| Abstract | The boundary between science and religion has long been a site for cultural and
professional conflict. We examine the testimony of scientists at the Scopes "Monkey
Trial" in 1925 and at the McLean "Creation-Science" trial in 1981-82. The two trials
were public occasions for scientists to present ideologies of science .that legitimated
their professional claims to cognitive authority, public financing and control over
part of the public school curriculum. The rhetoric of scientists at each trial was
directed toward a separate professional goal: at Scopes, scientists differentiated
scientific knowledge from religious belief in a way that presented them as
distinctively useful but complementary; at McLean, the boundary between science
and religion was drawn to exclude creation scientists from the profession. Both
goals-41) differentiation of a valued commodity uniquely provided by science, and (2)
exclusion of pseudoscientists-are important for scientists' establishment of a
professional monopoly over the market for knowledge about nature. Each goal,
however, required different descriptions of "science" at the two trials, and we
conclude that this ideological flexibility has contributed to the successful
professionalization of scientists in American society. |
