Scholars Award: Bringing to Light a Court Case over the Teaching of Evolution in American Schools that Preceded the Scopes Trial

Shapiro Adam, Lancaster PA

Investigators

Abstract

General Audience Summary This award supports research on a previously unknown trial on evolution that took place in 1924; it is America's first courtroom battle over the teaching of evolution, having occurred one year prior to the infamous Scopes trial, which has until now been regarded as the first such trial. The researcher will develop new scholarship on public understanding of evolution and its history in the United States, based on his discovery of the 1924 evolution trial. The researcher will communicate the results of this research to a broad audience by the publication of a book and by articles in both academic peer-reviewed journals and in popular mainstream publications. This project builds on previous scholarly work of the researcher and expands his inquiries into the relationship between STS and other disciplines, including fields of disability studies, migration studies, and education policy. Technical Summary The discovery of an unknown evolution trial in American history, one that supplants the infamous Scopes trial of 1925 as the earliest known trial, is itself groundbreaking and promises to make a significant contribution to the study of STS and US history. This project goes beyond simply calling attention to this unknown event by developing new insights into both the public understanding of science and the historically changing place of the schoolteacher as a figure in the center of controversies over public acceptance of science. The project will also explore the way that the trial's plaintiff, a Pennsylvania Dutch man with a disability, understood his role as a mediator of scientific knowledge. As such, this project explores new intellectual connections between the fields of STS and disability studies by examining the way that one's identity as fit or disabled shaped the way one could perform the role of knowledge mediator. It promises to compel a substantial revision in the history evolution and its use in education policy, and to encourage greater engagement between policy makers and the social studies of science and technology by its contribution to ongoing discussions.