Greg+Silva+-+Week+6

The so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial,” a public affair in which the prosecution, led by the former secretary of state and politician William Jennings Bryan, and the defense, led by Clarence Darrow, a celebrity defense attorney, argued the merits of creationism and evolution respectively.

Ironically enough, the actual issue at hand in the trial was fairly clear-cut. Tennessee legislature had passed the Butler Act, which forbade teachers from teaching anything “that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and [required them] to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals” (UMKC School of Law). The penalty for breaching the Butler Act was a fine from $100 to $500 – a fair sum in 1925 but not enough to account for the global attention that the case received. The defendant, John Scopes, stood accused of teaching evolution from a textbook to his students. Student witnesses confirmed that Scopes had taught them about evolution, and Scopes, who made no efforts to deny that he broke the law in his defense, was guilty by any stretch of the imagination.

So why is the trial such a big deal?

On one level, the trial put two of the nation’s leading legal figures, Bryan and Darrow, against each other on a contended issue throughout the United States. Despite the clear evidence that Scopes was guilty and owed Tennessee a fine, Darrow raised a defense on the grounds that the Butler Act was vague and open to interpretation, citing that the Bible actually contains two creation stories – Genesis 1 which depicts a seven-day creation by a distant and omnipotent God (although not necessarily in 24 hour days), and Genesis 2 which depicts the story of Adam and Eve in which God was involved much more personally with creation – and that depending on your interpretation of Genesis 1, evolution may not contradict the Bible at all. The prosecution allowed the defense to raise these arguments, initially countering by questioning the merits of experts of evolution, after all, “if expert testimony is full of pitfalls or dangers, or uncertainties in any issue, how much more so must it be in this issue; how much more so must it be in this issue in regard to evolution when Mr. Darrow himself says that evolution is a mystery” (Hicks, UMKC School of Law).

The defense further contended the neutrality of the court, citing the use of prayer to open every court session and a large sign saying “Read Your BIBLE,” as well as a religious bias and public knowledge in the local jurors. While the court yielded and took down the “Read Your BIBLE” sign, it defended the use of prayer and allowed the prosecution to dismiss a juror on the grounds that he was never a member of an organized church. This argument over religious overtones allowed the trial to become far more heated than the concise and definitive student testimony would have made it.

When Bryan took the stand in defense of creation, it further increased public interest in the trial. The defense admitted that “we should want to take Mr. Bryan's testimony for the purpose of our record, even if your honor thinks it is not admissible in general” (Hays, UMKC School of Law), and Bryan took the stand in an effort to make a public case for creation. Ironically enough, he made a fool of himself when he claimed “I do not think about things I don't think about.” (Bryan, UMKC School of Law), and ruined his own argument when he claimed that he interpreted the Bible in a certain way and that he would not object to people who interpret it in a different way – when asked whether or not he though the earth was made in six literal days, Bryan responded that “My impression is they were periods, but I would not attempt to argue as against anybody who wanted to believe in literal days” (Bryan, UMKC School of Law), undermining any claim that evolution contradicted the Bible – if interpreted correctly it matched the story of creation in Genesis 1.

The Scopes Trial was used as a public venue to argue the case of religion versus science. It was this, not any element of the actual case, that gave it so much attention nationally and worldwide.