The '''Scopes Trial''', sometimes known as the '''"monkey trial,"''' which took place in the small hill town of Dayton, in east [[Tennessee]] in 1925. It , was a test case brought to challenge widely publicized trial that challenged the legality of a state's Butler Act which prohibited law prohibiting [[public schools school]]s from teaching the theory that man had somehow evolved from more primitive life forms. The willing defendant, high school teacher [[John Scopes, was convicted of violating the law, but won on a technicality on appeal. This case illustrated the problem of [[fake news]], had indeed used as the textbook ''[[atheist]], bigoted reporter [[H.L. Mencken]] distorted what happened at the trial and misled the world about it. A Civic Biologyreview of the transcript reveals that [[William Jennings Bryan]]'' got the better of [[Clarence Darrow]], and yet Mencken reported the opposite in an extreme manner. Indeed, Darrow himself gave up and asked the jury to find his client John Scopes guilty, so that included a unit the cowardly Darrow could renege on his promise to take the witness stand himself in exchange for cross-examining Bryan. Uncommondescent.com declared: "It is a little known fact that [[William Jennings Bryan]] agreed to be interrogated by [[Clarence Darrow]] only if Bryan could in turn interrogate Darrow's views of [[evolution]]. He was duly convictedDarrow agreed, although this was later overturned on a technicalitybut then right after interrogating Bryan, [Darrow] directed the judge to find Scopes guilty, thereby closing the evidence and thus preventing Bryan from interrogating Darrow. "<ref>http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/the-vise-strategy-squeezing-the-truth-out-of-darwinists/</ref> Generally speaking, [[Atheism and Debate|leading evolutionists generally no longer debate creation scientists]] as the evolutionists tend to lose the debates.<ref>https://www.icr.org/article/811/</ref> The trial gained notoriety after it was dramatized in a national media sensationgrossly false manner for both stage (1955) and screen (1960), pitting evolution against bizarrely entitled ''[[Inherit the BibleWind]]''. The Both of these false dramatizations were promoted to try to smear [[Christianity]].<ref>"'Inherit the Wind' relentlessly distorts what happened in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925."[http://www.beliefnet.com/story/2/story_226_1.html]</ref><ref>As recently as April 17, 2007, the ''Village Voice'' endorsed a new Broadway rendition of ''Inherit the Wind'' as "a dramatization of the 1925 [Scopes] trial was broadcast for four hours ."[http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0716,feingold,76394,11.html]</ref> In the real trial Bryan made a day by radio station WGN fool of ChicagoDarrow, and was covered in detail not vice-versa, as demonstrated by many newspapersthe publicly available transcript that includes notations of laughter by the gallery, as quoted below.<ref>https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111scopes.html</ref>
== Publicity Motivation ==
The impetus for the Scopes trial began in a meeting among town leaders at a drugstore in Dayton, Tennessee, in response to a newspaper advertisement placed by the American Civil Liberties Union ([[ACLU]]) offering to provide legal services to anyone willing to be prosecuted under the Butler Act.<ref>{{hnb|Larson|2006}}, {{hnb|Linder|2002}}. See also {{hnb|Coulter|2006}}</ref> Town leaders agreed that a trial would provide publicity to the town,<ref>{{hnb|Larson|2006}}</ref> whose population had dwindled to 1,800.<ref>{{hnb|Linder|2002}}</ref> The town leaders found a willing defendant in John Scopes, a gym teacher and football coach who also substituted (sometimes as a biology teacher), though Scopes could not recall ever teaching evolution.<ref>{{hnb|Larson|2006}}. See also {{hnb|Coulter|2006}}</ref> John Scopes told the town leaders, "If you can prove that I've taught evolution and that I can qualify as a defendant, then I'll be willing to stand trial."
[[Fundamentalism|Fundamentalists]] took up the challenge, led by theologian [[William Bell Riley]], who signed up Bryan to assist the local county prosecutor. The national media rushed to Dayton.
== Grand Jury ==
Racing other Tennessee towns, Judge John T. Raulston accelerated the convening of the grand jury and "...all but instructed the grand jury to indict Scopes, despite the meager evidence against him and the widely reported stories questioning whether the willing defendant had ever taught evolution in the classroom."<ref>{{hnb|Larson|2006|p=108}}</ref> He was indicted on May 25, after three students testified against Scopes at the Grand Jury, at Scopes' behest.<ref>{{hnb|Larson|2006|p=89, 107}}</ref>
== The Trial ==
The trial in 1925 of [[John Scopes]] for teaching evolution in Tennessee was a defeat of [[Darwinism]]. The [[ACLU]] and [[liberal]] trial lawyer [[Clarence Darrow]] brought the Scopes case in the hopes of winning a public relations and legal victory. Historians typically believe in evolution and declare victory for Darrow, but in fact Darrow and the ACLU lost the case badly and Tennessee continued to limit the teaching of evolution in [[William Jennings Bryanpublic schools]], the evangelical Christian who was the best known Democrat in America, won a legal victory in the trialfor roughly another 50 years.
The [[ACLU]] challenged a Tennessee statute, the Butler Act, that imposed a fine for teaching in government schools that man descended from more primitive life forms. The statute did not prohibit teaching most aspects of [[evolution]]. The textbook at issue in the case, ''[[A Civic Biology]]'', taught evolution, stating suggested indirectly (through a tree-like diagram) that man was descended from lower life forms. ===Textbook issues===The ambiguous nature of scientific diagrams of evolution led to much public confusion and fueled the fireworks at the trial. Prosecutor Bryan argued against a textbook diagram that placed humans in a seemingly insignificant position, included with other mammals in a small circle, while lower forms such as insects appeared more prominently. Other visual representations, especially family trees and linear comparisons of primate skeletons failed to depict the influence of time, making humans appear more closely related to apes than scientists intended to suggest. Such diagrams were extensively used in books and cartoons aimed at popular audiences, making the controversial assumption that "man is descended from monkeys" the most common view of evolution, even though scientists had yet to reach a consensus on the matter. Despite efforts by paleontologists such as the president of the American Museum of Natural History, Henry Fairfield Osborn, to defend evolution while upholding religious belief, the popular - though misleading - images proved more persuasive.<ref> Clark (2000)</ref>
==Bryan vs attacked Darrow==Bryan and Darrow were both liberal Democrats who had cooperated in politics for many years. This times they were opponentscourt, and much of the fireworks exploded during their confrontations. Bryan quoted for the court noting how Darrow had previously claimed that murder defendants Leopold and Loeb were driven to crime by what they were taught, which was [[Nietzsche]]'s atheistic philosophy. Bryan quoted Darrow as saying that "Is there any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche's philosophy seriously and fashioned his life on it? ... The university would be more to blame than he is. ... Your honor, it is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university."
Bryan was an extraordinary speaker, recognized to be among the best in American history. Darrow wanted to prevent Bryan from making a persuasive [[closing argument]] to the jury, and Darrow searched for another way to try to score points for his side.
So Darrow stunned the court by requesting to cross-examine Bryan, in the hope that Bryan, like many attorneys, would be a poor witness. Darrow's attempt was unprecedented, because trial attorneys almost never take the witness stand in their own cases. Bryan agreed only on the condition that he could cross-examine Darrow. Based on that agreement, Bryan took the witness stand.
A witness in a trial is always at a disadvantage on cross-examination, because he can only answer questions that are posed by a hostile adversary. On cross-examination, Attorneys are allowed to ask leading(yes or no) questions to force the desired response, unlike on direct examination. Attorneys are particularly vulnerable, because their knowledge of the law and tendency to speak in legalese hinder their performance.
:Bryan--Not near you. (Laughter and applause).
Darrow tried again and again to trap Bryan, and, from his viewpoint, he sometimes succeeded. For example, Darrow grilled Bryan on the topic of Bryan's literal interpretation of the Bible. Notably, Darrow pressed Bryan on the issue of how the sun stood still for [[Joshua]] in the [[Old Testament]]. In the end he showed that it could not have taken place through natural causes, which, as an atheist, was all he felt he needed. For those who believed it was a miracle for the sun to stop at all in the sky, as the Bible infers, the concept that it could not have taken place naturally was irrelevant. He also brought up the story of Joshua and the Whale, apparently trying to claim that no fish existed that was large enough to fully swallow a man, as well as questioning Bryan about the origin of Cain's wife, and the way in which a snake walked before God cursed it to slither on its belly.
:Darrow--The Bible says Joshua commanded the sun to stand still for the purpose of lengthening the day, doesn't it, and you believe it?
:Darrow--Or ever thought of it?
:Bryan--I have been too busy on thinks things that I thought were of more importance than that.
A later exchange ended, once again, with the audience laughing:
===The conclusion===
The next day, it was Darrow's turn to be cross-examined. But instead of upholding his end of the bargain, Darrow stunned took the public by taking the unprecedented step of asking the jury for a guilty verdict against his client, the defendant teacher John Scopes.<ref>http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/day8.htm</ref>
After 8 days of trial, the jury gave Darrow exactly what he requested, after and 9 minutes of deliberation. , Scopes was found guilty on July 21 and ordered to pay a fine of $100, which . The conviction was eliminated overtuned on appeal by a technicality on appeal. <ref>The Tennessee Constitution had a clause that any fine that high must be set by a jury, not by the judge. The state's Supreme Court vacated the verdict due to that, and then ruled that because Scopes no longer lived in the state, the case was moot.</ref> == Aftermath ==Bryan, a 65-year-old diabetic lacking in modern treatments, died peacefully in his sleep during his afternoon nap after church five days after the conclusion of the Scopes trial.<ref>{{hnb|Larson|2006|p=199}}</ref> Bryan's victory in the Scopes trial was a fitting end to a principled, illustrious career.<ref>http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/ea/side/bryan.html</ref> Scopes never had to pay the fine - the judge had set the amount but Tennessee law at the time prohibited judges from setting fines over $50. The law challenged by the [[ACLU]] in the Scopes Trial remained in effect for over 50 more years. In 1967, Tennessee repealed the Butler Act, and in 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in ''Epperson v. Arkansas'', 393 U.S. 97, that such bans on teaching are unconstitutional if they are primarily religious in intent. Tennessee continued to downplay evolution in its schools until 2005.<ref>http://www.edexcellence.net/institute/publication/publication.cfm?id=352&pubsubid=1169#1169</ref>==Image and memory== The trial gained renewed attention after it was dramatized for both stage (1955) and screen (1960). Titled ''[[Inherit the Wind]]'', both dramatizations distorted the facts of the case and were promoted to harm [[Christianity]].<ref>"'Inherit the Wind' relentlessly distorts what happened in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925."[http://www.beliefnet.com/story/2/story_226_1.html]</ref><ref>As recently as April 17, 2007, the ''Village Voice'' endorsed a new Broadway rendition of ''Inherit the Wind'' as "a dramatization of the 1925 [Scopes] trial."[http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0716,feingold,76394,11.html]</ref>
== The movie and play ==
The movie portrayed the character based on Bryan as a complete buffoon. Bryan's death was also portrayed as happening in the courthouse, when in fact he was an elderly man suffering from diabetes who died peacefully in his sleep.
American history books often usually describe this case as a catalyst major defeat for evolution supportersFundamentalists.<ref>The trial "marked a decisive setback for fundamentalism," says ''The Enduring Vision, Fifth Edition, '' Chapter 23: The 1920s: Coping with Change, Paul S. Boyer, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Clifford E. Clark, Jr., Carleton College; et al. (a commonly used American history textbook for Advanced Placement US History classes).</ref> == Aftermath ==BryanIn fact, a 65-year-old diabetic lacking in modern treatments, died peacefully in his sleep during his afternoon nap after church five days after the conclusion successful defense of the Scopes trial.<ref>{{hnb|Larson|2006|p=199}}</ref> Scopes never had to pay the fine - the judge had set the amount but Tennessee law at the time prohibited judges from setting fines over $50. The law challenged in the Scopes Trial remained in effect for over 50 more years. In 1967, enabled Tennessee repealed to keep the Butler Act, and in 1968racist evolutionary textbook out of its schools, to avoid teaching the Supreme Court ruled in ''Epperson v. Arkansas'', 393 U.S. 97, that falsehoods of evolution (such bans on teaching are unconstitutional if they are primarily religious in intent. Tennessee continued to downplay evolution in its schools until 2005.<ref>http://www.edexcellence.net/institute/publication/publication.cfm?id=352&pubsubid=1169#1169</ref>==Immediate impact==The famous journalist as the [[H. L. MenckenPiltdown Man]], a cultural conservative who ridiculed the locals as ignorant hicks, covered featured in the trial from Dayton. His reports, illustrated by cartoons by Edmund Duffy, were widely reprinted across the nation and shaped the popular interpretation.<ref> S. L. Harrison, "The Scopes 'Monkey Trial' Revisited: Mencken and the Editorial Art of Edmund Duffy." ''Journal Of American Culture'' 1994 17(4textbook): 55-63. </ref> The trial revealed a growing chasm in American Christianity and two ways of finding truth, one "biblical" and one "scientific." Liberals saw a division between educated, tolerant Christians and narrow-minded, tribal, obscurantist Christians.<ref> David Goetz, "The Monkey Trial". ''Christian History'' 1997 16(3): 10-18. 0891-9666 </ref> Gatewood (1969) analyzes the transition from the antievolution crusade of the 1920s to the creation science movement of the 1960s. Despite some similarities between these two causes, the creation science movement represented a shift from religious to scientific objections to Darwin's theory. Creation science also differed in terms of popular leadership, rhetorical toneschoolchildren, and sectional focus. It lacked a prestigious leader like Bryan, utilized scientific rather than religious rhetoric, and was a product of California and Michigan instead of the South. Edwards (2000) contradicts the conventional view that in the wake of the Scopes trial a humiliated fundamentalism retreated into the political and cultural background, a viewpoint evidenced in the movie "Inherit the Wind" and the majority of contemporary historical accounts. Rather, the cause of fundamentalism's retreat was the death of its leader, Bryan. Most fundamentalists saw the trial as a victory and not a defeat, but Bryan's death soon after created a leadership void that no other fundamentalist leader could fill. Bryan, unlike the other leaders, brought name recognition, respectability, and the ability to forge a broad-based coalition of fundamentalist and mainline religious groups to argue for permit the antievolutionist position. ==Other states==Webb State (1991) traces the political and legal struggles between strict creationists and Darwinists to influence the extent to which evolution would be taught as science in Arizona and California schools. After Scopes was convicted, creationists throughout the United States sought similar antievolution laws for their states. These included Reverends R. S. Beal and Aubrey L. Moore in Arizona and members of the Creation Research Society in California, all supported by distinguished laymen. They sought to ban evolution as still rejects a topic for study or, at least, relegate it state income tax) to the status of unproven theory perhaps taught alongside the biblical version of creation. Educators, scientists, and other distinguished laymen favored evolution. This struggle occurred later grow in the Southwest than in other US areas and persisted through the Sputnik era, which inspired increased faith in evolutionism.<ref>George E. Webb, "The Evolution Controversy in Arizona and California: From the 1920s to the 1980s." ''Journal of the Southwest'' 1991 33(2): 133-150. 0894-8410. See also Christopher K. Curtis, "Mississippi's Anti-Evolution Law of 1926." ''Journal Of Mississippi History'' 1986 48(1): 15-29. </ref> ==Memory==Memory of the trial was refreshed when it was dramatized for both stage (1955) and screen (1960). Titled ''[[Inherit the Windconservatism]]'', both dramatizations distorted the facts of the case and were promoted to harm this day. Liberals [[ChristianityAl Gore]].<ref>"'Inherit the Wind' relentlessly distorts what happened in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925."[http://www.beliefnet.com/story/2/story_226_1.html]</ref><ref>As recently as April 17, 2007, the ''Village Voice'' endorsed a new Broadway rendition of ''Inherit the Wind'' as "a dramatization of the 1925 [ScopesJohn Kerry] trial."[http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0716,feingold,76394,11.html]</ref> The highlight of the trial was when and [[Clarence DarrowBarack Obama]] agreed all failed to testify as a witness if [[William Jennings Bryan]] would also testify. First Bryan testified before a huge crowd, but when Darrow's turn came he instead reneged on his deal and ended carry the trial by asking the jury to find his client guilty, which ended the trialstate in recent presidential elections.
==References==
<references/>
==Bibliography==
* Clark, Constance Areson. "Evolution for John Doe: Pictures, The Public, and the Scopes Trial Debate." ''Journal of American History'' 2000 87(4): 1275-1303. 0021-8723 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2674729 in JSTOR]
* Conkin, Paul K. ''When All the Gods Trembled: Darwinism, Scopes, and American Intellectuals.'' (1998). 185 pp.
*{{Harvard reference
* Smout, Kary Doyle. ''The Creation/Evolution Controversy: A Battle for Cultural Power.'' (1998). 210 pp.
[[categoryCategory:evolutionFundamentalism]][[categoryCategory:creationismEvolution]][[categoryCategory:FundamentalismCreationism]][[categoryCategory:Featured articles]][[Category:1920s]][[Category:Religion and Politics]]