An introduction to the John Scopes (Monkey) Trial Darrow questions Bryan during the Scopes Trial (July 20, 1925) (Smithsonian) The early 1920s found social patterns in chaos. Traditionalists, the older Victorians, worried that everything valuable was ending. Younger modernists no longer asked whether society would approve of their behavior, only whether their behavior met the approval of their intellect. Intellectual experimentation flourished. Americans danced to the sound of the Jazz Age, showed their contempt for alcoholic prohibition, debated abstract art and Freudian theories. In a response to the new social patterns set in motion by modernism, a wave of revivalism developed, becoming especially strong in the American South. Who would dominate American culture--the modernists or the traditionalists? Journalists were looking for a showdown, and they found one in a Dayton, Tennessee courtroom in the summer of 1925. There a jury was to decide the fate of John Scopes , a high school biology teacher charged with illegally teaching the theory of evolution. The guilt or innocence of John Scopes, and even the constitutionality of Tennessee's anti-evolution statute , mattered little.

The meaning of the trial emerged through its interpretation as a conflict of social and intellectual values. William Jennings Bryan , three-time Democratic candidate for President and a populist, led a Fundamentalist crusade to banish Darwin 's theory of evolution from American classrooms. Bryan's motivation for mounting the crusade is unclear. It is possible that Bryan, who cared deeply about equality, worried that Darwin's theories were being used by supporters of a growing eugenics movement that was advocating sterilization of "inferior stock." More likely, the Great Commoner came to his cause both out a concern that the teaching of evolution would undermine traditional values he had long supported and because he had a compelling desire to remain in the public spotlight--a spotlight he had occupied since his famous "Cross of Gold" speech at the 1896 Democratic Convention. Bryan, in the words of columnist H. L. Mencken , who covered the Scopes Trial, transformed himself into a "sort of Fundamentalist Pope." By 1925, Bryan and his followers had succeeded in getting legislation introduced in fifteen states to ban the teaching of evolution.

In February, Tennessee enacted a bill introduced by John Butler making it unlawful "to teach any theory that denies the story of divine creation as taught by the Bible and to teach instead that man was descended from a lower order of animals." The Scopes Trial had its origins in a conspiracy at Fred Robinson's drugstore in Dayton. George Rappalyea , a 31-year-old transplanted New Yorker and local coal company manager, arrived at the drugstore with a copy of a paper containing an American Civil Liberties Union announcement that it was willing to offer its services to anyone challenging the new Tennessee anti-evolution statute. Rappalyea, a modernist Methodist with contempt for the new law, argued to other town leaders that a trial would be a way of putting Dayton on the map. Listening to Rappalyea, the others--including School Superintendent Walter White--became convinced that publicity generated by a controversial trial might help their town, whose population had fallen from 3,000 in the 1890's to 1,800 in 1925. The conspirators summoned John Scopes, a twenty-four-year old general science teacher and part-time football coach, to the drugstore.

As Scopes later described the meeting, Rappalyea said, "John, we've been arguing and I said nobody could teach biology without teaching evolution." Scopes agreed. "That's right," he said, pulling a copy of Hunter's Civic Biology--the state-approved textbook--from one of the shelves of the drugstore (the store also sold school textbooks). "You've been teaching 'em this book?" Rappalyea asked. Scopes replied that while filling in for the regular biology teacher during an illness, he had assigned readings on evolution from the book for review purposes. "Then you've been violating the law," Rappalyea concluded. "Would you be willing to stand for a test case?" he asked. Scopes agreed. He later explained his decision: "the best time to scotch the snake is when it starts to wiggle." Herbert and Sue Hicks, two local attorneys and friends of Scopes, agreed to prosecute. Rappalyea initially wanted science fiction writer H. G. Wells to head the defense team. "I am sure that in the interest of science Mr. Wells will consent," Rappalyea predicted. Wells had no interest in taking the case, but others did.

John Neal , an eccentric law school dean from Knoxville, drove to Dayton and volunteered to represent Scopes. When William Jennings Bryan offered to join the prosecution team--despite having not practiced law in over thirty years--, Clarence Darrow , approaching seventy, jumped to join the battle in Dayton. Darrow was not the first choice of the ACLU, who was concerned that Darrow's zealous agnosticism might turn the trial into a broadside attack on religion.The ACLU first preferred former presidential candidates John W. Davies and Charles Evans Hughes, but neither was willing to serve alongside Darrow. Instead, it dispatched Arthur Garfield Hays, a prominent free speech advocate, to join the defense team. The final member of the defense team was Dudley Field Malone , an international divorce attorney (and another volunteer who the ACLU might have preferred to stay at home). Completing the prosecution team in Dayton were present and former attorneys general for Eastern Tennessee, A. T. Stewart and Ben B. McKenzie , and Bryan's son, federal prosecutor William Jennings Bryan, Jr.

Time has a way of simplifying events and today Darrow and Bryan are remembered as the key adversaries in the trial, even though Hays for the defense and Stewart for the prosecution played equally important roles at the trial. A carnival atmosphere pervaded Dayton as the opening of the trial approached in July of 1925. Banners decorated the streets. Lemonade stands were set up. Chimpanzees, said to have been brought to town to testify for the prosecution, performed in a side show on Main Street. Anti- Evolution League members sold copies of T. T. Martin's book Hell and the High School. Holy rollers rolled in the surrounding hills and riverbanks. Nearly a thousand people, 300 of whom were standing, jammed the Rhea County Courthouse on July 10, 1925 for the first day of trial. (Judge John T. Raulston , the presiding judge in the Scopes Trial, had proposed moving the trial under a tent that would have seated 20,000 people). Also in attendance were announcers ready to send to listeners the first live radio broadcast from a trial.

Judge Raulston, a conservative Christian who craved publicity, was flanked by two police officers waving huge fans to keep air circulating. The proceedings opened, over Darrow's objections, to a prayer. A jury of twelve men, including ten (mostly middle-aged) farmers and eleven regular church-goers, was quickly selected. The trial adjourned for the weekend. On Sunday, William Jennings Bryan delivered the sermon at Dayton's Methodist Church. He used the occasion to attack the defense strategy in the Scopes case. As Bryan spoke, Judge Raulston and his entire family listened attentively from their front pew seats. On the first business day of trial, the defense moved to quash the indictment on both state and federal constitutional grounds. This move was at the heart of the defense strategy. The defense's goal was not to win acquittal for John Scopes, but rather to obtain a declaration by a higher court--preferably the U.S. Supreme Court--that laws forbidding the teaching of evolution were unconstitutional. (That goal, however, would not be realized for another 43 years, in the case of Epperson v. Arkansas ). As expected, Judge Raulston denied the defense motion.

Opening statements pictured the trial as a titanic struggle between good and evil or truth and ignorance. Bryan claimed that "if evolution wins, Christianity goes." Darrow argued, "Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial." The prosecution, Darrow contended, was "opening the doors for a reign of bigotry equal to anything in the Middle Ages." To the gasps of spectators, Darrow said Bryan was responsible for the "foolish, mischievous and wicked act." Darrow said that the anti-evolution law made the Bible "the yardstick to measure every man's intellect, to measure every man's intelligence, to measure every man's learning." It was classic Darrow, and the press--mostly sympathetic to the defense--loved it. The prosecution opened its case by asking the court to take judicial notice of the Book of Genesis , as it appears in the King James version. It did. Superintendent White led off the prosecution's list of witnesses with his testimony that John Scopes had admitted teaching about evolution from Hunter's Civic Biology. Chief Prosecutor Tom Stewart then asked seven students in Scope's class a series of questions about his teachings.

They testified that Scopes told them that man and all other mammals had evolved from one-celled organism. Darrow cross-examined--gently, though with obvious sarcasm--the students, asking freshman Howard Morgan: "Well, did he tell you anything else that was wicked?" "No, not that I can remember," Howard answered. After drugstore owner Fred Robinson took the stand to testify as to Scope's statement that "any teacher in the state who was teaching Hunter's Biology was violating the law," the prosecution rested. It was a simple case. On Thursday, July 16, the defense called its first witness, Dr. Maynard Metcalf, a zoologist from the Johns Hopkins University. The prosecution objected, arguing that the testimony was irrelevant to Scopes' guilt or innocence under the statue. Before ruling the prosecution's evidence, Judge Raulston decided to hear some of Dr. Metcalf's testimony about the theory of evolution. The testimony evoked Bryan's only extended speech of the trial.

Bryan mocked Metcalf's exposition of the theory of evolution, complaining that the evolutionists had man descending "not even from American monkeys, but Old World monkeys." Dudley Malone countered for the defense, arguing in a thundering voice that the prosecution's position was borne of the same ignorance "which made it possible for theologians...to bring Old Galilee to trial." It was a powerful speech. Anti-evolution lawmaker John Butler called it "the finest speech of the century." Members of the press gave Malone a standing ovation and most courtroom spectators joined in the sustained applause. The next day, Raulston ruled the defense's expert testimony inadmissible. Raulston's ruling angered Darrow.

He said he could not understand why "every suggestion of the prosecution should meet with an endless waste of time, and a bare suggestion of anything that is perfectly competent on our part should be immediately overruled." Raulston asked Darrow, "I hope you do not mean to reflect upon the court?" Darrow's reply: "Well, your honor has the right to hope." Raulston responded, "I have the right to do something else." The insult earned Darrow a contempt finding, which was later dropped when Darrow, to a big hand from spectators, apologized for his remark. Darrow and Raulston shook hands. After expressing concern that the courtroom floor might collapse from the weight of the many spectators, Raulston transferred the proceedings to the lawn outside the courthouse. There, facing the jury, hung a sign--attached to the courthouse wall-- reading, "Read Your Bible." Darrow asked either that the sign be removed or that a second sign of equal size saying "Read Your Evolution" be put up along with it. Raulston ordered the sign removed.

Before a crowd that had swelled to about 5,000, the defense read into the record, for purpose of appellate review, excerpts from the prepared statements of eight scientists and four experts on religion who had been prepared to testify. The statements of the experts were widely reported by the press, helping Darrow succeed in his efforts to turn the trial into a national biology lesson. On the seventh day of trial, Raulston asked the defense if it had any more evidence. What followed was what the New York Times described as "the most amazing court scene in Anglo-Saxon history." Hays asked that William Jennings Bryan be called to the stand as an expert on the Bible. Bryan assented, stipulating only that he should have a chance to interrogate the defense lawyers. Bryan, dismissing the concerns of his prosecution colleagues, took a seat on the witness stand, and began fanning himself. Darrow began his interrogation of Bryan with a quiet question: "You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?" Bryan replied, "Yes, I have. I have studied the Bible for about fifty years." Thus began a series of questions designed to undermine a literalist interpretation of the Bible.

Bryan was asked about a whale swallowing Jonah, Joshua making the sun stand still, Noah and the great flood, the temptation of Adam in the garden of Eden, and the creation according to Genesis. After initially contending that "everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there," Bryan finally conceded that the words of the Bible should not always be taken literally. In response to Darrow's relentless questions as to whether the six days of creation, as described in Genesis, were twenty-four hour days, Bryan said "My impression is that they were periods." Bryan, who began his testimony calmly, stumbled badly under Darrow's persistent prodding. At one point the exasperated Bryan said, "I do not think about things I don't think about." Darrow asked, "Do you think about the things you do think about?" Bryan responded, to the derisive laughter of spectators, "Well, sometimes." Both old warriors grew testy as the examination continued.

Bryan accused Darrow of attempting to "slur at the Bible." He said that he would continue to answer Darrow's impertinent questions because "I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in God, is trying to use a court in Tennessee--." Darrow interrupted his witness by saying, "I object to your statement" and to "your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes." After that outburst, Raulston ordered the court adjourned. The next day, Raulston ruled that Bryan could not return to the stand and that his testimony the previous day should be stricken from evidence. The confrontation between Bryan and Darrow was reported by the press as a defeat for Bryan. According to one historian, "As a man and as a legend, Bryan was destroyed by his testimony that day." His performance was described as that of "a pitiable, punch drunk warrior." Darrow, however, has also not escaped criticism. Alan Dershowitz, for example, contended that the celebrated defense attorney "comes off as something of an anti-religious cynic." The trial was nearly over.

Darrow asked the jury to return a verdict of guilty in order that the case might be appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Under Tennessee law, Bryan was thereby denied the opportunity to deliver a closing speech he had labored over for weeks. The jury complied with Darrow's request, and Judge Raulston fined him $100. Six days after the trial, William Jennings Bryan was still in Dayton. After eating an enormous dinner, he lay down to take a nap and died in his sleep. Clarence Darrow was hiking in the Smoky Mountains when word of Bryan's death reached him. When reporters suggested to him that Bryan died of a broken heart, Darrow said "Broken heart nothing; he died of a busted belly." In a louder voice he added, "His death is a great loss to the American people." A year later, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Dayton court on a technicality--not the constitutional grounds as Darrow had hoped. According to the court, the fine should have been set by the jury, not Raulston. Rather than send the case back for further action, however, the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed the case.

The court commented, "Nothing is to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case." The Scopes trial by no means ended the debate over the teaching of evolution, but it did represent a significant setback for the anti-evolution forces. Of the fifteen states with anti- evolution legislation pending in 1925, only two states (Arkansas and Mississippi) enacted laws restricting teaching of Darwin's theory. American Experience | Monkey Trial | People & Events People & Events: John Scopes (1900-1970) John Thomas Scopes came to Tennessee fresh out of college. In the spring of 1925, he had just completed his first year as science teacher and part-time football coach at the high school in the little town of Dayton . Scopes planned to return home to Kentucky for the summer. But in his words, "a beautiful blonde" distracted him and he stayed for another week hoping for a date. The decision changed his life forever. It all began when the state of Tennessee passed a law making it a crime to teach evolution in public schools. A new organization called the American Civil Liberties Union responded immediately. The ACLU placed an ad inviting a teacher to help test the law in the courts.

Dayton was in an economic slump, and the town's movers and shakers thought a sensational trial would put Dayton "on the map." John Scopes was playing tennis when a group of businessmen called him to the town gathering place, Robinson's drugstore . They asked if he would be willing to be indicted for teaching evolution. Though he couldn't remember actually teaching Darwin's theory, Scopes believed in evolution and agreed to the plan. The trial quickly became a media circus. John Scopes was to have Clarence Darrow , America's top criminal lawyer, defend him. The famous politician and anti-evolutionist, William Jennings Bryan , volunteered to assist the prosecution. Reporters from all over the country flocked to Dayton, including an announcer from Chicago's WGN radio. It would be the first live broadcast of a trial in American history. The trial began on July 10, 1925. "The town was filled with men and women who considered the case a duel to the death," John Scopes later wrote. "Everything I did was likely to be noted." But over the next two weeks nobody paid much attention to the defendant. Attorneys for both sides hogged the spotlight in the overheated courtroom.

In the words of historian Kevin Tierney, "Scopes was being used. He was completely willing to be used. But essentially the case had been taken over by the big names." On the most sensational day of the trial, when Clarence Darrow interrogated William Jennings Bryan as an expert on the Bible, Scopes actually became a reporter for his own trial -- filling in for a journalist who had left town! The trial ended in a conviction. The judge imposed a fine of $100 and John Scopes spoke for the first time. "Your honor," he said, "I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can." For Scopes, the trial had been an ordeal. When it was all over, he gave up teaching and left town. He accepted a scholarship to the University of Chicago, received a master's degree in geology and took a job as a petroleum engineer in Venezuela -- where no one had ever heard of him.

In 1960 the defendant returned to the scene of his "crime" when the movie version of the trial, Stanley Kramer's Inherit the Wind, premiered at a Dayton drive-in. Scopes saw himself on the big screen as Bertram Cates, defender of science and victim of intolerance. In the film he is jailed for his beliefs. In 1967 John Scopes summed up his life in his lively autobiography, Center of the Storm. "A man's fate, shaped by heredity and environment and an occasional accident," he wrote, "is often stranger than anything the imagination may produce." Scopes Trial Scopes Trial Scopes Trial Aka "The Monkey Trial" Introduction A highly publicized trial in 1925 when John Thomas Scopes violated a Tennessee state law by teaching evolution in high school; Scopes was prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan and defended by Clarence Darrow; Scopes was convicted but the verdict was later reversed. The trial began in Drayton on the 11th of July, 1925 , In the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. A group of teachers decided to test a law called the Butler Law.

The Butler law made it illegal to teach the theory of evolution and instead mandated the biblical interpretation of creationism. The teachers felt that academic freedom and integrity as well as separation of church and state was at stake. Twenty four year old science teacher and football coach John T. Scopes would teach the class. Knowing he would be arrested Scopes taught the class and set into motion one of the most important trials in American history. Scopes was arrested, as expected, for violating the Butler Law. At the trial William Jennings Bryan acted as special prosecutor. World famous criminal defense lawyer Clarence Darrow defended Scopes. The trial raged on for days. Darrow asked for immediate judgment and when the jury came back Darrow was shocked...he had lost! The judge levied the minimum fine possible ($100) against Scopes. Later that year the Scopes conviction was overturned on a technicality. What did all this prove? Well for one it showed the religious and conservative nature of America. It also displayed the vast differences between the big cities and the small towns. The big city newspapers covering the trial scoffed at the Butler Law as small minded. In the cities Scopes was a hero but in Dayton Tennessee he was a criminal.

Timeline: Remembering the Scopes Monkey Trial : NPR Read the Essay July 5, 2005 The Scopes trial was not the only time that the origins of Earth and humanity were debated in court. In 1981, Arkansas passed a law requiring public schools to give "balanced treatment" of creationism and evolution. Read an essay about the federal court trial there by a former newspaper reporter who covered it. Eighty years ago, in July 1925, the mixture of religion, science and the public schools caught fire in Dayton, Tenn. The Scopes trial — or "Monkey Trial," as it was called — dominated headlines across the country. The trial lasted just a week, but the questions it raised are as divisive now as they were back then. NPR looks back at the Scopes trial, the events that led up to it and its aftermath: 1859 – Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species is published. Darwin argues in his introduction that "the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained — namely, that each species has been independently created — is erroneous." 1871 – Darwin publishes his second book, The Descent of Man.

In this work, Darwin directly addresses the debate over the origin of mankind, arguing that "man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World." 1914 – George William Hunter's A Civic Biology, the book that is later used in biology courses in Dayton, Tenn., is published.

A Civic Biology describes evolution as "the belief that simple forms of life on the earth slowly and gradually gave rise to those more complex and that thus ultimately the most complex forms came into existence." Article continues after sponsorship 1921 – Former congressman and ex-Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan becomes a leader in the anti-evolution movement, delivering speeches entitled "The Menace of Darwinism" and "The Bible and its Enemies." Bryan declares in one address that "[i]t is better to trust in the Rock of Ages, than to know the age of the rocks; it is better for one to know that he is close to the Heavenly Father, than to know how far the stars in the heavens are apart." 1924 – Bryan delivers a lecture in Nashville entitled "Is the Bible true?" Copies of the speech are delivered to members of the Tennessee legislature, including Rep. John Washington Butler. Jan. 21, 1925 – Rep. Butler introduces legislation in the Tennessee House of Representatives calling for a ban on the teaching of evolution.

The proposed law, known as the Butler bill, would prohibit the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." Jan. 27, 1925 – The Tennessee House of Representatives approves the Butler bill on a 71-to-5 vote. March 13, 1925 – After several hours of heated debate, the Tennessee Senate approves the Butler bill 24 to 6. March 21, 1925 – Tennessee Gov. Austin Peay signs the Butler bill into law. The new law is the first in the United States to ban the teaching of evolution. May 4, 1925 – A Chattanooga newspaper runs an item noting that the American Civil Liberties Union is seeking teachers willing to challenge the Butler law. The item says that the ACLU is "looking for a Tennessee teacher who is willing to accept our services in testing this law in the courts. Our lawyers think a friendly test case can be arranged without costing a teacher his or her job...

All we need now is a willing client." May 5, 1925 – A group of town leaders in Dayton, Tenn., read the news item about the ACLU's search. They quickly hatch a plan to bring the case to Dayton, a scheme that they hope will generate publicity and jump-start the town's economy. They ask 24-year-old science teacher and football coach John Thomas Scopes if he'd be willing to be indicted to bring the case to trial. Scopes agrees, even though he has only taught biology as a substitute teacher and later says he isn't sure he covered evolution in his classes. May 12, 1925 – Bryan agrees to participate in the trial on the side of the prosecution, ensuring that the case will receive significant national interest. Several days later, well-known attorneys Clarence Darrow and Dudley Field Malone announce their interest in representing Scopes. May 25, 1925 – Scopes is indicted by a grand jury for violating Tennessee's anti-evolution law. May-July, 1925 – Preparations begin in Dayton for an expected onslaught of trial-related publicity.

Six blocks of Dayton's main road are transformed into a pedestrian mall; a speaker's platform is built on the lawn of the courthouse; and a tourist camp is constructed. The courtroom is outfitted with the latest technology to transmit the story to the world: telegraph and telephone wiring, movie-newsreel camera platforms and radio microphones. WGN Radio broadcasts the trial live at a cost of more than $1,000 a day just for telephone lines — the first such broadcast of its kind. July 10, 1925 – The trial begins with jury selection. Judge John Raulston asks the Rev. Lemuel M. Cartright to open the proceedings with a prayer. July 13, 1925 – In an effort to have the Butler law declared unconstitutional, defense attorney Clarence Darrow delivers a long, fiery speech arguing that the law violates freedom of religion. Darrow argues that "we find today as brazen and as bold an attempt to destroy learning as was ever made in the Middle Ages." July 14, 1925 – In the third day of the trial, Darrow objects to the practice of opening the trial with a prayer.

Judge Raulston overrules the objection, noting that he has instructed the ministers who offer the prayer to "make no reference to the issues involved in this case." July 15, 1925 – Judge Raulston overrules the defense's motion to have the Butler law declared unconstitutional. Raulston says in his ruling that the law "gives no preference to any particular religion or mode of worship. Our public schools are not maintained as places of worship, but, on the contrary, were designed, instituted, and are maintained for the purpose of mental and moral development and discipline." In an afternoon session that day, a not guilty plea is entered on Scopes' behalf. Each side presents its opening statements. The prosecution questions the superintendent of schools and two of Scopes' students, who testify that Scopes taught his class about evolution. The defense questions zoologist Maynard Metcalf, who testifies that evolution is a widely embraced theory in the scientific community. July 17, 1925 – Judge Raulston rules in favor of a motion by prosecutors to bar expert testimony by scientists.

Raulston argues that the experts' opinions on evolutionary theory would "shed no light" on the issue at hand in the trial — whether Scopes violated the state's anti-evolution laws. Many reporters leave town, believing that the trial is effectively over. Scopes is recruited to write news stories on the trial for some of the delinquent journalists. July 20, 1925 – With the proceedings taking place outdoors due to the heat, the defense — in a highly unusual move — calls Bryan to testify as a biblical expert. Clarence Darrow asks Bryan a series of questions about whether the Bible should be interpreted literally. As the questioning continues, Bryan accuses Darrow of making a "slur at the Bible," while Darrow mocks Bryan for "fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes." July 21, 1925 – The final day of the trial opens with Judge Raulston's ruling that Bryan cannot return to the stand and that his testimony should be expunged from the record.

Raulston declares that Bryan's testimony "can shed no light upon any issues that will be pending before the higher courts." Darrow then asks the court to bring in the jury and find Scopes guilty — a move that would allow a higher court to consider an appeal. The jury returns its guilty verdict after nine minutes of deliberation. Scopes is fined $100, which both Bryan and the ACLU offer to pay for him. After the verdict is read, John Scopes delivers his only statement of the trial, declaring his intent "to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom — that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom." July 26, 1925 – Five days after the Scopes trial ends, Bryan dies in his sleep in Dayton. July 31, 1925 – Bryan is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The words "He Kept the Faith" are inscribed on his tombstone. 1926 – Mississippi becomes the second state to pass a law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools.

May 31, 1926 – The appeal hearing in the Scopes case begins. Jan. 15, 1927 – The Tennessee Supreme Court rules that the Butler law is constitutional. However, it overturns Scopes' verdict on a technicality, ruling that his fine should have been set by the jury hearing the case instead of by Judge Raulston. The justices declare in their ruling that "[n]othing is to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case." 1927 – George William Hunter publishes A New Civic Biology, an updated version of the biology book used in the Dayton high school where Scopes taught. The new text deals with the concept of evolution cautiously and avoids explicitly naming the theory. 1928 – A third state, Arkansas, enacts legislation banning instruction on evolution. 1930 – The William Jennings Bryan Memorial University opens in Dayton, Tenn. Known today as Bryan College, the institution describes itself as "a highly ranked, nationally competitive college that puts Christ above all." March 13, 1938 – Clarence Darrow dies at the age of 80. Jan.

10, 1955 – The play Inherit the Wind, which is loosely based on the Scopes trial, opens on Broadway. 1960 – Thirty-five years after the Scopes trial, the film version of Inherit the Wind opens at a drive-in movie theater in Dayton. Scopes returns to the town for the premiere and is given the key to the city. May 17, 1967 – Tennessee repeals the Butler Act, the law that banned the teaching of evolution in public schools. 1967 – John Scopes publishes Center of the Storm, his memoir of the trial. 1968 – In Epperson v. Arkansas, the Supreme Court strikes down an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution. Oct. 21, 1970 – John Scopes dies at the age of 70. 1973 – Tennessee becomes the first state in the United States to pass a law requiring that public schools give equal emphasis to "the Genesis account in the Bible" along with other theories about the origins of man. The bill also requires a disclaimer be used any time evolution is presented or discussed in public schools. It demands evolution be taught as theory and not fact.

1975 – Two years after it is passed, Tennessee's "equal time" law is declared unconstitutional by a federal appeals court. 1977 – The National Park Service designates Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton a National Historic Landmark. 1982 — In McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, a U.S. district judge strikes down an Arkansas law that required public schools to give "balanced treatment" to evolution and creationism whenever either was taught. 1987 – In Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court rules that a Louisiana law requiring public schools to give "balanced treatment" to creationism and evolution is unconstitutional. 2005 – School boards and legislatures across the country are continuing to debate how to teach students about the origins of life on Earth. Policymakers in at least 16 states are currently examining the controversy. John Scopes - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science John Scopes Jump to: navigation , search John T. Scopes John Thomas Scopes (1900-1970) was a substitute high school teacher who went on trial in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925 for teaching evolution against State law.

Chicago criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow unsuccessfully defended Scopes against the charge. Well-known political leader and former secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan , was on the prosecution team. Scopes was found guilty under the Butler Act , which banned teaching evolution in publicly funded state educational institutions, and the judge fined Scopes $100. The State Supreme Court later overturned the decision on the minor technical point that the judge, instead of the jury, had set the fine. After the trial, Scopes moved to Chicago, got a master’s degree in geology , and then took a job as a petroleum engineer in Venezuela. Contents 6 See also Early years John Scopes was born on Friday August 3, 1900. He was the fifth child of Thomas and Mary Scopes of Paducah, Kentucky. John’s father came from England, and although his father’s family belonged to the Church of England, his father drifted into agnosticism as he got older. In 1911, shortly after John had turned 11 years old, the family moved to Danville, Illinois.

In 1916 they moved to Salem, in southern Illinois, which was also the birthplace of William Jennings Bryan , who prosecuted John Scopes nine years later in his famous court trial. After graduating from Salem’s class of 1919, Scopes got a law degree from the University of Kentucky in 1924 and moved to Dayton, Tennessee. Here he landed a job as football coach and fill-in teacher at Rhea County High School, when the principal (who was also a teacher and the school’s football coach) resigned suddenly. The ginger-haired Scopes managed to endear himself to the townsfolk of Dayton, even if he was a little obnoxious at times. He attended the town’s Presbyterian Church—looking for dates more than religion, he admitted at the release of his autobiography, Center of the Storm. Did Scopes teach evolution? Much debate has taken place over whether John Scopes really taught evolution at the school. Scopes admitted teaching from the textbook Civic Biology, by George W. Hunter, and said he had planned to teach the chapter on evolution when he filled in for the biology teacher in April 1925.

However, on the day he had planned to teach evolution to the biology class, he fell ill, and could not recall teaching the class that chapter on evolution . But he did remember teaching evolution in his general science class in April, and two of his students—Howard Morgan, 14, and Bud Shelton, 17—corroborated this. The Scopes trial Main Article: Tennessee vs. John Scopes The Scopes trial began on Friday July 10, 1925 in sweltering heat. Judge John Raulston asked Rev. Cartwright to open the court with a prayer. In contrast to the mocking position on religion that defense attorney Clarence Darrow and some members of the American Civil Liberties Union held, Rev. Cartwright was dignified and humble in his prayer, asking God "the Supreme Ruler of the Universe" to enable the court to "administer its affairs" with justice and wisdom. John Scopes arrived for the trial wearing a blue shirt and a hand-painted bow tie. He sat in the front row near John Washington Butler—who wrote the Butler Act under which Scopes was being tried.

At 9.22 a.m., Judge Raulston called the case of State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes . He selected a grand jury, read the Butler Act , then the first chapter of the Bible 's book of Genesis . Judge Raulston said, "the vital question now involved for your consideration is, has the statute been violated by the said John T. Scopes or any other person by teaching a theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible , and in Rhea County since the passage of this act and prior to this investigation. If you find the statute has been thus violated, you should indict the guilty person or persons, as the case may be." The court found Scopes guilty and fined him $100. Defense attorney Clarence Darrow congratulated those on his own side, then compared the trial to a witchcraft trial. After the trial, Science News-Letter (forerunner of today’s Science News), began a scholarship fund to send Scopes to graduate school. Scopes decided to study geology at the University of Chicago and later worked in the oil industry in Venezuela and the United States . The verdict was overturned in January 1927.

Scopes died from a terminal stroke at the age of 70 on October 21, 1970. He is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Paducah, Kentucky. The Scopes UFO photo A photograph of John Scopes taken in June 1925—just weeks before his trial—appeared on the New York University website in 2005. [1] It featured a UFO in the sky behind Scopes. The Creation Tips website analyzed this photo and compared it to a similar one on the web that didn’t have the UFO. The Creation Tips analyst found the resolution of the UFO section of the photo was different from the resolution in the rest of the photo. This, they decided, proves the UFO was not in the original. [2] Related References John Scopes John Scopes by Doug Linder (2004) The defense found the ideal defendant in the person of twenty-four-year-old John Thomas Scopes.

Defense lawyer Arthur Garfield Hays said of Dayton ’s popular new general science teacher and football coach, “Had we sought to find a defendant to present the issue, we could not improved upon the individual.” Scopes was clean-cut, cared about teaching and intellectual inquiry, but exhibited no hostility to religion. John Scopes credits his English born father, Thomas Scopes, as being the major influence in his life. In his autobiography Center of the Storm, John described his father as—next to Clarence Darrow—“the best read man I have ever known.” One account has Thomas Scopes stepping off the boat at Galveston , Texas with four books in his luggage: the Bible, a hymn book, Carlyle’s The French Revolution, and Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Thomas and his wife, Mary, insisted that their children read literature and philosophy—and quizzed them regularly on their readings. They were especially proud of their fifth child, John, whom Thomas called “an extraordinary boy.” The politics of Thomas Scopes bent left as he became a railroad machinist, a union activist, pacifist, and a Socialist. Although reared in the Church of England, Thomas Scopes moved toward agnosticism in his later years.

When John was eleven, his family moved from Paducah . Five years later, they moved to the southern Illinois , where John would graduate from high school. Coincidentally, the most famous native son of Salem , and a man held in high esteem by Scopes, was William Jennings Bryan. Scopes called Bryan , “the greatest man produced in the United States in 1924, when the man who served as Rhea County High School ’s principal, football coach, and algebra and physics teacher suddenly resigned in late summer. In explaining the county’s decision to offer him a job, Scopes modestly explained, “I was the first applicant with proper qualifications to come to the attention of the School Board.” Students and townspeople liked the boyish-looking and red-haired Scopes, although some frowned on his smoking habit and his dancing. He attended the local Presbyterian Church—looking more for dates, he later admitted, than religion. A date “with a beautiful blonde” at an upcoming church social kept Scopes in Dayton for a few days beyond his originally scheduled departure in May of 1925, at the end of the Rhea County school term.

He was playing tennis one hot afternoon on the town’s tennis court when a small boy approached him. You’re wanted down at “Doc” Robinson’s drugstore, the boy said. One of the enduring debates concerning the Scopes trial revolves around whether Scopes ever actually taught the subject of evolution. George Rappalyea posed the question, holding up a copy of George W. Hunter’s Civic Biology, at Robinson’s drugstore. “You have been teaching ‘em this book?” he asked. Scopes answered, “Yes,” then went on to explain that, while substituting for the regular biology teacher in April 1925, he had assigned his students Hunter’s chapter on evolution. Illness the next day, however, kept him home and, to his recollection, no class discussion of the evolution materials ever took place. Scopes, however, remembered teaching the topic in a general way earlier in the same month to his general science students. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The entire prosecution case in the trial of John Scopes occupies less than two hours of a Wednesday afternoon session of court. The state calls only four witnesses.

School Superintendent Walter White and Fred Robinson both testify that Scopes, in a conversation at Robinson's drug store-soda fountain-book dispensary, admitted having taught evolution. Howard Morgan, age 14, and Harry "Bud" Shelton, age 17, appear as two eyewitnesses to the crime. Prosecutor Thomas Stewart calls Morgan, the son of the owner of the Dayton Bank and Trust company (and also owner of the home Clarence Darrow occupies during the trial), as his second witness. Spectators smile as Morgan, a clean-cut boy wearing white pants and a white shirt, with a tie pulled down and to the side, nervously takes his seat in the witness chair. A few days earlier, Morgan, having been tracked down by visiting members of the press anxious to know what effect the teaching of evolution might be having on Dayton's young people, eagerly offered his views on the subject. "I lapped it up," he told one reporter, "all about monkeys and things." Stewart asks Morgan if "Professor Scopes" ever taught him "anything about evolution." "Yes sir," the boy replies in a barely audible voice. "Just state in your own words, Howard, what he taught you and when it was," Stewart requests.

"It was along about the second of April. He said that the earth was once a hot molten mass, too hot for plant or animal life to exist upon it. In the sea, the earth cooled off; there was a little germ of one cell organism formed, and this organism kept evolving until it got to be a pretty good-sized animal, and then it came on to be a land animal, and it kept on evolving, and from this was man." From the defense table, Arthur Garfield Hays offers his congratulations on Morgan's history of life on earth: "Go to the head of the class." Stewart asks Morgan if Scopes classified "man with reference to other animals." He had, Morgan says, called humans "mammals." In his cross-examination, Clarence Darrow focuses his attention on the question of what it meant to be classified a mammal. "Dogs and horses, monkeys, cows, man, whales: he said all of those were mammals?" "Yes sir," Morgan answers, "but I don't know about the whales." Apart from calling man a mammal, Darrow wants to know, "Did he tell you anything else that was wicked?" Morgan looks at his teacher and smiles.

"No, not that I remember of," he finally answers. "It has not hurt you any, has it?" Darrow asks, concluding his cross-examination. "No sir," Morgan answers. As the courtroom erupts in laughter, Darrow turns to Mrs. Rappalyea, seated behind him, and asks, "Would you believe this is the twentieth century?" Harry Shelton takes the stand next. Three years older than Howard, Harry studied evolution in Biology in mid-April, when Scopes substituted for an ill teacher. Shelton testifies that Scopes reviewed the chapter on evolution in George Hunter's Civic Biology. He offers little elaboration: "He taught all forms of life begin with a cell." Darrow questions Shelton only briefly. He asks, "You didn't leave church when he told you all forms of life begin with a single cell?" "No sir," Shelton His brief part in the drama having been played, Shelton leaves the courtroom with Morgan. A reporter overhears Shelton asking his friend, "Don't you think Bryan is a little narrow-minded?" Later that day, a visiting reporter interviews mothers of the teenagers. Howard's mother tells the reporter, "The teaching of evolution hasn't hurt me or my boy.

I don't think any of us here in the mountains have studied evolution enough. I wish I knew more about it." Harry's mother expresses a similar view. "As far as I'm concerned," she says, "they can teach my boy evolution every day of the year." She adds that the subject threatened little harm because "he had forgotten most of his lessons" and "had to get the book out and study it up" for trial. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scopes later described the fateful meeting at Robinson’s that led to his agreeing to test the Butler Act as “just a drugstore conversation that got past control.” Many times over the coming months, he would regret having anything to do with the case. Scopes had hoped to spend the summer selling Fords for a five per cent commission, but with the comings and goings in Dayton , there was little time to make extra money. Had it not been for his father, who insisted the trial was John’s chance to serve his country, Scopes might have terminated his involvement. Defendants, as a general rule, select their own attorneys.

In the Scopes case, however, the ACLU—as the organization that would pay the defense bills—had its own strong ideas about who should defend the teaching of evolution, and those ideas did not include Clarence Darrow. The ACLU asked Scopes to travel to its headquarters in New York City in early June for several days of meetings to decide the important question of representation. Reporters peppered Scopes and his party with questions when they arrived at Pennsylvania Station.

Scopes told the journalists that he did not expect to testify in his upcoming trial because it “would look rather foolish for me to express my opinions, which really don’t amount to much, as to evolution and religion, when I may be able to get able men who are authorities on such subjects to testify for me.” He expected to be convicted because “it’s pretty hard in Tennessee to find twelve men who wouldn’t want to convict me.” Scopes complained mildly about “the fine mess I got myself into,” but added that he thought the case “an important for everyone in the country.” “All of biology,” Scopes declared, is “basically the story of the evolution of matter and life; I was hired to teach science, and I went ahead and taught it.” In response to a question about his own religious beliefs, Scopes said, “I don’t know if I’m a Christian, …but I believe there is a God.” In any event, he added, his views had not been “contaminated or ruined by studying evolution.” The next day, after a swim at the Yale Club, Scopes attended a lengthy meeting that, according to him, “mostly amounted to a briefing.” For the next few days, the meetings “were a

 rehash of the first meeting.” Scopes became convinced “the group was stalling.” He also got the distinct impression, he said, that the ACLU was “afraid that I would give them some kind of trouble.” Scopes filled his spare time with sightseeing, including a trip to the American Museum of Natural History, where he met with the nation’s leading paleontologist and authority on evolution, Dr.

Henry Fairfield Osborn. In 1922, as William Jennings Bryan launched his crusade against evolution, Osborn had invited Bryan to visit the museum and see for himself the fossil evidence supporting evolution. Bryan replied that he had “no time” for a visit, and mocked Osborn as “a tall professor coming down out of the trees who would push good people not believing in evolution off the sidewalk.” Although the illness of his wife would keep him from traveling to Dayton , Osborn told Scopes, he freely offered advice about scientific experts the defense should call and promised Scopes that he would seek a testimonial letter from Major Leonard Darwin, the son of Charles Darwin. Finally, an event that promised some decisions: a luncheon-conference which would be attended by fifteen to twenty leading civil libertarians from Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. (Among the attendees: Professor Felix Frankfurter of Harvard (later to be Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter) and Socialist Party leader, Norman Thomas.) Scopes sat next to Dudley Field Malone, a prominent New York international divorce lawyer. While the two men ate, Malone pushed the case for hiring America ’s most famous defense lawyer and his personal friend, Clarence Darrow.

After ACLU Director Roger Baldwin called the business portion of the program to order, Malone rose to address the group. Malone announced, “I am authorized by Mr. Clarence Darrow to offer his services as a defense counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union and to this steering committee for the Dayton case. He will pay all of his expenses and will not accept a fee. He guarantees to remain as an active counsel until a final decision has been reached. Speaking for myself, I, Dudley Field Malone, offer you the same proposition.” According to Scopes, “bitter arguments—not discussions”—followed Malone’s announcement. Speakers worried that Darrow’s outspoken agnosticism, coupled with his controversial defense the year before of two young thrill killers (Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb) made him a poor choice for the Scopes defense. Other speakers felt the presence in Dayton of this “headline chaser” would “obscure the real issue.” In the end, however, someone on the steering committee thought to ask John Scopes himself who he might want to represent him.

“I pointed out to the group,” Scopes later recalled, “that if they thought that Darrow would have too much influence on the course of events, then they had forgotten apparently that William Jennings Bryan was himself a well-known figure.” The headlines were already “playing up” Bryan and his side needed an attention-grabber, too. Besides, Scopes suggested, speakers concerned about Darrow sensationalizing the case should see Dayton as it was the day he left for New York .

“There was not enough room in that part of Tennessee to accommodate any more medicine men, traveling evangelists, and screwballs than were already there.” If a carnival atmosphere obscures our real issue then, Scopes concluded, our cause is “lost already.” “It was going to be a down-in-the-mud fight,” and he wanted “an Indian fighter rather than someone who graduated from the proper military academy.” Scopes concluded: “I would like to have Darrow and Malone join the battle in our behalf.” “The hard core of opposition to Darrow as senior defense counsel died hard,” Scopes reported, but on a vote his offer was accepted—“but just barely.” ACLU Director Baldwin expressed his own displeasure with the Darrow appointment by canceling plans to attend the most famous trial ever handled by the organization he helped found. After news that his offer to help defend Scopes had been accepted, Darrow hastened by train from Chicago to New York , where a final banquet was held at the Civic Club.

Darrow sobered the assembled guests with his prediction (not unreasonable in Darwinian terms) that “Man will probably stick around another half million [years], and then give way to something else.” In the meantime, he said, we should “try to interfere as little as possible with other people, and to cultivate a spirit of tolerance and charity.” Professor Neal invited everyone to Dayton where, he promised, they would find good weather and no mosquitoes. Scopes also spoke. He told the crowd that “Education means broadening…If you limit a teacher to only one side of anything the whole country will eventually have only one thought, be one individual. I believe in teaching every aspect of every problem or theory.” From by way of Washington . He took time in the nation’s capital to inspect a copy of the Constitution at the Library of Congress, and take in the majesty of the Supreme Court’s marble hearing room, where—it was hoped at the time—his case might someday end up. On July 7, William Jennings Bryan arrived by train in Dayton, and that evening the Dayton Progressive Club hosted a dinner in his honor.

When John Scopes (as “a non-paying deadhead,” to use his own words) met Bryan at the banquet, the Great Commoner recalled an earlier meeting when he delivered the address at John’s commencement in Salem . “John, we are opposite sides this time. I hope we will not let that interfere in any way with our relationship,” Bryan told Scopes. “Mr. Bryan, everyone has the right to think in accordance with the way he sees things and to act accordingly. Believing differently on some issues should not influence the degree of respect and friendship one has for one another.” As he took his seat, Bryan replied, “Good, we shall get along fine.” Heeding his doctor’s warning to avoid white bread because of its starch content, Bryan instead loaded his plate with potatoes and heaped sugar into his cup of tea—much to the amusement of Scopes, who took it as a sign of the Great Commoner’s weak understanding of science. Worn out from two nearly all-night drives, Scopes dozed through much of the evening’s speeches. He barely reacted when Bryan jokingly told the crowd that “capital punishment is not to be inflicted in this case—unfortunately!” Clarence Darrow arrived the next day.

Scopes, joined by his sixty-five-year-old father down from Paducah , Kentucky , greeted Darrow’s train. Scopes shook hands with his lawyer for the benefit of photographers, and then drove him off to the George Rappalyea’s refurbished Mansion. To show their impartiality, the Dayton Progressive Club hosted a banquet for Darrow at the Hotel Aqua that was virtually identical—down to the menu—to the one they had hosted the night before for Bryan . In the busy two days before the start of his trial, in addition to greeting arriving lawyers and taking daily swims, Scopes showed his father around Dayton . Thomas Scopes enjoyed the attention. He told one reporter, “A father just naturally has to stick by his own flesh and blood, ma’am—no matter what they’ve done.” His embarrassed son, listening to the conversation while seated in his yellow racing car, interjected: “Don’t blow so much, dad.” Later, the two Scopes family members talked amiably with reporters at Robinson’s drug store.

The elder Scopes was opining that “I can’t think that a man that has read as much and seen as much as the world as Bryan can believe the things he says” when Bryan walked out from behind the prescription counted. John quickly cut off his father: “Well, Mr. Bryan! I want you to meet my father.” When a photographer rushed to capture the chance meeting Thomas Scopes said, “My wife told me that if I let any of you fellows catch me in a newspaper photograph she’d get a divorce.” On the first day of his trial, Scopes appeared in court wearing a blue shirt and a hand-painted bow tie. He took a seat in the front row between his father and George Rappalyea. John Washington Butler sat nearby in the same row. At 9:22 on Friday, July 10, 1925, Judge John Raulston called the case of State vs. John Thomas Scopes. A grand jury was quickly empaneled and Raulston read the Butler Act that Scopes stood accused of violating. Then he read the first chapter of Genesis.

He told the jury to “investigate” the charge against Scopes, and if they find a violation of the act, to “promptly return a bill.” The fondness of Digital History Digital History Digital History ID 3390 The Scopes Trial is one of the best known in American history because it symbolizes the conflict between science and theology, faith and reason, individual liberty and majority rule. The object of intense publicity, the trial was seen as a clash between urban sophistication and rural fundamentalism. The trial was further popularized by the 1955 play, Inherit the Wind, which became a hit film in 1960. The play and subsequent movie cast the trial as a struggle for truth and freedom against repression and ignorance. In the summer of 1925, a young schoolteacher named John Scopes stood trial in Dayton, Tennessee, for violating the state law against the teaching of evolution. Two of the country's most famous attorneys faced off in the trial.

William Jennings Bryan, 65 years old and a three time Democratic presidential nominee, prosecuted; 67-year-old Clarence Darrow, who was a staunch agnostic and who had defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb the year before, represented the defense. Bryan declared that "the contest between evolution and Christianity is a duel to the death." The five-year-old American Civil Liberties Union had taken out newspaper advertisements offering to defend anyone who flouted the Tennessee law. George Rappelyea, a Dayton, Tenn., booster, realized that the town would get enormous attention if a local teacher was arrested for teaching evolution. He enlisted John Scopes, a science teacher and football coach, who arranged to teach from George Hunter's Civic Biology, a high school textbook promoting Charles Darwin's arguments in The Descent of Man. The trial was marked by hoopla and a carnival-like atmosphere. Thousands of people swelled the town of a thousand. For 12 days in July, 1925, 100 reporters sent dispatches. The trial judge had prohibited the defense from using scientists as witnesses. So, on the trial's seventh day, the defense team called Bryan to testify as an expert on the Bible.

Darrow subjected Bryan to a withering cross-examination. He got Bryan to say that Creation was not completed in a week, but over a period of time that "might have continued for millions of years." The play, Inherit the Wind, would caricature Bryan as a Bible-thumping buffoon, but in actuality, Bryan's position was complex. He opposed the mandated teaching of evolution in public schools because he thought the people should exercise local control over school curricula. He also opposed Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection because these ideas had been used to defend laissez-faire capitalism on the grounds that a perfectly free market promotes the "survival of the fittest." As early as 1904, Bryan had denounced social Darwinism as "the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak." In addition, Bryan opposed Darwinism as justification for war and imperialism.

In The Descent of Man, Darwin has argued that "at some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races." The textbook that Scopes taught from, Civic Biology, identified five "races of man": Ethiopian, Malay, American Indian, and Mongolian, and "finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America." Bryan was also unhappy with Darwin's assumption that the entire evolutionary process was purposeless and not the product of a larger design. Not a Biblical literalist, Bryan was aware of serious scientific difficulties with Darwinism, such as Darwin's theory that slight, random variations were enough to generate life from non-life to produce a vast array of biological species. But Bryan mistook the lack of consensus about the mechanisms that Darwin advanced to explain the evolutionary process for a lack of scientific support for the concept of evolution itself. The day after this exchange, Darrow changed his client's plea to guilty. Scopes was convicted and fined $100.

However, the conviction was thrown out on a technicality by the Tennessee Supreme Court: that the judge, and not the jury, had determined the $100 fine. In 1967, the Supreme Court struck down Tennessee's anti-evolution law for violating the Constitution's prohibition against the establishment of religion. Five days after the trial's conclusion, Bryan died of apoplexy. The journalist H.L. Mencken wrote of Bryan: "He came into life a hero, a Galahad, in bright and shining armor. He was passing out a poor mountebank." As for Scopes, he left teaching and became a chemical engineer in the oil industry. He died at age 70 in 1970. The Scopes trial resulted in two enduring conclusions: that legislatures should not restrain the freedom of scientific inquiry, and that society should respect academic freedom. Intelligent Design - StudyBlue Good to have you back! If you've signed in to StudyBlue with Facebook in the past, please do that again.

Intelligent Design Famous Chicago lawyer who defended Scopes in the Scopes "Monkey" trial against William Jennings Bryan Scopes was a high school teacher who tested the theory of anti-evolution William Jennings Bryan United States lawyer and politician who prosecuted John Scopes (1925) for teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school (1860-1925) Advertisement ) Found guilty of illeagally teaching the theory of evolution in Dayton Tennessee. Defended by Clarence Darrow and prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan. Henry Morris founded the Creation Research Society, father of modern creationism, Advertisement * The material on this site is created by StudyBlue users. StudyBlue is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by the academic institution or instructor. Words From Our Students "StudyBlue is great for studying. I love the study guides, flashcards and quizzes. So extremely helpful for all of my classes!" Alice , Arizona State University "I'm a student using StudyBlue, and I can 100% say that it helps me so much. Study materials for almost every subject in school are available in StudyBlue.

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Question: Who was the US lawyer who defended John Scopes on charges of teaching evolution in 1925?
Answer: (Clarence) Darrow