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One of the required 9th grade novels, “Inherit the Wind”, has now hit Broadway. In today’s NYT op-ed page, while attempting to provide a humorous and uplifting synopsis of the play and it’s connection with biological evolution, Francix X. Clines seems to ultimately provide short simplistic evidence for evolution.  Loosely transitioning from plot and character analysis to the Bowerbird’s nesting habits, the article fails to articulate its point and weakly concludes with everyone’s favorite evolutionary statistic, “chimpanzee’s DNA has been conclusively shown to be 98.8 percent the same as the visitor’s DNA.” 

The thing that actually intrigues me about this article is that the characters, themes, and controversies from the play still hold huge relevance today.  Based off the actual Scopes “monkey trial” in 1925, I have to wonder, just how much has the general public’s understanding and opinion of evolution changed since 1925?  How much effort has been put forth to translate biological evolution into a comprehensible concept?

Seventy-two years later, we are still living in a country divided by conflicting religious and scientific beliefs.  Evolution isn’t/doesn’t have to be a scary, depressing idea if adequate time is taken to explain its implications.  So who is to blame for why the actual meaning of evolution is being lost in translation?  Scientists? Well, I do think that scientists- for the most part- struggle with translating their discoveries into terms and concepts easily understandable and accessible to the public.  But it isn’t that simple.  Perhaps, lack of true understanding develops from articles like “Evolution, on Broadway and Off,” which seem to just quote “on repeat” the same basic evidence and consistently fail to actually relate numerical evidence back into the meanings behind evolution.