Scopes, 100 years later: the lingering effects of the famous “monkey trial”
About this episode
We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the Scopes “Monkey Trial”. Dr Rob was in the neighborhood, so he stopped by the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, TN to tell the part of the story most people have never heard. This was the first time evolution was put on ‘trial’ in a US courtroom and it pitted two of the greatest orators of the 20th century against each other: William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. Bryan, the Christian anti-evolutionist, gave a weak performance. Darrow, the anti-theistic evolutionist, made Bryan, and thus by proxy, cultural Christianity, look foolish. Put yourself in the shoes of person living in 1925. Which side would you have chosen?
Notes and links:
- Carter R, Scopes at 100: The “monkey trial” shaped an entire century, Creation.com, 25 Aug 2020.
- Carter RW, A long-overdue review of Hunter’s A Civic Biology, Creation.com, 1 Sep 2020.
- Rhea County Courthouse
- William Jennings Bryan
- Clarence Darrow
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- Many of the references I made (e.g., to Bryans socialism and Darrow’s anti-Christian atheism) were based on facts I have learned over many years. I.e., they were from memory.
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