1. Well did God make man in a breath of holy fire

2. Or did he crawl on up out of the muck and mire

3. Bruce Springsteen, Part Man, Part Monkey (1998)

The evolution–creation wars of the past ninety years are a familiar feature of the political landscape. So familiar that it is easy to think of this conflict as both normal and inevitable. But even the most cursory examination of other nations shows that this political conflict is distinctly American. Its emergence in the 1920s as a salient culture war was a result of the fragmentation of American Protestantism, the professionalization of science, and the rapid expansion of public education.

The evolution–creation war of the 1920s remains with us today – changed in some ways but remarkably similar in others. The continuity is a result of several factors. Of great importance is the fact that the earliest political opposition to evolution was transformed into a social movement. Sustained by its own anti-evolution associations and by religious organizations, anti-evolutionism became institutionalized. Over many decades, the movement retained the resources to support speaking tours by its most charismatic orators, built large membership bases that provided financial contributions, and disseminated its ideas via pamphlets, books, broadcasts, internet sites, and research institutes. Associated with specific faith traditions, anti-evolutionism has also been sustained by support from an array of churches and seminaries. Simultaneously, the professionalization and growth of science provided an institutional home for proponents of evolution. Today's scientific organizations have large bureaucracies, public relations offices, and a lobbying presence in the halls of power.