"On This Day" In Engineering History

On this day in engineering history, the "Scopes Monkey Trial" began in Dayton, Tennessee. The eight-day court battle pitted evolutionism against creationism and science vs. religion in a media circus that captured both international media attention.

John Thomas Scopes, a young high-school science teacher, stood trial for violating a state law, the Butler Act, which made it unlawful for instructors at publically-funded schools "to teach any theory that denies the story of Divine Creation of man as taught in the bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals". Scopes' alleged crime involved teaching from a chapter in a textbook which covered the theory of evolution as described in Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species.

Although the Butler Act prohibited teaching the theory of human evolution, the state of Tennessee required teachers to use a textbook, George Hunter's Civic Biology (1914), which explicitly described and endorsed Darwin's theory. In essence, this contradiction required all teachers who used Hunter's book to break the law.

John T. Scopes was charged with violating Tennessee's Butler Act on May 7, 1925. Before his arrest, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had offered to defend anyone accused of teaching the theory of evolution. A willing participant, Scopes gladly incriminated himself and urged students to do the same.

Originally, the ACLU had planned to oppose the Butler Act on the grounds that the law violated Scopes' civil rights and was therefore unconstitutional. Scope's defenders soon abandoned this strategy, however, and instead attacked a literal interpretation of the Bible. Because there was never a legal issue about whether he had taught evolution, John Thomas Scopes did not testify at his own trial. Later, Scopes admitted that he was unsure of whether he had even taught his students about Charles Darwin's theory.

After eight days of trial, a jury took only nine minutes to deliberate. On July 21, 1925, John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating the Butler Act and ordered to pay a $100.00 fine. In response to his sentence, Scopes told the judge: "Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom - that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom."

Although reporters from as far away as London soon left Tennessee, the "Scopes Monkey Trial" continued to live on popular imagination. In later years, the famous court battle was made infamous by fictionalized accounts given in the 1955 play Inherit the Wind; a 1960 Hollywood motion picture; and the 1965, 1988 and 1999 television films of the same name.

Resources:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/inherit/1925home.html