The Scopes Monkey Trial

An important event in the history of the conflict between the Theory of Evolution and belief in a Divine Creation occurred in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher was on trial for contravening the state's Butler Act law which forbade the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."

The trial quickly degenerated into a media circus. The leading protagonists were an high-profile conservative religious spokesperson, former US Secretary of State and Presidential candidate: William Jennings Bryan. Opposing him was a leading intellectual and lawyer: Clarence Darrow. Although Scopes was found guilty, it was generally felt that he and Darrow had won a moral victory. Nonetheless, popular opposition to acceptance of the Theory of Evolution remained high, with the result that most textbooks made little or no mention of evolution until the early 1960's. Those that discussed it often omitted it from their index.

The Faith versus Reason Debate

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