
nutrients (dissolved in water) throughout the plant. Bryophytes
do not have vascular tissue; because they must soak
up water rather than transporting it in vascular tissue, they
must live in moist environments. Pteridophytes have vascular
tissue.
• Both bryophytes and pteridophytes reproduce sexually
by releasing sperm or similar cells that swim or are carried
to eggs. This form of sexual reproduction can only
occur in a wet environment, and this is why pteridophytes
also must live in moist environments. When plants
that produced seeds evolved, sexual reproduction could
be carried out in the absence of a wet environment (see
gymnosperms, evolution of; angiosperms, evolution
of).
Because life began in water, the earliest plants were
aquatic. The first plants that lived on land were seedless
plants similar to those that are in moist terrestrial environments
today. An analogous situation occurred with animals,
in which the earliest animals on the Earth were aquatic, and
the first animals that lived on land were restricted to moist
environments. As with plants, this was due both to a reduced
ability to survive dry conditions, and to the inability to sexually
reproduce in dry conditions. In both plants and animals,
evolution has produced progressively more species that live in
dry environments.
The green algae (Chlorophyta) are considered to be the
ancestors of all land plants, even though they are not the
most complex algae. Many are unicellular, some form sheets,