SCOPES TRIAL

SCOPES TRIAL. Since the American public witnessed the dramatic testimony of William Jennings Bryan in the blistering heat of Dayton, Tennessee, in the summer of 1925, the Scopes Trial has come to represent the controversy over the teaching of evolutionary theories and Darwinism in the American public schools. John Scopes, a local biology teacher, agreed to serve as a defendant in an American Civil Liberties Union test case of Tennessee's antievolutionary law. He was arrested for teaching evolution and held for a jury trial in July of 1925. The issue at stake—whether the state could proscribe the teaching of any science that appeared to contradict the Bible—predated the trial and has remained a source of bitter controversy.

Since the publication of the Origin of Species in 1859 and the Descent of Man in 1871, Charles Darwin's concepts of an ancient Earth and a gradual development of new species have been seen as particularly threatening by some groups of Christians, particularly in the United States. Seen to deny the story of Genesis and bolster a materialist interpretation of the appearance of life on Earth, evolution has become, for some important Protestant religious sects, symbolic of growing social disorder, immorality, and the decline of traditional culture in modern America.

The Scopes Trial occurred as a result of the Tennessee legislature's passage of the Butler Act in March 1925. The law, designed to prevent the teaching of Darwinian evolution in the public schools, was not the first of its kind; Oklahoma had passed a similar statute in 1923, while several other states had considered doing so. This series of antievolutionary measures could be attributed in part to the activism of the former Populist leader, three-time presidential candidate, and former secretary of state William Jennings Bryan. After World War I Bryan had become a leader of the newly organized fundamentalist tendency in American Protestantism and a leading opponent of evolutionary theory, which he saw as an immoral science that had legitimated German ruthlessness during the war. Throughout the early 1920s he used his fame and rhetorical gifts to further the antievolutionary cause.

The forces that met and clashed in Dayton, Tennessee, were remarkably like those that have continued to debate the issue throughout the twentieth century. Both prosecution and defense decided to use the occasion to score larger points for their cause. Local prosecutors invited Bryan to join their case, while defense attorneys brought in the famed trial lawyer Clarence Darrow. A large group of reporters, as well as spectators from the local countryside, descended on the small town, and the proceedings were broadcast over WGN radio in Chicago.

The trial's most dramatic moment came when Bryan agreed to testify about the Biblical account of creation. In his testimony he revealed, to the consternation of many fundamentalists, his belief in the "day/age" theory, which interpreted the days referred to in the Biblical account of creation as metaphors for much larger ages. Bryan, the town of Dayton, and much of rural America were mocked in the urban press, led by the journalist H. L. Mencken, who attended the trial. But none of this mattered to the outcome of the proceedings, which established that Scopes had indeed broken the law. While the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the conviction on appeal, it set aside the lower court's verdict on a technicality rather than on the merits of the case or the constitutionality of the law. The ACLU thus failed to establish the legal precedent against antievolutionary laws that it had sought.

The events of Dayton and the decline of efforts to outlaw evolution did not mean that evolution could be taught widely in American schools. In fact, after 1925 and well into the 1960s, most public school textbooks removed any mention of Darwin or evolution. Biblical literalists did not budge in their opposition to evolutionary science. But they did change their tactics. Rather than simply attacking evolution, they borrowed the language of science to present the Biblical story of creation in a new, more respectable guise. While this new "creation science" made no headway among established biologists and geologists, it proved convincing to many other Americans. With considerable public support, fundamentalists and creation scientists sought "equal time" to present their views in science classes. Focused first at a statewide and later at a local level, their agitation won temporary victories in the South, the Midwest, and California over the course of several decades. In 1987, however, a 7 to 2 ruling by the United States Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard rejected the equal time proposal and judged mandatory creation science to be an unconstitutional intrusion of religion into public schools.

The Supreme Court's powerful and far-reaching opinion notwithstanding, creation science has continued to win approval from many Americans, while the teaching of evolution and its mechanisms has lagged in the public schools. For example, in 1999 the Kansas Board of Education, by a narrow majority, approved a new science curriculum that eliminated the required teaching of evolutionary theory. Although the ruling was rescinded in early 2001, it does not appear that threats to American science education will disappear anytime soon.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conkin, Paul K. When All the Gods Trembled: Darwinism, Scopes and American Intellectuals. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998.

Eve, Raymond A., and Francis B. Harrold. The Creationist Movement in Modern America. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.

Larson, Edward J. Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Numbers, Ronald L. The Creationists. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Webb, George E. The Evolution Controversy in America. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994.

James B.Gilbert

See alsoCreationism ; Evolutionism ; Fundamentalism ; Science and Religion, Relations of .

Scopes Trial

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The dramatic Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925 involved the prosecution of high school science teacher John T. Scopes (1900–1970) for violating Tennessee’s Butler Law, outlawing the teaching of evolution in the state’s public schools. The trial was one of American history’s landmark courtroom battles and a watershed in what came to be widely understood as a cresting conflict between science and religion.

The publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 was taken by many as a radical challenge to the Biblical accounts of humankind’s origin. In the ensuing years, revolutionary advances in science and technology, increasing urbanization, and the growth of religious pluralism fed by mass immigration, buoyed both the self-confidence of science and the appeal of a secular public sphere. Evolutionary theory was applied to social relations to justify the laissez-faire (or hands-off) policies and economic inequalities of the Gilded Age (which many Christians condemned) as naturally occurring instances of the survival of the fittest. Prominent public thinkers increasingly argued that religion was dogmatic, superstitious, and impeded the scientific spirit essential to a more enlightened modernity. The 1920s, however, witnessed a revival of Fundamentalist Protestantism, aimed at fighting these trends, and many of the ideas—like evolution—that undergirded them by undermining the authority of Scripture. Part of the Fundamentalist counterattack involved state-level efforts to outlaw the teaching of Darwinian theory to public school children.

The Scopes trial was self-consciously conceived as a theatrical staging of these broad-ranging social debates. Tennessee’s Butler Law was passed largely as a statement of principle. Few of its proponents either intended or expected that it would be aggressively enforced. The proponents of evolutionary theory, scientific investigation, academic freedom, and secular education (including the American Civil Liberties Union) actively recruited John Scopes, a general science teacher substituting as a biology teacher, to admit to having violated the law by teaching a lesson in evolution. They did so in full collusion with local town officials in Dayton, Tennessee (including the prosecutor), who hoped a dramatic public spectacle pitting the claims of science against religion would revive the economic fortunes of the ailing southern town. The town officials bore no ill will toward Scopes, who swam with the opposing side’s lawyers during trial recesses. It was understood that, if convicted, Scopes would serve no jail time, but instead pay a fine generously provided by others. The prosecution and defense teams recruited two of the country’s most famous lawyers to square off on behalf of science on one hand and the Bible on the other—the radical Chicago attorney (and proud atheist) Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) and the Populist evangelical former presidential candidate and secretary of state William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925), respectively. The trial was conducted in a carnival-like swirl of hot-dog and lemonade hawkers, souvenir vendors, and street-corner orators. The proceedings were broadcast live from Chicago on WGN radio and charted by swarms of reporters, including the celebrated American journalist H. L. Mencken (1880–1956). The sparring between the two lawyers, including Darrow’s withering cross-examination of Bryan (who mounted the stand himself as an expert on biblical teaching) became the stuff of legend. Although the jury convicted Scopes, the consensus was that Darrow had effectively humiliated the creationists, striking a powerful blow for science and academic freedom. Many have held the trial’s grueling ordeal responsible for Bryan’s death only days after the verdict, as well as for the ensuing retreat of many fundamentalist Protestants from the nation’s public life.

In subsequent years the Scopes trial retained a rich resonance as a symbol of the dangers of not only religious zealotry, but of religion in general, to the advancement of knowledge and intellectual freedom. These symbolic uses were evident in accounts of it in the most prominent cold war era American history textbooks and, most famously, in the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee play, Inherit the Wind (and its 1960 film adaptation by Stanley Kramer), which took dramatic liberties with real events by building up the depth of John Scopes’s commitment to evolutionary theory and academic freedom and the ruthlessness and intolerance of the Dayton townspeople and prosecutors. These reconstructed memories were prominent in the culture at precisely the moment in the early 1960s that the U.S. Supreme Court held—in a run of Establishment Clause cases invalidating Bible reading and prayer in the schools—that the Constitution imposed a “high and impregnable” “wall of separation” between church and state. As evangelical and fundamentalist Christians became newly active in politics in the 1980s (in part in reaction to these judicial rulings) and as a new generation of critics of evolutionary theory and proponents of creationism and “intelligent design” gained influence, the meaning and legacy of the Scopes Trial are being reconsidered once again.

SEE ALSO Christianity; Church and State; Civil Liberties; Creationism; Cross of Gold; Darwin, Charles; Fundamentalism, Christian; Populism; Science

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Larson, Edward J. 1997. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. New York: BasicBooks.

Lawrence, Jerome, and Robert E. Lee. 1955. Inherit the Wind. New York: Random House.

Scopes, John T., and James Presley. 1967. Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Ken I. Kersch

Scopes Trial, celebrated 1925 case involving the teaching of evolution in public schools. By 1920, Protestant fundamentalism had coalesced from various conservative religious traditions into an organized movement fighting the spread of the religious modernism and cultural secularism. Fundamentalist leaders viewed evolutionary naturalism, propounded by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species (1859), as a root cause of both developments. Joined by William Jennings Bryan, they launched a national crusade against Darwinism. Their first major legal victory came in 1925, when Tennessee outlawed teaching about human evolution in public schools. The American Civil Liberties Union invited local teachers to challenge the law. John Scopes, a young science teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, accepted the challenge at the urging of local school and civic leaders, who sought to promote their town.

The case resulted in a highly publicized clash of ideas rather than a serious prosecution of Scopes, who was never threatened with jail or loss of job. Bryan joined the prosecution, which vigorously asserted popular and parental control over public education. Clarence Darrow, a famed Chicago lawyer, led a team of prominent attorneys and scientists in defense of Scopes and the concept of academic freedom. H.L. Mencken and many other journalists covered the trial, which was also carried live on a Chicago radio station.

Throughout the eight‐day trial (10–21 July 1925), Bryan and Darrow sparred over the validity of evolutionary science and revealed religion. The jury convicted Scopes, but not before Darrow exposed Bryan to ridicule as an “expert witness” on the Bible. Bryan died a week later, and the crusade against Darwinism gradually lost momentum over the next few years. In 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed Scopes’ conviction on a technicality but upheld the law. Several southern states adopted similar restrictions, though none was enforced in court.

Although the Scopes trial had little impact on popular religious or scientific beliefs, it passed into folklore as a object lesson in the danger of intolerance in a democratic society. The defense theory of individual freedom and strict separation of church and state was later adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of decisions, most notably McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), barring public‐school religious instruction; Abington Township School District v. Schempp (1963), against officially sponsored prayer in public schools; and Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), overturning a state statute based on the Tennessee antievolution law.
See also Evolution, Theory of; Fundamentalist Movement; Journalism; Modernist Culture; Science: Revolutionary War to World War I; Science: From 1914 to 1945; Science: Science and Religion; Secularization; South, The; Twenties, The.

Bibliography

Edward J. Larson , Summer of the Gods, 1997.
Ronald L. Numbers , Darwinism Comes to America, 1998.

Edward J. Larson

Scopes trial Tennessee legal case involving the teaching of evolution in public schools. A statute was passed (Mar., 1925) in Tennessee that prohibited the teaching in public schools of theories contrary to accepted interpretation of the biblical account of human creation. John T. Scopes, a biology teacher, was tried (July, 1925) for teaching Darwinism in a Dayton, Tenn., public school. Clarence Darrow was one of Scopes's attorneys, while William Jennings Bryan aided the state prosecutor. Darrow argued that academic freedom was being violated and claimed that the legislature had indicated a religious preference, violating the separation of church and state. He also maintained that the evolutionary theory was consistent with certain interpretations of the Bible, and in an especially dramatic session he sharply questioned Bryan on the latter's literal interpretation. Scopes was convicted, partly because of the defense, which refused to plead any of the technical defenses available, fearing an acquittal on a technical rather than a constitutional basis. Scopes was, however, later released by the state supreme court on a technicality. Although the outcry over the case tended to discourage enactment of similar legislation in other states, the law was not repealed until 1967.

Bibliography: See R. Ginger, Six Days or Forever? (1958, repr. 1969); S. N. Grebstein, Monkey Trial (1960); J. T. Scopes, Center of the Storm (1967); L. S. de Camp, The Great Monkey Trial (1968); E. J. Larson, The Summer for the Gods (1997).

Scopes Case (USA) In July 1925 John T. Scopes, a biology teacher at Dayton High School, Tennessee, went on trial charged with violating state law by teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. In March 1925 the Tennessee legislature had made it unlawful to teach any doctrine which denied the literal truth of the account of the creation as presented in the King James version of the Bible. In a case led by William J. Bryan for the prosecution, the justice ruled out any discussion of constitutionality. National interest in the trial was inspired by the journalism of H. L. Mencken, who portrayed it as a battle between science and superstition. The trial marked the beginning of an erosion of religious fundamentalism in public education and brought Bryan's reputation into question. Since Scopes was clearly guilty, he was convicted and fined $100. On appeal to the state Supreme Court the constitutionality of the state law was upheld, but Scopes was acquitted on the technicality that he had been fined ‘excessively’. The law itself was not repealed until 1967.

Scopes case (July 1925) The US legal case in which John T. Scopes, a biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was charged with violating state law by teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. The state legislature had enacted (1925) that it was unlawful to teach any doctrine denying the literal truth of the account of the creation as presented in the Authorized ( King James) Version of the Bible. The judge ruled out any discussion of constitutional legality, and since Scopes clearly had taught Darwin's theory of evolution he was convicted and fined $100. On appeal to the Supreme Court the constitutionality of the state's law was upheld, but Scopes was acquitted on the technicality that he had been “fined excessively”. The law was repealed in 1967. However, Christian fundamentalists in the USA continue to campaign vigorously for a return to creationist teaching.

Scopes trial (for teaching of Darwinism): see CREATIONISM.

Scopes Trial, see Fundamentalism.