A Dangerous Idea: The Scopes Trial, the Original Fight over Science in Schools

Gr 4-7–In May of 1925, the school board members and leading businessmen of Dayton, TN, hatched a plan to attract visitors, new business, and media attention to their small town. They induced John Scopes, a high school science teacher, to face charges of teaching evolution in defiance of Tennessee’s recently passed prohibition against teaching “any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.” Thus, the ACLU finally had a test case to challenge the constitutionality of the anti-evolution laws that were cropping up in state legislatures across the U.S. By July, the media circus and popular culture phenomenon that would be known as the Scopes Monkey Trial was in full swing, with crusading civil liberties and labor attorney Clarence Darrow on the defense team and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan leading the prosecution. Through accessible language, strong and unhurried pacing, and the deft incorporation of human interest into the story, Levy crafts a compelling narrative from what might otherwise be a dry treatise on science and the law. Background information—on evolutionary theory, the roles of religion and science in government and society, and the lives and careers of the key players in the trial—grounds the events that occurred over eight days in the Rhea County courthouse to the larger history of America. An epilogue provides a persuasive argument that the legacy of the Scopes Monkey Trial lives on in our current political struggles and constitutional challenges. Chapter-by-chapter source notes and a selected bibliography are included, along with an index.