Sir

When the journalist H. L. Mencken reported on the infamous Scopes trial of 1925, he remarked that the hysteria surrounding it had made a “universal joke” out of the occupants of Dayton, Tennessee, where the trial took place. Now, 74 years later, but only a few degrees of longitude removed, the Kansas Board of Education has in its turn made a monkey of itself. The board has removed the requirement for school students to have a knowledge of evolution to pass examinations (Nature 400, 697; 1999, Nature 400, 701; 1999).

This might seem hilarious in today's technically wired society were it not for one sobering fact. Despite overwhelming acceptance of the material benefits that science has brought, Americans in general remain deeply ignorant of its basic principles. If such ignorance persists, it will prove devastating to the future of our democracy whose citizens will increasingly be called upon to exercise judgement on the complex social issues that advances in science inevitably bring.

As an illustration in the context of the Kansas decision, consider this — one of the most profound legacies of twentieth-century science for the next millennium is the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA in the 1950s. That provided the physical basis to begin to understand the processes of evolution on a genetic and cellular scale. In a few more decades, we will probably gain the knowledge to effect and accelerate, through directed genetic modification, the evolution of all life forms — including ourselves.

How we use this power, arguably the most potent ever to be possessed by humankind, will present the greatest social challenge to the survival of our species since the first primates stood up in the bushes, or, as they might now say in Kansas, since Adam awoke in Eden. We will have taken a big bite out of the apple of the Tree of Knowledge, surpassing even that which released the secrets within the atomic nucleus. Whether we use the former to create the horror of a Huxleyan Brave New World or to enhance our basic humanity will be strictly up to us, just as is the decision on whether to use the latter for peaceful purposes or to bring about nuclear holocaust.

Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the prime champion among the founding fathers of the principle of separation of church and state, envisioned an American republic governed by a wise and educated electorate. To place at risk for the children of Kansas the chance to obtain all the vital knowledge that will enable them to keep Jefferson's dream alive in the coming age of biological revolution is both deplorable and terrifying.