Flesh and Bone: A Body Farm Novel

CHAPTER 11

THERE WAS A LIGHT tap on my doorframe, and a millisecond later-even before I had time to look up-a female voice said, “Knock knock.”

“Come in,” I said, not yet looking up. I was writing a note on a student’s test paper, and I wanted to finish the sentence before I forgot the second half of it. As I tapped the period into place, I realized that the voice was familiar, but that it was also not one I was accustomed to hearing in the dingy quarters of Stadium Hall.

My first glance explained the disconnect. The voice belonged to Amanda Whiting, and I had never heard it except in the walnut-paneled confines of the President’s Dining Room and the similarly veneered interior of the UT president’s home.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “I must be in some mighty deep trouble if you’ve come all the way down here looking for me.” Amanda was a UT vice president; she was also the university’s chief counsel, its highest-flying legal eagle. “What did I do this time? I’ve tried to cut back on the dirty jokes in class. Really, I have.”

“I wish it were as simple as a coed offended by your Neanderthal sense of humor,” she said. “This is about Jason Lane.”

“Jason Lane? He’s one of my students; I do recognize the name. But beyond that, I’m drawing a blank.”

She heaved a sigh. “Jason Lane is a devout young man. A devoutly fundamentalist Christian young man.” I suddenly saw where this was heading, and I didn’t like what I saw. “He believes the Bible to be the literal, unerring word of God. He believes the Book of Genesis to be the definitive account of the creation of the earth and of all the life-forms therein.”

“And in class the other day, I begged to differ,” I said.

“Begged to differ? Hell, Bill, you stomped all over this kid’s belief system in front of a hundred other people.” She folded her arms across her chest and gave me a stern look over the top of her reading glasses.

“You’re right,” I said. “I was hard on him, and I feel bad about it. But dang it, Amanda, I’m a scientist. Am I really supposed to check my brain and my education at the classroom door, pretend that everything we know from paleontology and zoology and molecular biology is idle speculation? And if some kid says everything was conjured up in six days, am I supposed say, ‘Gosh, Jason, maybe you’re right and the Nobel laureates are wrong’? When did that become UT’s policy on academic freedom?” I glared at her; she glared back, and then she softened.

“I know,” she said. “Intellectually and scientifically, you’re right. And you do have the freedom to teach what you think is right. Nevertheless, we do have a problem.”

“So what do I need to do, apologize? In private, or in front of the class so my humiliation corresponds to his?”

“That’s not it,” she said. “He’s not after a pound of flesh.”

“Then how many pounds is he after?”

“How many pounds you got?” she said. “It’s not just you, and it’s not just him now. That’s why it’s a problem. This student is just the convenient opportunity, and you’re just the door about to get knocked on, or knocked down.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ever heard of Jennings Bryan?”

“William Jennings Bryan? Sure. Lawyer, senator, and presidential candidate in the late 1800s. He argued the case against evolution at the Scopes trial, just down the road in Dayton, didn’t he?”

“That one did; this one was born at least a hundred years later, and he’s very much alive and kicking. No relation to the monkey-trial attorney, by the way, but many parallels. He’s a lawyer, too. And an antievolutionist as well. A philosophical chip off the old Bryan block. Even has political aspirations-he and that former Alabama Supreme Court justice, the Ten Commandments judge, are getting some buzz as the dream ticket of the far right in the 2008 presidential election.”

“Then even I might start praying without ceasing,” I said. “So how does young Jennings Bryan, Esquire, fit into this?”

“As best I can tell, your student Jason called home upset about what you said in class. His parents, who are of the same persuasion as Jason when it comes to matters of faith and evolution, called their minister. And their minister’s flock just happens to include Mr. Bryan, who has been making a name for himself in fundamentalist circles by spearheading several successful efforts to teach creationism-or at least undermine evolution-in public schools.”

“Was he part of the campaign out in Kansas that got the state Board of Education to muzzle science teachers?”

“Behind the scenes,” she said. “He’s also filed friend-of-the-court briefs in half a dozen cases involving public education, evolution, and intelligent design. The scary thing about him is, he actually knows the scientific issues pretty well, so he can target what he sees as the Achilles’ heel of evolution.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like the gaps in the fossil record. As I understand it, you’d logically expect fossils to show steady changes over millions of years, but instead, they show long periods with small changes and few transition species, then boom, this explosion of new species or variations appears.”

“Evolution proceeds in fits and starts,” I said. “Just because we don’t yet understand why, that doesn’t mean we should chuck it.”

“Believe me, Bill, I agree with you completely. I’m just saying, Bryan is shrewd. He knows how to frame the issues in ways that resonate with middle-of-the-road people. Including judges and juries.”

“So how does Mr. Bryan propose to complicate our lives, exactly?”

“In three ways, from what I’m hearing through various grapevines,” she said. “First, by filing a class-action suit against you, the university, and the state for discriminating against students who believe in the literal truth of the six-day creation story. Second, by petitioning the board of trustees to adopt a policy that would require any evolution-oriented instruction to be balanced by alternative theories.”

“Swell,” I said. “I’ve always liked the Native American alternative, which holds that North America is carried along on the back of a giant sea turtle.”

“It’s easy to see the absurd side of this,” she said, “but I tell you, I can’t promise which way the vote would go if the trustees started getting a lot of pressure.”

That was two ways. “What’s the third circle of hell he wants to consign us to?”

“Legislation, modeled after a 1980 Louisiana law that requires teachers who discuss evolution to also present scientific evidence for creation.”

“But there’s no such evidence,” I protested. “Besides, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that law years ago.”

“Exactly,” she said. “Twenty years and six justices ago. The Court’s changed since then, become a lot more conservative. Today’s Court might uphold a law similar to the one overturned by the 1987 court. This proposed Tennessee law-and I’m told he’s already got sponsors in both the House and the Senate-is crafted with enough differences from the Louisiana law that the Supreme Court might be willing to hear the case.”

“Damn,” I said, “wouldn’t that be ironic if Bill Brockton-a guy whose scientific career is founded on evolutionary change in the human skeleton-handed the creationists a landmark victory in the Supreme Court?” She gave me an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. “Even more ironic,” I said, “if eight de cades after the Scopes trial, where science won the battle for public opinion, Tennessee’s educators and legislators turned their backs on science.”

She stood up to go. “You know the most important thing you can do now to keep that from happening?” I waited. “Keep quiet.”