Monkey Laws

In the post first World War USA, states like Oklahoma, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee had laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution in schools. Alarmed at the fundamentalists' growing influence in public life, in 1925 the American Civil Liberties Union decided to test the constitutional validity of the Butler Law in Tennessee, which laid down a minimum fine of 100 US Dollars and a maximum of 500 US Dollars for the offence. A hesitant volunteer was found in Mr. Scopes, a football coach who agreed to be accused of teaching evolution to his pupils from Hunter's text book 'Civic Biology' (on a day that he was not even at school - but then, not everyone knew that!).

Thus was set the stage for the legendary 12-day Scopes Trial, with celebrity lawyer and atheist Clarence Darrow leading the defence of Mr. Scopes, while the prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan, former Secretary of State to Woodrow Wilson, and 3 times unsuccessful Democratic Presidential candidate. When Bryan arrived in the mining town of Dayton for the case, he declared the trial was a 'contest between evolution and Christianity ... a duel to the death'. Tragically, Bryan died only a few days after the trial.

On the side of the courthouse ran a banner blaring 'Read Your Bible Daily!'; Judge John Raulston started the trial by reading the first 27 verses of Genesis, he later disallowed expert evidence from scientists that the defence wanted to produce, claiming that neither religion nor evolution was on trial, to the tune of 'amens' from the court room. After a heated exchange, the judge also once cited Clarence Darrow for contempt of court.

Other than this, the atmosphere in town was that of a jolly carnival, and their alleged ancestry in a chimpanzee delighted the children of town, and soon alternative theories about the 'devolution of man' to (an ape was on display in the public square) brought much hilarity. The trial itself had soon to be moved to the court lawns as a concession to the heat and the vast numbers of visitors. There, in front of the audience of five thousand spectators, and millions others following the live proceedings on radio, Clarence Darrow achieved a fantastic coup by asking for the prosecution's lawyer to be his witness, as all his witnesses were disallowed! Bryan obliged, and Darrow proceeded to question Bryan on Jonah and the whale, on Joshua's making the sun stand still, on how days could be counted before the creation of the sun, because the sun was not created until the 4th day according to the Bible: and generally proved Bryan to be an imbecile.

During the trial the Paris Soir satirised "On this side of the ocean it is difficult to understand precisely why (the Americans) should so stubbornly cling to the biblical version. It is said in Genesis the first man came from mud and mud is not anything very clean. In any case if the Darwinian hypothesis should irritate anyone it should only be the monkey. The monkey is an innocent animal- a vegetarian by birth. He has never placed God on a cross, knows nothing of the art of war, does not practice the lynch law and never dreams of assassinating his fellow beings".

The jury gave its expected verdict, the judge fined Scopes 100 Dollars, which the prosecuting lawyer offered to pay! Speaking briefly, Scopes said, "Your Honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future ... to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my idea of academic freedom"

The ACLU appealed to the State Supreme Court in Nashville where in January 1927 the lower court's decision was reversed on the technicality that by Tennessee state law, the jury, not the judge, must set the fine if it is above $50. The Butler Law remained untested, despite Clarence Darrow's every effort.

The Scopes defence received great support from the Baltimore Herald, whose freethinking sarcastic reporter H.L. Mencken did a lot to promote the case of the defence. The legendary trial was memorably - but alas inaccurately - captured in the Spencer Tracy 1960 film Inherit the Wind, the title taken from the Bible. (Proverbs: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind. And the fool shall be servant to the wise and …."). The trial has been more accurately and brilliantly documented in the 1997 Summer for Gods, a Pulitzer prize winning book written by Edward J. Larson (ISBN 0-674-85429-2).

75 years after the Scopes Trial, there was renewed outrage when, in 1999, the Kansas School Board decided by a majority vote to make the teaching of evolution optional, and removed many evolutionary topics and explanations of the role of natural selection from the curriculum in that State's public schools. In an editorial The New Scientist of 21 August wrote "We have said it before, but it appears we must say it again: there can be no such thing as 'creation science'. The business of science is not to claim any absolute knowledge. As Richard Feynman once put it: 'Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely sure'. Those who begin with an absolute, religious certainty about the origins of the Earth and life cannot study these events as scientists…Creation scientists are nothing but wolves in sheep's clothing, adopting the guise of open minded science to disguise their narrow-minded dogma. And unfortunately for the school children of Kansas, the wolves have been at the school curriculum".

And in such a situation, one yearns for someone like Clarence Darrow who openly declared in court that his effort was to "show up Fundamentalism, to prevent bigots and ignoramuses from controlling education in the US'. Those of us loyal to science and knowledge will need to continue Clarence Darrow's work.