...Scopes Trial Name Institutional Affiliation Scopes Trial America was just recovering from the after effects of the world war. It was a common trend for people specifically from the rural areas to be nostalgic. Their desire was to maintain simplicity and engage in the normal activities they used to before the war. The religious turned to their religious practices and beliefs. The south and mid westerners are specifically remembered for their strong beliefs. Faith was associated with providing consolation and peace. Consequently, the rise of fundamentalist religion took shape. The fundamentalists relied on the literal aspects of the biblical teachings. The theory of evolution was therefore seen as ridicule to their faith. They considered it a threat especially because they believed they were the only one teaching the truth. The believers looked into ways through which they could terminate the theory of evolution from the society thus; they began with the education sector. Laws were passed in the South outlawing teaching of Darwinian theories in class by 1925. The towns of Tennessee, and Florida regarded the law significantly. In the summer of the same year, a school tutor by the name John Scopes of Dayton violated it. Consequently, Scopes was put under trial. The prosecution intentionally staged the case to attract the attention of the public throughout Tennessee. Although Scopes doubted to having taught the Darwinian theory, he incriminated himself, therefore serving as...
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...between forces of tradition and modernity. This tension was represented in whole by the Scopes Trial. The Scopes Trial was a court case where the Attorney General of Tennessee charged a high school biology teacher named John Scopes for going against the law of not being able to teach Darwin’s theory of evolution in school. Darwin’s theory of evolution stated that complex forms of life, like human beings, developed from simpler forms of life. Darwin’s modern theory clashed heavily with the fundamentalist, or traditionalist, view in the Bible, where God creates humans. The law of not being able to teach Darwinism in public schools was passed in 1925 by the state of Tennessee. The ACLU, or American...
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...The Scopes Trial By：Wang Congcong The Scopes Trial (Monkey Trial) and its aftermath caused our nation to closely examine the ties between religion and science. The Scopes Trial was the case of a high school biology teacher John Scopes against the state law against teaching Evolution in classroom. The case drew a lot of public attention. Even though the Scopes trial failed, succeeded in getting people to ask themselves, " what should I believe". In 1859, Charles Darwin released his work" Origin of the Species" old man of human are monkeys. Major people are fundamentalist, support the Bible, they believe God created human the story of Garden of Eden. Darwin''s theory subverted the story from Bible.So his speech had problems with church of England, Evolution is a new thing for the whole society, most people thought it 's a joke, and few people really considered became whose try to defend Darwin's theory and spread the ideas of Evolution. In the late days, Darwin's speak of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, now concept of the life sciences. In 1925, Tennessee passed a law, the Butler Act, that make illegal to teach Darwin's theory of evolution in public school. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) thought the law violated people's rights. " The 1st Amendment to the constitution protects that separation when it says. Congress shall make no...
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...Evan Boiko HIS 112-005 10-16-11 The Scopes Trial The Scopes Trial was one of the most famous trials in the history of the United States due to the intense passion and concern that people had for it. The defense was defending personal freedom and democracy while the prosecution imposed on these values. In the end, even though John Scopes and his defense team lost the trial, they won in the long run by influencing decisions made in the future regarding free speech in the classroom and what teachers were required to teach. Many people had intense feelings for the Scopes Trial. These feelings and concern people had for the trial made it one of the most famous trials in America. Some people simplified the trial to Darwin vs. the Bible. This issue made the Scopes trial a large concern to many because Darwin undermined the literal reading of the bible. Darwin's theory of evolution more specifically struck at two major parts of the Bible, the seven days of creation story, and the story of Adam and Eve and how they were the first humans on earth. Many people also considered Darwin's theory to be a "moral outrage" because of how the process of natural selection worked. For natural selection to occur, the unfit of the species were killed off in extremely large numbers. With this information, Darwin was suggesting that "nature revealed a God who was cruel and wasteful or absent altogether." This particular notion created strong opposition to Darwin's theory because of the possibility...
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...parties, flappers, and roaring jazz music. Although the decade seems like a collection of rowdy social festivities, grander complications lied at the surface. Author and Harvard American History professor, Joshua Zeitz underlines the conjuncture between innovation and tradition in his essay The Roaring Twenties. Although major religious conflicts erupted, giving the conservatives a win, the 1920’s were a decade of liberalism because of backlash from government control and advancements in media A major disagreement between church and education was the John Scopes trial (aka the monkey trial.) In 1925, the Butler Act was passed to end the teaching of anything that goes against biblical teachings. That same year, John Scopes was challenged by peers to violate the anti-evolution law and teach Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to his class. A Duke University Article, by Christopher Armstrong and Grant Wacker, entitled The Scopes Trial states that “Resistance grew especially acute when such conservatives saw their sons and daughters going off to college and, faced with teachings that contradicted their parents' beliefs, seemed to lose their faith entirely.” This reveals the parent’s conservative fears of a radically different America where there would be diversity amongst religions. Adding on to conservative victory, Zeitz claims that the conservatives were nowhere near close to being beat. Zeits states in his essay that after their court victory,...
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...Summary of Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson (New York, Basic Books: 1997, 318 pp.) Part I: Before… Chapter One: Digging Up Controversy Decades before the Scopes Trial, Charles Darwin discovered fragments of a prehistoric human skull which became known as the "Piltdown skull." It was believed to originate from an ape due to its size and shape, but the jaw appeared to resemble an undiscovered ape. As popularity of the subject grew, newspapers started to take notice saying that the skull was a missing link between humans and ape, and that Darwin's theory of evolution had now been proven correct. As the United States took notice, controversy related to religion...
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...ACLU, which only formed five years prior was determined to defend any teacher willing to challenge this law; Such a teacher, was a young Biologist at Dayton High School, John T. Scopes who agreed to be tried for violating the Butler Act and was charged. The ACLU, for all its efforts, at the time had little success, took the case and hired Clarence Darrow, a famous trial lawyer of the era, to defend Scopes in, The State of Tennessee v John Thomas Scopes, commonly referred to, as The Scopes Trial. The prosecution countered with, Christian fundamentalist, William Jennings Bryan, who proposed that only creationism should be taught in school....
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...“Then why did God plague us with the capacity to think? Mr. Brady, why do you deny the one faculty of man that raises him above the other creatures of the earth? The power of his brain to reason.” Aside from evolution being on trial, the right to think is also on trail in the Scopes case. Evolution is change of species over time, not saying we came from apes. You can believe in evolution without it contradicting your religion. Through Inherit the Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and the Scopes Trial I have learned a lot about evolution and how it might of happened. Inherit the Wind and the Scopes trial have very different purposes. The Scopes trial is more to inform us on the trial. For example, “There is never a duel with the truth. The truth always wins and we are not afraid of it. The truth is no coward. The truth does not need the law. The truth does not need the force of government.” Scopes has the cold hard facts, not un-textual extras. However Inherit the Wind is more to entertain. “How flattering it is to know I'm being clipped.” There are tons of examples for sarcasm in this book, and the reason you put sarcasm in a book is to keep it enjoyable and lively....
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...The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. New York: BasicBooks, 1997. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion, by Edward J. Larson, tells of the court trial of Clarence Darrow defending John Scopes against the radical populist William Jennings Bryan. Scopes had been challenged for going against the law by teaching evolution to students in a public school. The length of text begins with Scope studying the scientific findings of Charles Dawson, who examined skull pieces that may have filled the gap between apes and humans. This is what motivated Scopes with the fascination of evolution. But then there were people like William Jennings Bryan who come into play and take the religious side, wanting to go against the idea of evolution. Society wasn’t exactly mostly favoring the idea of evolution since there were laws against spreading the idea as Scopes had. This is, of course, how Scopes ended up in court. However, the text does not end with the ruling of the trial. The text stretches to the anti-evolution movement continuing on with Bryan trying to start his crusade, and eventually gets to how schools restructure what society thinks should be the new benchmarks of education. Basically, the text tells the history of these two ideas, but in the end, neither is right or wrong since everyone has the liberty for their own beliefs. The 1920s hosted a famous court case between John Scopes and...
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...The Scopes Monkey Trial 1925 The Scopes Monkey Trial demonstrates how religious fundamentalists used the power of the state to promote their view of society. Like the Prohibition laws used to legislate morality laws against the teachings of evolution in high schools attempted to legislate thinking. The Tennessee antievolution law (the Butler Act) came to national prominence in 1925. The American civil liberty union wanted to test the law and needed a teacher willing to be arrested for breaking the law. John T. Scopes the 24-year-old science teacher and a football coach at Dayton High School agreed to be the defendant in the case. He had thought the evolution theory at the school and had therefor broken the new law the punishment under the law was a 100$ fine under the law. In the summer of 1925 the case was brought to the Dayton courthouse with 150 members of the press in attendance. The state prosecutor was a fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan. Farmers in the families rushed though the heat wave as they were looking forward to Brian defending their bible against the idea “Everyone’s great grand pappy was a monkey”. Judge John. T. Raulston from Fiery Grizzard stated that the issue was not the truth of the evolution or the wisdom of the law it simply if the John T. Scopes had broken the law. Scopes agreed that he taught the theory of evolution and was fined a 100$. Brian had won the case but it was a hollow victory as Scopes defense Clarance Darrow had made the...
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...The Scopes Monkey trial of 1925 is considered a success for the teaching of biology in the United States. Although John T. Scopes was found guilty and the christian plantiffs won, the spokemen for the case were labeled as silly in their explaination of concepts in the book of Genesis, such as Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark. Even after the violation of the Tennessee law, other states were less willing to propsing laws similar to the Butler Act (Cornish,2007,para.3). The trial was just the beginning of a century-long war between creationalists and scientists. The conflict also turns into a christian vs atheist debate, due to the overwelming amount of atheists who support the theory of evolution. After reading Randy Moore's article, I was surprised by the number of Americans who want creationalism to be incooperated in a biology curriculum. Based on statistics provided by Randy Moore, while half the U.S. Population support...
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...The Scopes Monkey Trial The Trial of the Century, Scopes Monkey Trial, The Monkey Trial these are a few names the State of Tennessee v. John Thomas legal case could be called. This court case was an unusual one because the State of Tennessee had passed an antievolutionary law named the Butler Act that outlawed the teaching of evolution in the classroom (New World Encyclopedia). While the scopes trial looked like ballyhoo, because of its substance it was actually important to America because of its substance and final showdown. The Scopes Trial had almost a circus or carnival like element to it. Especially in the town of Dayton Tennessee where the trial was being held because of a multitude of revival tents and other various things (Pierce)....
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...1. Why is the “Scopes Monkey Trial” so historically significant? The Scopes Monkey Trial is historically significant because it is the first time that the creationist argument and the theory of evolution were debated within an education atmosphere. Also, it brought into question the legality of the government determining what can be taught in schools. 2. Why do you think the Supreme Court overturned the verdict on a technicality? I think the Supreme Court overturned the verdict on a technicality because the case was too controversial and divided people. So, the issue was not solved, but it was done before any further discussion on the matter could occur. So, the matter was overturned to avoid a public divide on the issue. 3. What are your...
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...Chapter 21: Scopes Monkey Trial The scopes monkey trial occurred because religious fundamentalists, who believed that God created life, believed that the theory of evolution was heretic. In early in 1925 state legislature of Tennessee passed a law forbidding public school teachers to teach the theory of evolution instead of teaching the story of Adam and Eve. John Scopes was a high school teacher in Dayton Tennessee who was a modernist, meaning that he believed in social sciences and evolution. In 1925 Scopes volunteered to serve in a test case and was arrested for teaching evolution in school. Scopes trial that summer became a headline event and though he won the trial, fundamentalism remained popular. 2nd Kkk In 1915, William J. Simmons,...
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...The Scopes Monkey Trial’s outcome determined the beliefs and morality of generations of Americans to come. As a result, Americans would give legitimacy to Darwin’s theory, and the decision would spark a widespread acceptance of evolution. Because Christianity did not have a legitimate Bible expert to aid in the defense of the law, the successive generations have been indoctrinated with a lie, and the future has suffered. Creationist were ill prepared for the storm that the Evolutionist had cleverly planned and painstakingly created. Bryan had been traveling the country speaking about the evil results of teaching evolution and had sparked the state of Tennessee to pass a law stating it was illegal to teach evolution in it’s schools.(Menton)....
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