UC Berkeley

For over a century, American religious organizations have waged a battle against scientists and their allies over the idea of human evolution. What began as a dispute about the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection has, over time, developed into a long-running policy conflict over the teaching of evolution and creationism in public schools. At the heart of the matter is a puzzle: Despite a nationwide shift in the policy status quo favoring evolution and two U.S. Supreme Court decisions that placed creationists at a severe institutional and political disadvantage relative to their opponents, what accounts for the ability of creationists to keep the dispute alive and to continue to score policy victories; and conversely, why have scientists and their allies failed to end the conflict? This outcome, called "contested policy change," raises big questions about policy sustainability and the relationship of political and non-political actors to the policy process. Specifically, how can a new policy grow stronger over time, while the winners who advocated for the policy change get weaker, and the losers actually manage to get stronger?

To answer these questions, we must first reconceptualize the conflict in two dimensions. The first dimension is the policy conflict between pro- and anti-evolution organizations. At stake is the question of whether evolution or creationism (in its various forms) should be taught in public schools. The second, often overlooked, dimension is the "ideational" conflict between religious authorities and scientists. Motivating this dispute is the question of how human life began. Both conflicts are being waged by individuals and organizations--political and non-political--which occupy two distinct organizational fields.

In this dissertation, I argue that perpetuation of the policy conflict can only be explained in relation to the battle of ideas. Specifically, creationists were successful because they engaged in the practice of "field bridging," drawing resources from the organizational field associated with the battle of ideas (i.e., "the ideational field") to sustain and advance their policy agenda. Field bridging is a general mechanism of policy change, which can be found in any policy conflict in which non-political actors are major participants. There are three general mechanisms by which field bridging can advance an organization's policy goals. First, organizations can secure needed material resources from their organizational fields to stay alive and press their policy demands. Second, organizations can supply new ideas to actors in the policy field. Third, organizations can recruit external support from the organizational fields in which they are embedded. In the case at hand, creationists employed all three mechanisms in the wake of their 1960s-era policy defeats. By reframing their policy demands under the banner of "creation science," securing new material resources, and recruiting "creation scientists" and conservative Protestants to the cause, creationist policy activists were able to garner the attention of numerous policy makers during the 1970s and 1980s, while securing a few high-profile victories in several states.

On the other hand, scientists let down their guard after the Supreme Court ruled in their favor in 1968. Although some scientists recognized the growing threat posed by the reinvigorated creationism movement, it would take an entire decade for scientists to begin to organize themselves at the state and local level to challenge creationists in the policy field. Although they eventually found their organizational footing, scientists' most decisive policy victories only came about because of their alliance with church-state separationist organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Despite a second decisive Supreme Court victory in 1987, scientists continue to find themselves fighting a seemingly neverending policy conflict against the organizations of the creationism movement, now operating under the banner of "intelligent design." Until one side or the other is able to conquer the battle of ideas, policy strife is likely to persist.