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Scopes Trial

             About a year ago I had a very interesting conversation. I was volunteering at the White Plains Hospital at the time and was talking to my Supervisor, Carol. I was taking inventory and filling out some paperwork and we started talking. She started explaining how she thought that evolution was no longer taught in school and how creation was now the accepted model in science. Mind you this was only one year ago and from my experiences and my knowledge the opposite was true. What really shocked me was that she was teaching sixth grade science. Was a new generation of students following the opinions of woman over what was accepted in society? The separation of church and state was being attacked at the lowest level with most impressionable minds. I was deeply troubled by this but I could not figure it out until the topic of the Scopes trial came up in my American History class. I finally realized what I had just experiences was the scopes trial in reverse. I felt offended that someone was putting their personal view over mine, offended that I could have been taught someone's personal opinion over actual fact. I was offended that this teacher was going against society in what she was teaching. Most of all I was offended that I was acting the same way religious people were in the early 1900's.
             A wide array of forces combined to cause the trial of the century. In March of 1925 the state of Tennessee passed a law preventing theories that went against the accepted view of human creation portrayed in Genesis. While it is a popular belief to make John Scopes into a hero by saying he stood up to unjust laws, that would be a gross oversimplification. As with most things in this life, the trial had its origins in monetary gain. The recently created ACLU (American Civil Liberty Union) placed ads in the newspapers saying that it would provide legal support to any teacher that would stand up against the Butler laws.


Essays Related to Scopes Trial

1. John scopes

... Their Stage Drew All the World, "This controversy, whose stage was the battle over the nature of the Bible, produced a whole cycle of dramatic confrontations, of which the Scopes trial was but one". The Scopes trial was not distinct, therefore, so much for its theme as it was for its presentation. Other school districts and other towns, struggling with this very issue, missed the ... of the people, would have to be replaced by a more centralized administration run by experts, technocrats, and other intellectuals. This belief was directly opposed to what many Christians of the Scopes Tri...

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2. Scopes Trial

... teaching evolution. William Jennings Bryan was the personification of a fundamentalist, he behavior and motives were strictly against anything regarding the theory of evolution. George Rappalyea was a shady character during the Scopes trial. He publicly said to city officials that the trail should take place in Dayton to put the town on the map. Also, Rappalyea showed people a newspaper article that said the ... that Darrow wanted to "find the truth within the truth," meaning that the real truth is imperishable and needs no human agency to support it. When he argued that Scopes wasn't o...

  • Word Count: 757
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Scopes Trial was an Injustice to the American Legal System

... and Richard Owen continued on to have many debates over man's decent from an ape-like ancestor. A debate that still continues with no conclusion in sight. The Scopes trial pitted the traditionalists, versus the modernists. John Scopes, a twenty-four year old substitute teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, assigned his students to read part of the book,"Hunters Civic Biology." The readings he assigned had ... the teachings of evolution. In February of that year, John Butler introduced Tennessee's anti-evolution statute. The traditionalist movement was making itself known to the country. The ori...

  • Word Count: 1918
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Grade Level: High School

4. The Scopes Monkey Trial

... the idea favoring the bible, but modernists were outraged. This would soon lead to an epic battle of the court rooms known none other than the Scopes monkey trial. In the little town of Dayton, Tennessee a group of men decided to go against the law that disallowed evolution to be taught, even though ... fierce battle between religion and science was set and soon to kick off. It was July 10, 1925 and it was the first day of the Scopes monkey trial. The town of Dayton had a carnival like atmosphere. There were banners and lemonade stands set up, even a dressed up chimp named Joe. The cour...

  • Word Count: 1241
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

5. The Scopes Trial

... evolution, which continues even today. Although the battle between creationism and evolution still goes on today it is with the tables turned. In the 1920's when the Scopes trial took place John Scopes was put on trial for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. This central point clearly shows the ideology that, up to that point in time, had been predominant in American society, this ... in order to allow their pupils to have all the information and make their own decision as to what they believe to be the "truth". In the 1920's with the Scopes trial academic freedom would state that ev...

  • Word Count: 1289
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

6. The Monkey Man HImself: John Scopes and his effects on the w

... quote the Bible up and down. Bryan felt that religion was the very thing that held America together. Bryan had been speaking out against the evolution for sometime before the Scopes Trial. Bryan once said "Permits are to believe in God, but puts the creative act so far away that reverence for creator is likely to be lost" (Kingstone 28). Bryan helped ... the majority of the case but was still asked to make a decision. It was decided quickly that Scopes was guilty. John was finned 100 dollars. He later got of in appeal court because the jury should have decided that fine not the judge. T...

  • Word Count: 1778
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

7. The Scopes Trial

... teacher who challenged the law, and this is how the Scopes trial came about. The Scopes trial was known as one of the greatest trials of all time. The Scopes trial was known as the monkey trial. The Scopes trial was held July 10 to July 21 of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. The Scopes trial involved a high school teacher named John Thomas Scopes. He was being tried for teaching evolution in public ... about was the Bible view of how humans originated, and this was by God. Clarence Darrow, Scopes lawyer, was all for teaching evolution in public schools. However, William Jennings Bryan, a famo...

  • Word Count: 273
  • Approx Pages: 1
  • Grade Level: High School

8. THE SCOPES "MONKEY" TRIAL

... evolved to a showdown between traditionalists and evolutionists, which showed the split in the public opinion. The Scopes "Monkey" Trial symbolizes the influences, but also the new existing fight between religion and tradition and evolution and progress. The trial Tennessee versus John Scopes caused enormous judicial changes in the 1920s. In attendance announcers ready to send to the listeners the first live-radio ... broadcast from a trial. The presence of the reporters shows the public interest, an interest, which demanded a new kind of ... the creation of mankind as stated in the Bib...

  • Word Count: 560
  • Approx Pages: 2

9. The Scopes Monkey Trial

In many ways the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee limited the quality of the public education. John Scopes was a general science teacher in Dayton. He was arrested for violating the Butler Act, which makes teaching evolution in public school ... was made by creationists, who believed that the world was created as described in the Bible. His court case would decide whether such a law was constitutional. Scopes taught the theories of Darwin, the originator of today's modern view of evolution. In a massive court battle, two prominent lawyers took each side of the ... He made it apparent that th...

  • Word Count: 477
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

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