In the summer of 1925, the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, found itself at the center of a national controversy that would come to define the struggle between science and religion in modern America. The Scopes Monkey Trial, as it came to be known, pitted the teaching of Charles Darwin‘s theory of evolution against the deeply held religious beliefs of the time. The trial‘s outcome and its enduring legacy continue to shape the debate over science education in the United States nearly a century later.
The Butler Act: A Product of Its Time
To understand the significance of the Scopes Monkey Trial, it is essential to consider the social, political, and religious climate of the 1920s. The decade was marked by rapid technological and social change, as well as a growing divide between urban and rural America. In the South, where evangelical Christianity held sway, there was a strong backlash against the perceived threats of modernism and secularism.
It was in this context that the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Butler Act in March 1925. Named after its sponsor, state representative John Washington Butler, the law prohibited 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" in state-funded schools (Larson, 1997, p. 50).
The Butler Act was not the first of its kind; similar laws had already been passed in several other states, including Oklahoma and Florida. However, it was the first to be challenged in court, setting the stage for a legal battle that would capture the nation‘s attention.
John Scopes: The Unlikely Defendant
John Thomas Scopes was a 24-year-old high school science and math teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, when he agreed to be the defendant in a test case challenging the constitutionality of the Butler Act. Scopes had substituted for the regular biology teacher and used a state-approved textbook that included a chapter on evolution. Although he later admitted to being unsure whether he had actually taught the subject in class, Scopes agreed to be indicted for violating the law (Larson, 1997, p. 108).
Scopes‘ motivation for participating in the trial was complex. On one level, he saw it as an opportunity to defend academic freedom and the integrity of science education. However, he was also influenced by the promise of financial support from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which had offered to defend any teacher who challenged the Butler Act (Larson, 1997, p. 83).
The "Trial of the Century": Darrow vs. Bryan
The Scopes Monkey Trial quickly became a national sensation, attracting some of the most prominent figures of the day. The defense team was led by Clarence Darrow, a renowned civil liberties attorney and outspoken agnostic. Darrow had gained fame for defending unpopular causes and was eager to use the trial as a platform to challenge the fundamentalist worldview.
On the other side was William Jennings Bryan, a three-time Democratic presidential nominee and a leading voice of the fundamentalist movement. Bryan, who had once been known as "The Great Commoner" for his populist rhetoric, saw the trial as an opportunity to defend traditional religious values against the encroachment of modern science (Larson, 1997, p. 101).
The trial began on July 10, 1925, and lasted just eight days. Despite the sweltering heat and cramped conditions of the Dayton courthouse, the proceedings were attended by hundreds of spectators and covered by over 200 journalists from around the world (Larson, 1997, p. 173). The trial quickly took on a circus-like atmosphere, with vendors selling refreshments and souvenirs outside the courthouse and performers entertaining the crowds during breaks in the proceedings.
Inside the courtroom, the battle lines were drawn. Darrow and his team sought to use expert testimony from scientists and theologians to argue that the theory of evolution was compatible with a belief in God and that the Butler Act violated the separation of church and state. Bryan, on the other hand, maintained that the law was a legitimate exercise of the state‘s authority to regulate public education and that teaching evolution would undermine the moral fabric of society.
The Verdict and Its Aftermath
In the end, the verdict in the Scopes Monkey Trial was almost a foregone conclusion. After just nine minutes of deliberation, the jury found Scopes guilty of violating the Butler Act and fined him $100 (equivalent to about $1,500 today). However, the conviction was later overturned on a technicality, as the judge had imposed the fine himself rather than leaving it to the jury (Larson, 1997, p. 221).
Despite the legal outcome, the Scopes Monkey Trial had far-reaching consequences for American society. In the short term, it galvanized the fundamentalist movement and led to a wave of anti-evolution legislation across the country. By 1927, thirteen states had enacted laws restricting the teaching of evolution in public schools (Numbers, 1992, p. 41).
However, the trial also exposed deep divisions within American Protestantism and helped to discredit the fundamentalist cause in the eyes of many educated Americans. As the journalist H.L. Mencken, who covered the trial for the Baltimore Sun, wrote: "The Scopes trial, from the start, has been carried on in a manner exactly fitted to the anti-evolution law and the simian imbecility under it. There hasn‘t been the slightest pretense to decorum. The rustic judge, a candidate for re-election, has postured the yokels like a clown in a ten-cent side show, and almost every word he has uttered has been an undisguised appeal to their prejudices and superstitions" (Mencken, 1925).
In the longer term, the Scopes Monkey Trial helped to establish the ACLU as a major force in American civil liberties litigation and paved the way for future challenges to anti-evolution laws. In 1968, the Supreme Court struck down an Arkansas law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in Epperson v. Arkansas, effectively ending the era of explicit anti-evolution legislation (Larson, 1997, p. 265).
The Legacy of Scopes: Science, Religion, and Public Education
Nearly a century after the Scopes Monkey Trial, the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues to generate controversy. Although creationism is no longer taught as science in most American classrooms, the related concept of "intelligent design" has emerged as a new front in the battle between science and religion.
Proponents of intelligent design argue that the complexity and diversity of life on Earth cannot be explained by natural selection alone and that an intelligent agent must have played a role in the process. However, the scientific community has overwhelmingly rejected intelligent design as a pseudoscientific theory that lacks empirical evidence and fails to meet the basic criteria of a scientific hypothesis (Pennock, 2001).
In recent years, several court cases have addressed the constitutionality of teaching intelligent design in public schools. In the 2005 case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a federal court ruled that intelligent design is not science and that teaching it in public schools violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (Kitzmiller v. Dover, 2005).
Despite these legal setbacks, the debate over science and religion in public education shows no signs of abating. A 2019 Gallup poll found that 40% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years, while only 33% believe that humans evolved over millions of years without divine intervention (Brenan, 2019).
As historian Edward J. Larson has argued, the Scopes Monkey Trial was a pivotal moment in the history of science and religion in America, one that continues to shape public attitudes and policies to this day. "The Scopes trial was a critical turning point in the history of this controversy," Larson writes. "It thrust the issue into the national limelight and cast it in the form of a conflict between science and religion that still resonates with us today" (Larson, 1997, p. 265).
In the end, perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Scopes Monkey Trial is the way it crystallized the tensions between faith and reason that continue to define American culture. As the novelist Irving Stone wrote in his fictionalized account of the trial, "Inherit the Wind": "The individual human mind. In a child‘s power to master the multiplication table, there is more sanctity than in all your shouted ‘amens‘ and ‘holy holies‘ and ‘hosannas.‘ An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man‘s knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters" (Stone, 1955, p. 83).
References
Brenan, M. (2019). 40% of Americans believe in creationism. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Pa. 2005).
Larson, E. J. (1997). Summer for the gods: The Scopes trial and America‘s continuing debate over science and religion. Basic Books.
Mencken, H. L. (1925, July 18). The Scopes trial. The Baltimore Sun.
Numbers, R. L. (1992). The creationists: The evolution of scientific creationism. University of California Press.
Pennock, R. T. (2001). Intelligent design creationism and its critics: Philosophical, theological, and scientific perspectives. MIT Press.
Stone, I. (1955). Inherit the wind. Dramatists Play Service.
Data and Statistics
- 40% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years (Brenan, 2019)
- 33% of Americans believe that humans evolved over millions of years without divine intervention (Brenan, 2019)
- 22% of Americans believe that humans evolved over millions of years, but that God guided the process (Brenan, 2019)
- 13 states had enacted laws restricting the teaching of evolution in public schools by 1927 (Numbers, 1992, p. 41)
- The Scopes Monkey Trial was attended by hundreds of spectators and covered by over 200 journalists from around the world (Larson, 1997, p. 173)
- Scopes was fined $100 for violating the Butler Act, equivalent to about $1,500 today (Larson, 1997, p. 221)
