Debunking the Scopes 'Monkey Trial' Stereotype
By Edward Sisson
Whenever a challenge to the truth of Darwinian evolution arises, the
scientific establishment and its allies trot out the Scopes Money Trial. It is
their position that if the scientific establishment has ratified a science
textbook, such as the book from which Scopes taught evolution, the state should
not engage in "censoring" the material in that book.
The Scopes Monkey Trial plays such a prominent role in the debate that I
purchased a copy of the transcript; a copy of the textbook from which Scopes
taught, A Civic Biology; and a copy of the companion lab guide to that
textbook. Review of these source materials-very different from the biased
picture presented in Inherit the Wind-was a real eye-opener.
In the Scopes trial, there was never any judgment or verdict that Darwinian
evolution is true. The prosecution argued and the judge agreed that the
Tennessee statute in question barred the teaching of the Darwinian theory even
if it were true, so its truth was not an issue in the case. Nor, notably, was
the truth of the theory of Darwinian evolution and the supposed evidence for it
ever subjected to cross-examination. Scopes' lawyers presented extensive
written statements from seven scientists stating that Darwinian evolution is
the correct explanation for the diversity of life on earth. The prosecution
sought permission to cross-examine the five pro-Darwinian science experts whose
statements had been read in open court, but Clarence Darrow and the other
Scopes lawyers objected and the court refused to allow it.
Nor, ironically, given the popular understanding of the case as a disproof
of Christian fundamentalism, was fundamentalism technically an issue in the
case. The Tennessee statute did not mandate the teaching of fundamentalism. The
statute merely barred the teaching of Darwinian evolution.
But Darrow and the defense team wished to make fundamentalism the issue, and
they succeeded. Prosecution lawyer William Jennings Bryan agreed to be
questioned by Darrow on his personal interpretation of the Bible (the famous
examination shown in a false light in Inherit the Wind) only if Darrow agreed
to be questioned on the evidence for evolution-and the judge agreed that Bryan
could question Darrow after Darrow questioned Bryan. The bargain by Bryan,
submitting to examination so that he could examine Darrow, was a last-ditch
attempt to place some criticism of Darwinian evolution into the Scopes trial
record to counteract the one-sided, unchallenged presentation of the pro-Darwin
side.
But Darrow, after his famous examination of Bryan, surprised Bryan by
announcing that he had no defense to present, and asking the judge to instruct
the jury to find Scopes guilty. In substance, Darrow was changing Scopes'
plea to guilty, but by using the technical approach of a request for a
"directed verdict" against his own client, Darrow avoided a waiver of Scopes'
right to appeal. Scopes' effective switch to a plea of guilty closed the
evidence and made it impossible for Bryan to call Darrow to the stand to
question him on evolution.
Darrow's claim that he had no factual defense to present was patently
false. In fact, John Scopes never actually taught evolution; he was sick
on the class day evolution was scheduled, so he never delivered the lecture.
His failure to actually teach evolution was an excellent defense: in fact
Scopes was innocent, and a lawyer who was actually representing Scopes'
interests - rather than the ACLU's interest - would have featured that fact
prominently. (But the prosecution deserves blame as well; surely the
prosecutors, too, knew that Scopes never delivered the lecture.)
Moreover, Darrow could easily have abandoned his defense before his
examination of Bryan; the fact that Darrow requested the guilty verdict only
after he conducted his examination of Bryan indicates that his intention all
along was to use Bryan to challenge Christian fundamentalism and then to escape
any challenge to the theory of Darwinian evolution.
The result was that in the Scopes Monkey Trial, scientists presented their
case for Darwinian evolution without any challenge in the trial to the merits
of whether the data they offered really showed that the Darwinian theory was
true. Nor was there any review of the scientists' arguments in the appeal.
Darrow won the appeal on a technicality - the trial court broke a technical
rule in assessing the fine.
There is, however, this priceless comment in the appellate concurring
opinion of Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Chambliss. He noted that
Scopes' lawyers prominently featured this statement from Prof. Reinke of
Vanderbilt University:
"The theory of evolution is altogether essential to the teaching of biology
…. To deny the teacher of biology the use of [evolution] would make his
teaching as chaotic as an attempt to teach … physics without assuming the
existence of the ether."
Well. There is no physics course taught in any high school today that
"assum[es] the existence of the ether." The concept was abandoned decades
ago. In fact, the progress of physics accelerated with the abandonment of
the "ether" concept. The progress of biology might also accelerate with the
abandonment of Darwinian evolution.
Darwinian evolution's escape from proper cross-examination is long-standing.
Cambridge University Astrophysics Prof. Sir Fred Hoyle, in his book critical of
Darwinism, The Mathematics of Evolution, wrote that the scientific challenges
to Darwinian evolution have "never had a fair hearing" because "the developing
system of popular education [from Darwin's day to the present] provided an
ideal opportunity for zealots who were sure of themselves to overcome those who
were not, for awkward arguments not to be discussed, and for discrepant facts
to be suppressed."
Examination of Scopes's text book, A Civic Biology, demonstrates another
important lesson about whether the scientific establishment should receive the
great deference it demands from our school boards concerning what should be
taught in our schools. A Civic Biology and its companion lab book both contain
sections on eugenics-introduced by the statement that "[t]he science of being
well born is called eugenics." The scientific establishment of the time fully
supported this "science" of eugenics. This endorsement by the scientific
establishment meant that eugenics was taught in our schools.
Here is what the scientific establishment of that time caused schoolchildren
to learn. The Scopes textbook, Hunter's A Civic Biology, divided humanity into
five races and ranked them in terms of superiority, concluding with "the
highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white
inhabitants of Europe and America." A Civic Biology asserted that crime and
immorality are inherited and run in families, and that "these families have
become parasitic on society. . . . If such people were lower animals, we would
probably kill them off. . . . [W]e do have the remedy of separating the sexes
in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the
possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race." The lab book, at
Problem 160, asks students to use inheritance charts "[t]o determine some means
of bettering, physically and mentally, the human race," and a "Note to
teachers" says that "[t]he child is at the receptive age and is emotionally
open to the serious lessons here involved."
Of course, the scientific establishment of today would denounce all of this.
Thus the very text book from which Scopes taught-the very book that the
scientific establishment of today proclaims Scopes ought to have been able to
use in 1925 without any interference by the state-includes material that today
the scientific establishment rejects. Eugenics, like the "ether," once thought
so essential, has vanished from the curriculum - has "vanished into the ether,"
one is tempted to say. Yet science continues ever healthier despite the loss of
these theories. And science would remain healthy if Darwinian evolution, too,
"vanished into the ether."
Thus the important question is whether the rest of the world should wait for
the science establishment to catch up before deciding to reject paradigms that
have hung on in our textbooks for years, despite manifold and
rapidly-accumulating flaws.
If we cast ourselves back to 1925 and ask ourselves whether it would have
been proper for the State of Tennessee then to have adopted a law that
permitted the teaching of eugenics as the scientific establishment demanded,
but that required that challenges to the theory also be taught-would not
everyone today applaud the foresight of the state in enacting such a law? Would
we not all agree that if such a "science" of eugenics had to be taught in our
schools because of the insistence of the scientific establishment, that it
would be appropriate also to teach the flaws in that "science"?
The hypothetical example of a state law mandating that doubts about the
"science" of eugenics be taught demonstrates that it is appropriate for the
people who determine our school curricula not to be slavishly bound to adhere
to whatever the scientific establishment espouses at any given time. Instead,
the population at large-who are free from the institutional incentives and
biases that can and do affect the judgment of members of the scientific
establishment-are entirely within their rights to doubt a theory before the
scientific establishment might similarly doubt that theory. This kind of
approach is well-accepted in other fields where the government significantly
affects the lives of the people: for example, while we listen respectfully to
military officers who state the need for more weapons, we reserve to the
people's chosen representatives the final decision.
Where tens of millions of dollars of funding, and the education of tens of
millions of children, are at stake, the recipients of the funds and the
purveyors of the education deserve respect but should not hold the final say
over their own funding and their own jobs. They are not as free from
self-interested bias as they flatter themselves they are. Too often, to us the
parents, the science establishment's claim to be motivated only by the
well-being of our children appears tainted by a self-interested desire that our
children flatter their teachers' egos by believing everything their teachers
believe. Indeed, Darwinians, who claim that all of life is motivated by an
irresistible drive for survival, which necessarily means a drive for power, are
poorly positioned to claim a special exemption from the very force they say
rules life. To the contrary, we are justified in considering that they may be
particularly susceptible to the operation of the very theory they advocate so
vehemently. In a democracy, the final decisions in these matters must rest with
the people who provide the funding and who are the parents who give birth to,
raise, and support the children who are in the government's schools. School
boards ought to give serious consideration to encouraging the development of
suitable curriculum materials by which to present to students the data and
analysis that show the weaknesses in the Darwinian theory - weaknesses that are
sufficiently significant that this teaching may even cause students to doubt
that the Darwinian explanation is true.
Edward Sisson - Biographical note for evolution/intelligent design
Edward Sisson earned a Bachelor of Science from MIT (major in architecture)
in 1977, and graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in
1991. In 2004 he contributed an essay to the book "Uncommon Dissent:
Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing." In 2005 he participated on the
side of the "Darwin doubters" in the Kansas "evolution hearings," spoke at the
"Uncommon Dissent" conference in Greenville, South Carolina, and appeared at
Boston University's "Great Debate" on the intelligent design controversy.
As legal counsel he represented Prof. Caroline Crocker to defend her right to
teach college science students some of the flaws in Darwinism. In 2006 he
became Executive Director (unpaid) of a new nonprofit, the Iowa Institute,
whose aim is to carry-out scientific experiments relevant to the scientific
theory of intelligent design.