Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’: Forgotten Lesson

A hundred years have elapsed since one of the most famous trials in America — the Scopes “Monkey Trial” — and the liberal establishment has still not understood one of its central lessons.

On July 10, 1925, 24-year-old high school teacher John Scopes was put on trial in Dayton, Tenn., for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution, a crime under state law. The two opposing attorneys, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, immediately became symbols of an epic battle: science and rationality vs. religion and superstition. Thus, writing recently in the New York Times, historian Michael Kazin calls the trial “a momentous clash between modern science and traditional Christianity.” Opining in the Chronicle of Higher Education, John K. Wilson insists that the event represents “the conflict between politics and academic freedom.”

About the Author

Joseph Loconte

Joseph Loconte is the director of The Rivendell Center in New York City and the author of The War for Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933–1945. He serves as a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute and as the C.S. Lewis Scholar for Public Life at Grove City College. He is at work on a documentary film about the impact of war on the lives of Tolkien and Lewis.

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A hundred years have elapsed since one of the most famous trials in America — the Scopes “Monkey Trial” — and the liberal establishment has still not understood one of its central lessons.

On July 10, 1925, 24-year-old high school teacher John Scopes was put on trial in Dayton, Tenn., for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution, a crime under state law. The two opposing attorneys, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, immediately became symbols of an epic battle: science and rationality vs. religion and superstition. Thus, writing recently in the New York Times, historian Michael Kazin calls the trial “a momentous clash between modern science and traditional Christianity.” Opining in the Chronicle of Higher Education, John K. Wilson insists that the event represents “the conflict between politics and academic freedom.”

About the Author

Joseph Loconte

Joseph Loconte is the director of The Rivendell Center in New York City and the author of The War for Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933–1945. He serves as a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute and as the C.S. Lewis Scholar for Public Life at Grove City College. He is at work on a documentary film about the impact of war on the lives of Tolkien and Lewis.