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Scopes Trials

Scopes Trial
The Scopes Trial a simple trial that turned into a showdown between religion and science began on July 10, 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. John Scope, a local science teacher, was on trial for teaching evolution. Scopes had broken the Butler Act, a new state law against teaching any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, by using the state-approved textbook and teaching it. Tennessee’s governor had signed it reluctantly when the Butler Act was passed in 1925.
The American Civil Liberties Union raised money to test the law in court and all they needed was for a Tennessee teacher to volunteer to break the Butler Act. In 1925 John Scopes agreed to go on trial to test it out. Clarence Arrow, an urban liberal, volunteered to be Scope’s defensive lawyer. William Jennings Bryan, three times candidate for president and a hero to rural America also joined the trial for the prosecution. The turning point of the trial came on the last day, when Darrow put Bryan on the stand and asked him about the Bible’s account of creation. He was asked if he thought the earth had been made in 6 days and he answered, “Not six days of twenty-four hours.” In the end, both sides claimed victory. The jury had taken less than ten minutes to find John Scopes guilty and fined him $100, but the Supreme Court later freed him on a technicality. The Butler Act remained in Tennessee even if biology teachers continued to teach evolution. The controversy between science and religion is an on going controversy that is still an issue today.


The first matter to be examined is the evolution-creationism controversy. According to Spragul Decamp people don't oppose evolution because they disagree with the science but because it offends their religious sensibilities. In most communities, at least some students come into a class wary of the "e-word" because somehow they have acquired the idea that acceptance of evolution is incompatible with...