Free Republic

early 80 years ago in Dayton, Tenn., an epic trial pitted the literal truth of the Bible against modern science. And when the Scopes monkey trial concluded, the presiding judge closed the proceedings as he'd opened them each day - with a prayer. In his wonderful book, "Summer for the Gods," Edward J. Larson paints a picture of America in the mid-1920's that's oddly familiar: torn between modernism and religious fundamentalism, Americans felt an old-time burning need for a burning bush. Horrified by the moral and cultural declines of the Jazz Age, they turned away from internationalism and intellectualism. Welcome...

I think we should let the evolutionists have their way. They oppose any mention of creation in government schools, even rejecting the notion of Intelligent Design. They see the Scopes Trial of 1925 as the turning point for the upsurge in evolutionary legitimacy. While John Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution contrary to state law and had to pay a $100 fine, public opinion and educational monopoly turned toward evolution.1 One way to beat an opposing worldview is to force its proponents to live consistently with the position. Since Scopes was accused of teaching from the state-adopted textbook A Civic...

Since we have recently had the Dover trial, perhaps some on both sides will appreciate some great photos of the first "Monkey Trial", including some of the primary actors.

1925 Monkey Trial ends In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" ends with John Thomas Scopes being convicted of teaching evolution in violation of Tennessee law. Scopes was ordered to pay a fine of $100, the minimum the law allowed.In March 1925, the Tennessee legislature had passed the anti-evolution law, making it a misdemeanor punishable by fine to "teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." With local businessman George Rappalyea, Scopes had conspired to get charged...

The Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 pitted EVOLUTION against CREATION. Clarence Darrow defended EVOLUTION. Darrow had previously defended Leopold and Loeb, the homosexual teenage thrill killers who murdered 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks in 1924 just for the excitement. Darrow obtained a pardon for antifa-type anarchists in 1886 who blew up a pipe bomb in Chicago's Haymarket Square which killed 7 policemen and injured 60 others. The Haymarket Statue dedicated to the fallen policemen was blown up by Bill Ayers and the anarchist group Weather Underground on October 6, 1969, prior to the "Days of Rage" protests, then blown up again...

The Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 pitted EVOLUTION against CREATION. Clarence Darrow was the attorney who defended EVOLUTION. Darrow had previously defended Leopold and Loeb, the teenage homosexual thrill killers who murdered 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks in 1924 just for the excitement. Darrow obtained a pardon for antifa-type anarchists in 1886 who blew up a pipe bomb in Chicago's Haymarket, Square, killing 7 policemen and injured 60 others. A Haymarket Statue was dedicated to the fallen policemen. The policemen's Haymarket Statue was blown up by the socialist anarchist group Weather Underground on October 6, 1969, prior to the "Days of...

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Since 2002, Dr. Kenneth Miller has been upset that biology textbooks he has written are slapped with a warning sticker by the time they appear in suburban Atlanta schools. Evolution, the stickers say, is "a theory, not a fact."

In their series, "10 Days That Changed America", the History Channel will focus on the Scopes trial. As they put it, "The sensational courtroom battle between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow over the teaching of evolution in a small Tennessee town underscored a deep schism within the American psyche -- religion versus science, church versus state, elitism versus populism."

Red in Tooth & ClawRacism, Eugenics & Other Bad Ideas from the Intellectual Descendants of DarwinOn July 21, 1925, John Scopes was found guilty of teaching Darwinian evolution in a state-funded high school in Dayton, Tennessee. He was fined $100. Scopes had ostensibly lost his battle with the state. But the side he represented was winning the greater war. I don’t say that because Scopes’s verdict was later overturned on a technicality. My contention is that the ideology he helped unleash on the public has been the source of more human oppression, suffering, and death than anyone in that Dayton...

Over the past year, my husband and I have watched both film versions of 'Inherit the Wind'. I would like to read a good book about the Scopes trial, free of the dramatization and fictionalization. Can anyone suggest what they think is the best book? Thanks.

Abuse Excuse on Steroids with Fish and Chips By Norma Zager “Why did they kill little Bobby Franks? Not for money, not for spite, not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for their blood.” Clarence Darrow at the Leopold and Loeb trial. Well thank you Clarence Darrow....

Neanderthals At It Again H.L. Mencken’s final report from the famous Scopes trial in Dayton Tennessee comes roaring down to us after 80 years as sharply edged as ever: "Let no one mistake [the trial] for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details.  It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience.  Tennessee, challenging him too timorously and too late, now sees its courts converted into camp meetings and its Bill of Rights made a mock...

<p>Last week, the powers-that-be installed a new stoplight in Highlands, NC. It’s on Carolina Way at the intersection with US 64, just east of Main Street. That makes four stoplights we have now. And it raises the question of why the 99.44% of my readers who live in a town larger than 1,000 people should care in the least bit about this major civic improvement.</p>