In the mid-twentieth century, film studios sent their screenplays to the Hays Office, Hollywood’s official censorship body, and to the Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency for approval and recommendations for revision. This essay examines how filmmakers crafted stories involving evolutionary biology and how religiously motivated movie censorship groups modified these cinematic narratives in order to depict what they considered to be more appropriate visions of humanity’s origins. I find that censorship groups were concerned about the perceived impact of science fiction cinema on the public’s belief systems and on the wider cultural meanings of evolution. By controlling the stories told about evolution in science fiction cinema, censorship organizations believed that they could regulate the broader cultural meanings of evolution itself. But this is not a straightforward story of “science” versus “religion.” There were significant differences among these groups as to how to censor evolution, as well as changes in their attitudes toward evolutionary content over time. As a result, I show how censorship groups adopted diverse perspectives, depending on their perception of what constituted a morally appropriate science fiction story about evolution.

中文翻译：

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切割室地板上的达尔文：

在 20 世纪中叶，电影制片厂将他们的剧本送到好莱坞的官方审查机构海斯办公室和天主教会的正派军团以获得批准和修改建议。本文探讨了电影制作人如何制作涉及进化生物学的故事，以及出于宗教动机的电影审查团体如何修改这些电影叙事，以描绘他们认为更合适的人类起源愿景。我发现审查团体担心科幻电影对公众信仰体系和更广泛的进化文化意义的影响。通过控制科幻电影中讲述的进化故事，审查组织相信他们可以规范进化本身的更广泛的文化含义。但这并不是一个关于“科学”与“宗教”的直截了当的故事。这些群体在如何审查进化以及他们对进化内容的态度随时间的变化方面存在显着差异。因此，我展示了审查团体如何采用不同的观点，这取决于他们对构成道德上适当的关于进化的科幻小说的看法。