Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (44 page)
Authors: Edward J. Larson
BOOK: Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
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The battle over the Scopes legacy continued when the Supreme Court agreed to review the Louisiana statute. “We need not be blinded in this case to the legislature’s preeminent religious purpose in enacting this statute,” Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., wrote for the majority. He then referred “to the Tennessee statute that was the focus of the celebrated
Scopes
trial in 1925” as an antecedent for the Louisiana law. Writing for the dissent, however, Justice Antonin Scalia offered quite a different view of the Scopes precedent. “The people of Louisiana,” he contended, “including those who are Christian fundamentalists, are quite entitled, as a secular matter, to have whatever scientific evidence there may be against evolution presented in their schools, just as Mr. Scopes was entitled to present whatever scientific evidence there was for it.”
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These clashing applications of the Scopes legend illustrate its broad appeal as folklore. Brennan could just as easily invoke it to support freedom from religious establishment as Scalia could use it to support academic freedom to teach alternative theories.
Scopes
trial in 1925” as an antecedent for the Louisiana law. Writing for the dissent, however, Justice Antonin Scalia offered quite a different view of the Scopes precedent. “The people of Louisiana,” he contended, “including those who are Christian fundamentalists, are quite entitled, as a secular matter, to have whatever scientific evidence there may be against evolution presented in their schools, just as Mr. Scopes was entitled to present whatever scientific evidence there was for it.”
31
These clashing applications of the Scopes legend illustrate its broad appeal as folklore. Brennan could just as easily invoke it to support freedom from religious establishment as Scalia could use it to support academic freedom to teach alternative theories.
Some fundamentalists already have adopted the latter approach. When state or local education officials seek to follow the Supreme Court decisions on religious instruction in public schools by stifling conservative Christian teachers from presenting evidence for creationism in science classrooms (as happens with increasing frequency), antievolutionists often liken it to the alleged persecution of John Scopes. Courts readily dismiss the analogy by reasoning that Scopes wanted to teach a scientific theory while the others wanted to present their religious beliefs. This does not satisfy fundamentalists, however, who view their beliefs as truer than any scientific theory, because for them religion (and not science) is founded on personal experiences and relationships.
In a thoughtful discussion about such a case that arose in California during the early 1990s, the Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter concluded that the issue ultimately involves questions of epistemology. Who does have “the right,” he asked, to decide what gets taught as science in the public schools? Creationist parents and teachers, based on their relatively subjective religious beliefs, or professional scientists and educators, based on their relatively objective scientific theories? “The rhetorical case against the creationist parents rests not merely or mostly on arcane questions of constitutional interpretation,” Carter observes, “the case rests on the sense that they themselves are wrong to rely on their sacred texts to discover truths about the world.”
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Darrow fully realized this at Dayton, and used his defense of Scopes to challenge fundamentalist beliefs. To the extent that lawyers defending the evolutionist position in later lawsuits appeal narrowly to constitutional interpretation, fundamentalist beliefs remain unchallenged.
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Darrow fully realized this at Dayton, and used his defense of Scopes to challenge fundamentalist beliefs. To the extent that lawyers defending the evolutionist position in later lawsuits appeal narrowly to constitutional interpretation, fundamentalist beliefs remain unchallenged.
Certainly the court decisions since the Scopes case have not slowed the spread of creationism. Instead, they have encouraged fundamentalists to abandon evolution-teaching public education for creation-affirming church or home schooling. This relatively new development built on the earlier movement for separate fundamentalist colleges that went at least as far back as the fundamentalist—modernist controversy and gained momentum after the Scopes trial. Concern over teaching evolution contributed to both developments. In his foreword to a 1974 biology textbook written for fundamentalist high schools, for example, the creationist leader Henry M. Morris attributes “the widespread movement in recent years toward the establishment of new private Christian schools” to the perception among fundamentalist pastors and parents that “a nontheistic religion of secular evolutionary humanism has become, for all practical purposes, the official state religion promoted in the public schools.”
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His text offers a markedly different theology for the science classroom.
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His text offers a markedly different theology for the science classroom.
Not all conservative Christians reacted to the Scopes legacy with such defiance, however, especially after a self-proclaimed “new evangelical” strain of American Protestantism emerged following the Second World War under the inspiration of William Bell Riley’s hand-picked successor, the evangelist Billy Graham. In his public ministry, Graham ignored the Scopes trial and antievolutionism. In 1954, he endorsed
The Christian View of Science and Scripture,
a new book by the Baptist theologian Bernard Ramm that sought to reconcile conservative Christians to modern science by interpreting the Genesis account as a pictorial depiction of progressive creationism spanning eons. Ramm’s influential book, which cleared a path to the serious study of science for a generation of evangelical college students, dismissed “Bryan’s miseries at the Scopes trial,” as Ramm called them, as part of a “sordid history” that “we will not trace.”
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This approach fit Graham’s objective of resurrecting a biblically orthodox creed free from the cultural baggage that made fundamentalism unacceptable to most educated Americans. Mindful of the ridicule heaped on Bryan for his testimony at Dayton, scholars within the new evangelical movement typically view militant antievolutionism as deadweight to be cast off.
The Christian View of Science and Scripture,
a new book by the Baptist theologian Bernard Ramm that sought to reconcile conservative Christians to modern science by interpreting the Genesis account as a pictorial depiction of progressive creationism spanning eons. Ramm’s influential book, which cleared a path to the serious study of science for a generation of evangelical college students, dismissed “Bryan’s miseries at the Scopes trial,” as Ramm called them, as part of a “sordid history” that “we will not trace.”
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This approach fit Graham’s objective of resurrecting a biblically orthodox creed free from the cultural baggage that made fundamentalism unacceptable to most educated Americans. Mindful of the ridicule heaped on Bryan for his testimony at Dayton, scholars within the new evangelical movement typically view militant antievolutionism as deadweight to be cast off.
Many other American Christians feel even less direct impact from the Scopes legacy than evangelicals. Modernists and mainline Protestants typically share the common culture’s reaction to the trial and legend. Despite their traditionalism, American Catholics did not join Bryan’s antievolution crusade, in part because they already had their own parochial schools and colleges, which left them in the position of spectators to the Dayton trial and its aftermath. Rooted in a historic faith adaptable enough to accept theistic evolution, Roman Catholics sat out this culture clash. Yet the issue will never wholly disappear so long as fundamentalists continue to object to teaching evolution, which they persist in seeing as damnable indoctrination in a naturalistic worldview that undermines belief in God.
Certainly the Scopes legacy clings fast to Tennessee, where most people still profess the Christian faith and most Christians lean toward fundamentalism. Republicans targeted that traditionally Democratic state during the 1994 elections, with strong support from conservative Christian political forces. In an attempt to survive the onslaught, the state’s senior Democratic U.S. senator went so far as to prepare a television commercial touting his support for school prayer, but to no avail. Republicans swept into power throughout Tennessee, and new legislation to restrict teaching evolution in public schools soon appeared in the state senate with the support of fundamentalist groups and individuals. About the same time, the Alabama board of education ordered that new biology textbooks carry a disclaimer identifying evolution as “a controversial theory ... , not fact,” and the Georgia house of representatives passed a measure facilitating instruction in creationism. “Yet it’s the Tennessee debate that has helped put the issue on the national stage,”
USA Today
reported. “It was in Tennessee in 1925 that the two sides squared off in Scopes’ epic trial.” The feature article discussed the 70-year-old trial at length, and included pictures of Darrow, Bryan, and Scopes.
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USA Today
reported. “It was in Tennessee in 1925 that the two sides squared off in Scopes’ epic trial.” The feature article discussed the 70-year-old trial at length, and included pictures of Darrow, Bryan, and Scopes.
35
Largely due to the Scopes connection, the new legislation drew international attention. “Seventy years after John Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution in Dayton, Tenn., the State Legislature here is considering permitting school boards to dismiss teachers who present evolution as fact rather than a theory of human origin,” began a front-page article from Nashville in the Sunday
New York Times.
36
The British Broadcasting Corporation sent a camera crew to cover the story, complete with interviews in Dayton. Some American network news accounts featured clips from
Inherit the Wind.
Newspaper articles inevitably dwelt on the Scopes trial. Amid a flurry of hostile media coverage, the senate education committee approved the proposal by an eight-to-one vote, and sent it on to the full senate, which debated the two-sentence bill for three days. “Coming more than 70 years after Tennessee’s 1925 anti-evolution law was held up to international ridicule during the Scopes Monkey Trial, the bill again has brought national attention to Tennessee’s ongoing debate of how to teach the origins of life on Earth. Cameras and reporters jammed into the Senate for the debate,” the Memphis
Commercial Appeal
reported.
37
New York Times.
36
The British Broadcasting Corporation sent a camera crew to cover the story, complete with interviews in Dayton. Some American network news accounts featured clips from
Inherit the Wind.
Newspaper articles inevitably dwelt on the Scopes trial. Amid a flurry of hostile media coverage, the senate education committee approved the proposal by an eight-to-one vote, and sent it on to the full senate, which debated the two-sentence bill for three days. “Coming more than 70 years after Tennessee’s 1925 anti-evolution law was held up to international ridicule during the Scopes Monkey Trial, the bill again has brought national attention to Tennessee’s ongoing debate of how to teach the origins of life on Earth. Cameras and reporters jammed into the Senate for the debate,” the Memphis
Commercial Appeal
reported.
37
Opponents dubbed the bill “Scopes II” and “Son of Scopes.” They devoted more effort to warning of its public-relations impact than to defending the theory of evolution. “This echo of the 1925 law that led to the Scopes monkey trial,” the
Nashville Banner
commented, “can’t help but make the state look bad.” The ACLU vowed to challenge the law in court, with its Nashville director warning, “I have already had several calls from teachers who are willing and interested in being plaintiffs, people who are interested in being the next John Scopes.” Finally, the senate’s presiding officer and senior member declared, “I can’t vote for this bill, but I don’t want anybody to think I don’t know God,” and the bill failed by a vote of twenty to thirteen. Observers credited the Scopes legacy for the defeat.
38
Nashville Banner
commented, “can’t help but make the state look bad.” The ACLU vowed to challenge the law in court, with its Nashville director warning, “I have already had several calls from teachers who are willing and interested in being plaintiffs, people who are interested in being the next John Scopes.” Finally, the senate’s presiding officer and senior member declared, “I can’t vote for this bill, but I don’t want anybody to think I don’t know God,” and the bill failed by a vote of twenty to thirteen. Observers credited the Scopes legacy for the defeat.
38
The legislation evoked mixed reactions in Dayton. “I believe if they had the trial again today it would turn out about the same way,” Harry Shelton had commented a few years earlier, although he grudgingly conceded, “Now they permit the teaching of evolution in most schools—as long as you teach it as a theory and not as a fact.” Another former student called the new legislation “Silly, silly,” and Fred Robinson’s now elderly daughter added, “It’s a lot of hooey.” Teachers at the new regional high school keep quiet about the proposal at the request of their principal. The town’s population has tripled since 1925, spurred by a new furniture factory and better roads to Chattanooga. Memories of the trial draw tourists, too, with a Scopes Trial Museum in the old courthouse and an annual Scopes Festival featuring dramatic reenactments in the courtroom. The local newspaper editor likes the proposed new statutory limits on the teaching of evolution. “To my knowledge, it’s never been proven, even when we put on the trial here,” he noted. From the hill above town, Bryan College’s creationist biology professor agreed, adding that the bill “strikes a very profound chord in an awful lot of people.” In addition, these people—fundamentalists mostly—continue to read and hear arguments (much like those once made by Bryan) that challenge the scientific authority of Darwinism. With Bryan College faculty overseeing the town’s portrayal of the Scopes trial, the Commoner and his ideas still get a fair hearing in Dayton.
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The deeply entrenched Scopes legend continues to dominate impressions of the trial elsewhere. Even in Nashville, the morning newspaper dubbed debate on the 1996 legislation as “Inherit the Wind: The State Sequel.”
40
One week after the bill’s defeat, Tony Randall’s production company revived Lawrence and Lee’s play on Broadway, with the character representing Bryan appearing fatter and more disreputable than before. Theater critics hailed the play as pertinent and timely. “We still have the creationists versus the evolutionists,” a reviewer on public television commented, and pointed to the new antievolution bill “in, yes, the state of Tennessee.” Whereas its review of the original Broadway production criticized the script’s “overall lack of tension” and “clinical quality,” the
New York Times
now praised the text’s “dramatic life.” The critic explained, “Here was a headline-making heavyweight bout between the rational thought of a newly rational age and old-fashioned Christian fundamentalism, which was deemed to be on its last legs, though today it’s alive and well and called Creationism.”
The New Yorker,
which originally scorned the play as “a much too elementary study in black and white,” now lauded it as “a thoughtful, powerful explication of religious and political issues that we still haven’t figured out.” A sign in the theater lobby quoted 1996 presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan’s comments in support of the Tennessee bill.
41
40
One week after the bill’s defeat, Tony Randall’s production company revived Lawrence and Lee’s play on Broadway, with the character representing Bryan appearing fatter and more disreputable than before. Theater critics hailed the play as pertinent and timely. “We still have the creationists versus the evolutionists,” a reviewer on public television commented, and pointed to the new antievolution bill “in, yes, the state of Tennessee.” Whereas its review of the original Broadway production criticized the script’s “overall lack of tension” and “clinical quality,” the
New York Times
now praised the text’s “dramatic life.” The critic explained, “Here was a headline-making heavyweight bout between the rational thought of a newly rational age and old-fashioned Christian fundamentalism, which was deemed to be on its last legs, though today it’s alive and well and called Creationism.”
The New Yorker,
which originally scorned the play as “a much too elementary study in black and white,” now lauded it as “a thoughtful, powerful explication of religious and political issues that we still haven’t figured out.” A sign in the theater lobby quoted 1996 presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan’s comments in support of the Tennessee bill.
41
These changing responses help account for the enduring public interest in both the play and the trial. To “intellectuals” of the 1950s, as Hofstadter noted, the Scopes trial seemed “as remote as the Homeric era,” and some of them criticized the play’s simplistic presentation of America’s debate over science and religion. Such critics typically accepted a scientific explanation for human origins and assumed that virtually all thinking Americans did so too, even those who believed in God. Certainly
Inherit the Wind
grossly simplified the trial, yet regardless of their position on the issue, many Americans perceive the relationship between science and religion in just such simple terms: either Darwin or the Bible was true. Hofstadter recognized this. “The play seemed on Broadway more like a quaint period piece than a stirring call for freedom of thought,” he observed. “But when the road company took the play to a small town in Montana, a member of the audience rose and shouted ‘Amen!’ at one of the speeches of the character representing Bryan.”
42
Inherit the Wind
grossly simplified the trial, yet regardless of their position on the issue, many Americans perceive the relationship between science and religion in just such simple terms: either Darwin or the Bible was true. Hofstadter recognized this. “The play seemed on Broadway more like a quaint period piece than a stirring call for freedom of thought,” he observed. “But when the road company took the play to a small town in Montana, a member of the audience rose and shouted ‘Amen!’ at one of the speeches of the character representing Bryan.”
42
As the amens for creationism have increased in both number and volume over the years since 1955, secular critics have tended to revise their views of the play and the trial. Even aloof intellectuals have come to realize that a vast number of Americans still believe in the Bible and accept it as authoritative on matters of science. Moreover, if people accept the biblical account of special creation over the scientific theory of organic evolution, which is, after all, one of the core theories of modern biology, then they most likely defer to biblical authority on other matters of public and private concern. For Americans who do not share this religious viewpoint and who fear that fundamentalists constitute the majority in some places, concerns about the defense of individual liberty under a government by the people seem all too familiar. The character representing Darrow in
Inherit the Wind
might just as well be standing in the doorway of their bedrooms as that of a small town’s schoolhouse—blocking the entrance of frenzied townspeople, and turning them aside by debunking their overzealous leader. The original Broadway cast did not take fundamentalist politicians seriously, Tony Randall observed shortly after the play’s revival in 1996, “but America has moved so far to the right, that they are now close to the center.”
43
Inherit the Wind
might just as well be standing in the doorway of their bedrooms as that of a small town’s schoolhouse—blocking the entrance of frenzied townspeople, and turning them aside by debunking their overzealous leader. The original Broadway cast did not take fundamentalist politicians seriously, Tony Randall observed shortly after the play’s revival in 1996, “but America has moved so far to the right, that they are now close to the center.”
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