James+Week+six

 State v. John Scopes ("The Monkey Trial")  by Douglas O. Linder Ever since Charles Darwin’s Book //The Origin of Species// was published, there has been an on-going war over its teaching in the classroom. The small town of Dayton, Tennessee was about to dive head first and take center stage in this battle for truth. The most peculiar part about the trial was that both the prosecution, headed by William Jennings Bryan, and the defense, led by Clarence Darrow, both interpreted this case to be something much bigger than it was. Bryan worried that "if evolution wins, Christianity goes." On the other side, Darrow insisted that, “Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial.” This whole ordeal turned into more of a debate over creation of man rather than the trial of John Scopes. One thing I disliked about the article was that the author, Douglas O. Linder failed, to really dive deep within the arguments Darrow and Bryan engaged in, for it would have been inriguing to read into one of the pioneer tussles over man's existence.

The publicity stunt came to an end in about a week and an guilty verdict was delivered solely to bring the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court and prolong the shenanigans. Eventually, The Supreme Court decided to dismiss the case, issuing a statement saying that, “nothing was to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case.” Douglas O. Linder, did an excellent job summing up quite a confusing article on the cultural impact of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Douglas commented that, “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. ” The harsh religious infrastructure the South had in place kept fighting the teaching of any such theory directly contradicting that of divine creation from the words of the bible for decades after.