In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called “Monkey Trial” begins with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.
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The law, which had been passed in March, made 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 with this violation, and after his arrest the pair enlisted the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to organize a defense. Hearing of this coordinated attack on Christian fundamentalism, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate and a fundamentalist hero, volunteered to assist the prosecution. Soon after, the great attorney Clarence Darrow agreed to join the ACLU in the defense, and the stage was set for one of the most famous trials in U.S. history.
On July 10, the Monkey Trial got underway, and within a few days hordes of spectators and reporters had descended on Dayton as preachers set up revival tents along the city’s main street to keep the faithful stirred up. Inside the Rhea County Courthouse, the defense suffered early setbacks when Judge John Raulston ruled against their attempt to prove the law unconstitutional and then refused to end his practice of opening each day’s proceeding with prayer.
Outside, Dayton took on a carnival-like atmosphere as an exhibit featuring two chimpanzees and a supposed “missing link” opened in town, and vendors sold Bibles, toy monkeys, hot dogs, and lemonade. The missing link was in fact Jo Viens of Burlington, Vermont, a 51-year-old man who was of short stature and possessed a receding forehead and a protruding jaw. One of the chimpanzees–named Joe Mendi–wore a plaid suit, a brown fedora, and white spats, and entertained Dayton’s citizens by monkeying around on the courthouse lawn.
In the courtroom, Judge Raulston destroyed the defense’s strategy by ruling that expert scientific testimony on evolution was inadmissible–on the grounds that it was Scopes who was on trial, not the law he had violated. The next day, Raulston ordered the trial moved to the courthouse lawn, fearing that the weight of the crowd inside was in danger of collapsing the floor.
In front of several thousand spectators in the open air, Darrow changed his tactics and as his sole witness called Bryan in an attempt to discredit his literal interpretation of the Bible. In a searching examination, Bryan was subjected to severe ridicule and forced to make ignorant and contradictory statements to the amusement of the crowd. On July 21, in his closing speech, Darrow asked the jury to return a verdict of guilty in order that the case might be appealed. Under Tennessee law, Bryan was thereby denied the opportunity to deliver the closing speech he had been preparing for weeks. After eight minutes of deliberation, the jury returned with a guilty verdict, and Raulston ordered Scopes to pay a fine of $100, the minimum the law allowed. Although Bryan had won the case, he had been publicly humiliated and his fundamentalist beliefs had been disgraced. Five days later, on July 26, he lay down for a Sunday afternoon nap and never woke up.
In 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the Monkey Trial verdict on a technicality but left the constitutional issues unresolved until 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a similar Arkansas law on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment.
I can’t remember a lot about it. Is that where they tried the first Negro for robbing a convenience store? So they called it the Monkey Trial?
Dutch,
You have remembered correctly…and that there.
This silly debate is still going on almost 100 years later. If you look at some of the latest videos and CGI animations on the flagellar motor, you can see that it is actually an incredibly complex device. And there is still no clear evolutionary path for how this device came to be. When you really examine its operation, it is definitely a piece of technology. An obviously ancient piece of technology. These motors are more efficient than any motor we’re ever invented! Our bodies are riddled with literally trillions of pieces of very advanced technologies. But none of them directly contradict or prove a theory of a divine influence.
Then there’s the Bombardier beetle as well.
Stephen J. Gould wrote a very nice essay regarding flagella in one of his many books on evolutionary biology. Sadly I cannot recall which book.
And now the table has turned. It’s illegal to teach creation science in the public school. From this we can see the true agenda of those who would bring the global gov’t that man without God will force upon the world. It is for this purpose that the globalists needed to make people believe that man is just a more evolved animal.
And even with the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, because of man’s appetites for the satisfying of the flesh, he continues on the track that will bring him to the brink of his own demise. And that’s why, “and then the end shall come”.
Maranatha
Blessings:-}
Whenever I hear “monkey trial” I envision little monkey lawyers. lol [img
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As usual , Mr. Mathis digs into the shadowy background of the major players.
http://mileswmathis.com/monkey.pdf
Just another reason why government is the greatest evil on the planet and we would ALL be better off without any. By what right does ANYONE have the right to rule over anyone else? By what right to they claim to be in a position to tell someone where their money will be spent, what they can put into their body, what they can read, what they can speak, what they can teach their children, what they can do on their own property, what they can do in their own business (so long as nobody or nobody’s property is being harmed directly)? Seriously, how did our species get so gullible as to put this kind of power into the hands of ANYONE for ANY reason?
A modern “creation science” advocate, also from Tennessee, has put together an interesting collection of scientific observations which challenge the textbook theories. Fun reading, even if you don’t agree with his conclusions:
http://evolution-facts.org/Handbook%20TOC.htm