Abstract
THE Tennessee trial has given the readers of NATURE an amusing motley of opinion, but are we not, perhaps, treating the rejection by “Main Street” of the much over-advertised Mr. Scopes too seriously and missing the real significance of the occasion? Is not a lesson of profound social importance behind it all? We are talking glibly of interference with “freedom of thought”. Is there any such thing — even in the ranks of our boasted “science”? Are not the teachers, for the most part, just repeating what they have been told, without exercising any thought? Is the Pauline injunction, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good, in any way followed? If it were, societies would have no difficulty in meeting costs of publication. Whatever may be the case in biology, it certainly is not on the physical side. We mostly use the “Main Street” method but are at the disadvantage that we have no bible holding our faiths which can be put into the hands of the public. Consider our Press, consider our politicians—the Cabinet, even our Public Schools, are not all these located in “Main Street”?
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ARMSTRONG, H. [Letters to Editor]. Nature 116, 172 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116172b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116172b0
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