The Creator and the Scopes Trial

The founders said our rights come from the Creator. It is He who has endowed us with our rights. Therefore, they stand secure. But what if there were no Creator? What then?

Some in our society seem to think that the Creator has somehow been disproved by science, that evolution is a proven fact, that the Scopes Monkey Trial 100 years ago this month helped settle the matter. Case closed.

I know Anne Coulter is now persona no grata here on FR, for cause, but I remember reading her really good book “GODLESS” which in part addresses the Scopes trial.

I asked MS CoPilot to provide a synopsis of her account in the book and to compare it to current history. I DID edit CoPilot’s work to make it more readable.

Anne Coulter’s critique of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” appears in her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism (2006), where she argues that the trial has been mythologized to promote a false narrative about science versus religion. Here’s a synopsis of her main points:

Coulter’s Argument in Godless

• The Trial Was Staged: Coulter claims the Scopes trial was a publicity stunt orchestrated by the ACLU and local leaders in Dayton, Tennessee, to challenge the Butler Act and attract attention to the town.

• Scopes Never Taught Evolution: She asserts that John Scopes wasn’t a biology teacher (Scopes agreed) and had never actually taught evolution, making the case legally dubious from the start.

• Misrepresentation of Bryan: Coulter argues that William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor, was unfairly portrayed as anti-science and ignorant. She contends he was actually nuanced in his views and supported teaching evolution alongside creationism.

• Media Bias and Mythmaking: She criticizes journalists like H.L. Mencken for mocking religious beliefs and shaping public perception with condescending and inaccurate reporting.

• Hollywood Distortion: Coulter takes aim at Inherit the Wind, the 1960 film based loosely on the trial, calling it a “fraudulent” retelling that caricatured Bryan and misrepresented the facts to push a secularist agenda. Yeah Inherit the Wind made a decent movie but went far afield from what actually occurred there and then.

Her Broader Thesis

Coulter uses the Scopes trial to argue that liberalism functions like a religion, with evolution as one of its dogmas. She suggests that the trial has been used to vilify religious Americans and falsely elevate Darwinism as unquestionable truth (which I agree it has, even though Darwin himself KNEW and acknowledged it was a theory with big holes in it.)

Ann Coulter’s claims about the Scopes “Monkey” Trial often diverge sharply from common ‘historical’ or media accounts. (imagine that!)

Historical Reality of the Scopes Trial

• Purposefully staged: The trial was orchestrated by Dayton, Tennessee locals — not by the ACLU or liberal media — to challenge the Butler Act and bring publicity to the town. (truth)
• Scopes’ role: John Scopes wasn’t a martyr for science. He wasn’t even sure he taught evolution, but agreed to be the defendant to test the law. (truth)

• Bryan’s motivations: William Jennings Bryan wasn’t anti-science per se. He actually opposed Darwinism largely because of its association with eugenics and social Darwinism, which he saw as morally corrosive.

• Trial outcome: Scopes did not plead guilty, rather, he was found guilty and fined $100, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. After an eleven-day trial in July 1925, the jury deliberated for just a few minutes before returning a guilty verdict. Judge John Raulston then imposed a $100 fine, which became a legal sticking point: under Tennessee law at the time, fines over $50 had to be set by the jury, not the judge. That technical error led the Tennessee Supreme Court to overturn the conviction in 1927.
So while Scopes cooperated (truth) with the prosecution and defense to create a test case, he did not plead guilty — the trial proceeded to a full verdict.

The law itself remained in place until 1967.

• Media portrayal: H.L. Mencken’s coverage was famously biased and mocking, painting Bryan and the town as backward. This helped cement a caricatured version of the trial in public memory. (truth)

“Inherit the Wind” vs. Reality

• The 1955 play and 1960 film Inherit the Wind dramatized the trial as a battle between enlightened science and oppressive religion. While powerful, it’s not historically accurate — Bryan didn’t die in court, Scopes wasn’t jailed, and the courtroom exchanges were heavily fictionalized. No way?!?!

Coulter’s Narrative

Coulter often argues that the trial was a liberal propaganda stunt and that Bryan was unfairly vilified. While it’s true that Bryan’s portrayal was exaggerated, historical records show he willingly participated and was outmatched by Darrow’s courtroom tactics. Her framing tends to ignore the nuanced motivations of both sides and the broader cultural context — including the role of eugenics in the biology textbook Scopes used.

If you’re comparing Coulter’s version to the actual transcripts, it’s like watching a courtroom drama and assuming it’s a documentary.

Thus the broader idea of Intelligent Design.

While LOADS of within-the-same-genome adaptation and “evolution” do frequently and demonstrably occur, REAL science has stumbled trying to find examples of capital E Evolution, or the arise of new species from prior ones.

Speciation can be described as the evolutionary (yeah, using the word in the definition is a no no) process by which new and distinct species arise. It occurs when populations of a single species become reproductively isolated, meaning they can no longer interbreed and produce fertile offspring with the ‘ones that came before’ because they are genetically now an incommpatible mismatch (meaning a new species).

The classic defintion of a species is a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring in nature, and are reproductively isolated from other such groups. (yeah it’s like we’re going in circles a bit here) Meaning all guppies can breed with all guppies (and there are HUNDREDS of guppy variations) BUT guppies cannot breed with Angel fish. Different species.

Same as Chimpanzees cannot breed with humans and produce fertile offspring. Different species.

I like this topic, but will not engage in FR flame wars.

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