A Century Later, the Spirit of Scopes is Alive and Well
The Scopes “Monkey” Trial Turns 100 this year. According to secularist legend, the Scopes trial represented a great showdown between ignorant, fundamentalist religion and enlightened, scientific progress. But what really went down in 1925? And a hundred years later, is science still suffering from the Scopes effect? On this episode of ID The Future, Dr. Casey Luskin begins a conversation with host Andrew McDiarmid about the famous trial, the play and movie based on it that reinforced unrealistic stereotypes, and some of the flashpoints in science since the trial that have fanned the flames of the debate over evolution.
Dr. Luskin first takes us back to 1925 to remind us of the basics. That year, the Tennessee state legislature passed a law that made it a misdemeanor crime to teach human evolution. An incredibly misguided move, of course – the teaching of science should never be criminalized. But that’s what they did. The ACLU recruited a public school teacher, John T. Scopes, to teach evolution so they could test the law. He was then accused of teaching human evolution and convicted of the crime. Ultimately, it went up to the Tennessee State Supreme Court, which upheld the law and found that it was not unconstitutional.
So how did the trial capture the nation? Well, this was the 1920s, when radio had first come on the scene. So the Scopes trial itself was broadcast around the United States through radio. A whole media circus descended upon the little town of Dayton, Tennessee, and the whole nation was invited to tune in. The event was framed and postured as if it was the old outdated forces of fundamentalism versus the new forces of modernism, technology, and science.
The trial itself came and went, explains Dr. Luskin, but in 1960, the stereotypes espoused by the trial would get amplified and crystallized for generations by a play and movie loosely based on the trial called Inherit the Wind. Luskin discusses how the stereotypes from Inherit the Wind became deeply embedded in the cultural psyche, setting the stage for waves of suppression and cancellation of Darwin skeptics throughout the last half century. But even as questioners of Darwin’s theory were marginalized and often silenced, real doubts in the scientific community about the power of Darwin’s selection/mutation mechanism were mounting.
This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 next!
Dig Deeper
- John Scopes’s legacy consists entirely of inviting prosecution by proudly teaching human evolution from a eugenic racist textbook. Dr. Michael Egnor reports on that troubling angle of Scopes here.
- More conversation with Casey Luskin: