Who would win in a fight: The Frankenstein monster or Mickey Mouse? For David Campbell ’77, this battle is not a conflict between two Hollywood icons. It represents the clash of two opposing theories — evolution and creationism.

As part of the fourth annual Darwin Days, Cornell welcomed back Campbell, a biology teacher who advocates evolution education. Campbell spoke to a large crowd in Lewis Auditorium on February 11 about his experiences teaching “the E-word.”

“He teaches [evolution] in a region of great religious ideals, where parents are hostile to [evolution],” said former Cornell President Hunter Rawlings. “[He] introduces this subject in a sensitive way to an audience that is unreceptive to it.”

“The question is: how do we reach students without turning them off to the topic?” Campbell asked.

In his classroom at Ridgeview High School in Orange Park, Florida, Campbell endures the challenges of religious traditionalists, who often come armed with death threats. Some carry religious pamphlets that target science educators, such as “10 Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher about Evolution.”

“The hardest thing for a teacher, especially in high school, is fixing a misconception,” Campbell said. “I don’t expect them to believe evolution, but I do expect them to understand it.”

He explained, “I just want good science, and I want my students to know what rational thinking is.”

Campbell carefully introduces the topic to his students with cultural examples of natural selection — the process by which desirable traits become more common throughout successive generations of a biological population.

He follows with a simple question from his Florida classroom: “Why did he go from Mickey ‘Rat’ to Mickey ‘Mouse?’” Campbell traces the evolution of Mickey Mouse from his unattractive origins in “Steamboat Willie” to his majestic role as the Sorcerer’s apprentice in Fantasia.

“Mickey is a familiar, nonthreatening image — [a] good introduction into a controversial topic,” Campbell said. “I set the tone of the discussion.”

Then, Campbell transitions from pop-culture references to observable, scientific facts, eliciting what he calls the “wow factor.” He shows them images of evolving bacteria and canines, which develop new traits over generations. He constructs a fossil display, comparing the jaw of a modern horse to the jaw of its ancestral species, miohippus.

“Science does not begin with a problem. Science does not begin with research. It starts with curiosity,” he said. “You [teachers] have to try to get that curiosity [from your students].”

Despite such creative efforts, Campbell said the debate persists throughout the country.

In 2008, Campbell helped devise Florida’s new scientific curriculum, which required for the first time that public schools in Florida teach the theory of evolution.

Biologists have been battling southern evangelists since the 1920s, he explained. In 1926, police arrested high-school teacher John Scopes for teaching natural selection, which, in violation of the Butler Act, defied the story of divine creation. Journalists descended upon Dayton, Tennessee, and State v. Scopes became the first broadcasted trial to cross the country via radio, making headlines nationwide. The court found Scopes guilty, but due to a mistrial he received no penalty.

In the 1968 case Epperson v. Arkansas, the US Supreme Court overruled an Arkansas statute that banned the teaching of evolution. The Supreme Court recognized the statute as a violation of the First Amendment, which requires a separation of religion and state.

Earlier this month, proponents of Intelligent Design in Mississippi advocated for a law requiring a disclaimer on all textbooks that included the theory of evolution. The disclaimer referred to evolution as “a controversial theory.” The Mississippi committee failed to adopt the law, and Arkansas remains the only state to require such a disclaimer.

Despite failing in the courts, Campbell said, opponents of evolution continue to contest curriculums that require teachers to cover natural selection. “These people refuse to turn over and just go away. They will continue to fight,” he asserted. “They keeping lying, but they keep disguising it with well-sounding, clever words … when all else fails you can change key definitions.”

Campbell ironically traced the “evolution” of divine creation, which first became “creationism,” developed into “creation science,” and then turned into “intelligent design.”

Campbell said he expects the issue of intelligent design to continue under yet another name: “Academic Freedom Legislation.” In Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama and Michigan legislatures continue to push for new laws that require teachers to present multiple arguments for certain scientific debates, giving equal opportunity to the theories of evolution and intelligent design.

Displaying images of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, Campbell again compared the debate to Hollywood monsters Frankenstein and Dracula. “It keeps coming back over and over again. So it’s something teachers in my position have to deal with,” he said.