Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

Larson starts by describing the discovery of the Piltdown skull by Charles Dawson. Working alongside paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward, the skull he recovered and pieced together appeared to be a new species of hominid. It was proclaimed as one of the missing links between man and ape. This was one of an increasing number of scientific developments in the early part of the 20th century that supported Darwinian evolution.

However, the author points out that the concept of evolution is not new to the time period. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed a theory of biological evolution that stated that vital forces within living creatures propelled their development and increased their complexity from generation to generation. In addition to this force, evolution was also driven by the adaptation to environmental conditions through the use or disuse of characteristics. Lamarck applied this theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics to the giraffe’s neck: He postulated that as vegetation became scarcer closer to the ground, ancestors of the modern giraffe had to stretch their necks to reach higher on trees for sustenance. The generation that followed inherited the longer necks and stretched them more, and so on and so forth until a new species of long-neck giraffes developed.

Lamarck’s rival, Georges Cuvier, theorized that great global catastrophes wiped out most living things, and the earth would be repopulated by the survivors. This process, Cuvier believed, accounted for the sudden breaks in fossil record and his conviction that living things were too intricate to evolve. Both secular and Christian scientists accepted that the earth had “a long geologic history and the progressive appearance of new life forms” (15). Christian scientists reconciled the difference between the Genesis account of creation and the geological opinion of the day by interpreting that the days of creation represented geologic ages.

Darwin’s theory of evolution, however, included a concept that natural selection was driven by the survival of the fittest. It was this element of Darwinism that proved unacceptable to Christians—natural selection meant “the God of a Darwinian world acted randomly and cruelly” (17). This theory quickly created societal divisions and faced an array of technical challenges. As a result, alternate theories of evolution were discussed, such as Asa Gray’s theory that God “channeled variations into a pattern of progressive development” (18). Other theories drew from Lamarckism to account for the accelerated pace and directed variation for which Darwinism could not explain. These neo-Lamarckian theories left a role for a Creator.

According to Larson, secular scholars perpetuated the hostility between science and religion during the early 20th century. In this environment, the anti-evolution crusade became more prominent, as more fundamentalists became exposed to Darwinian concepts. While evolutionary theory had been included in school textbooks during the latter part of the 19th century, most of what they contained had a Lamarckian bent to it. In the 1920s, textbooks became decidedly more Darwinian to reflect the prevailing scientific opinion. Biology replaced botany and zoology in the public secondary education curricula, as high school attendance skyrocketed with the new mandatory school attendance laws and the increased number of public high schools. There was also an accumulation in fossil discoveries supporting human evolution during this time.

While there were some, like Bryan, who did not object to the general theory of evolution, most fundamentalists rejected all forms of evolution as contrary to Genesis. Survival of the fittest was used to justify various social doctrines, such as laissez-faire capitalism, imperialism, and eugenics. Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton first proposed this new “science,” which led more than half of the states to pass laws to “compel the sexual segregation and sterilization of certain persons viewed as eugenically unfit, particularly the mentally ill and retarded, habitual criminals, and epileptics” (27). Fundamentalists linked this ruthless program with the teaching of evolutionary theory and decried the societal and moral consequences of such a doctrine.

The new fossil discoveries greatly inflamed antievolutionists, who found their claims to be circumstantial at best, and fraudulent at worst. According to Bryan, if evolutionists were to “find a stray tooth in a gravel pit, they hold a conclave and fashion a creature such as they suppose the possessor of the tooth to have been, and then they shout derisively at Moses” (32). Such was the increasingly combative tone among conservative Christians as new evidence for human evolution continued to accumulate.

Larson explains the solidification of the fundamentalist movement during this time. It comprised the four “strands” of Christian theology of the 19th century—dispensational premillennialists, conservative theologians, the holiness movement, and Pentecostalism—and it began as a response to the theological changes within the Protestant Church. Fundamentalists blamed the scourge of modernism for what was wrong in mainline Protestantism and, by extension, American culture. Modernists believed that “the precise historical and scientific accuracy of scripture did not matter” (34), as “Judeo-Christian ethical teachings and individual religious sentiment could still be ‘true’ in a realm beyond the ‘facts’ of history and science” (34). World War I deepened the chasm between fundamentalists and modernists and helped solidify the fundamentalist movement. Fundamentalists convened the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association (WCFA) in 1919 to denounce modernism and to call for a return to biblical fundamentals to combat the cultural crisis that conservative Christians believed was upon them.

According to Larson, William Jennings Bryan turned the fundamentalist movement into “a popular crusade against teaching evolution” (37). Bryan had already been in the political arena for 35 years, beginning as a Congressman in 1890. Bryan was charismatic, enthusiastic, and well spoken. He was known as the Great Commoner and won three presidential nominations. Bryan was Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson but resigned over differences regarding foreign policy. After his exit from government, Bryan remained active in politics, helping to ratify four amendments: federal income tax, popular election of senators, prohibition, and women’s suffrage. In the last few years of his life, he set his sights on the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Bryan did not object to the overall concept of evolution; rather, he objected to Darwin’s theory of natural selection. He believed that this theory eliminated God’s presence and guidance in daily life. His antievolution campaign lacked a clear mission until he heard of Kentucky’s Baptist State Board of Missions’ resolution calling for legislation against teaching evolution in public schools. Bryan adopted the cause as his political objective and began advocating for antievolution legislation. He argued that since taxpayers fund public schools, public school teachers should be teaching what parents want their children to be learning. He was not advocating for religious education in public schools, but rather, he believed that human evolution should not be taught as a proven fact.

Kentucky’s bill, as well as those from several other states, did not pass. However, Florida passed a resolution that Bryan recommended, one for which he suggested the language, and one that he later said best reflected his own views. Without any major legislative victories in 1923, antievolutionists set their sights on Tennessee. The Butler bill, proposed by John W. Butler in the Tennessee House of Representatives, made it a misdemeanor crime with a penalty provision (which Bryan opposed) to teach human evolution in public schools. The House quickly passed the bill with little fanfare and media attention. However, when the bill went before the Senate, it was far more contentious, widely publicized, and hotly debated. Even so, it was voted through and passed on to Governor Peay to sign into law. This set the stage for the Scopes trial.

On the other side of the evolution debate stood the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU. The ACLU was originally known as the National Civil Liberties Bureau when it formed in 1917 to defend conscientious objectors and antiwar protestors. It grew out of an organization known as the American Union Against Militarism. The bureau’s experience during World War I forced members to reevaluate their views towards democratic government, as they found that majority rule did not necessarily mean liberty. Individual rights continued to suffer after the war, under the auspices of nationalistic policy. The Red Scare and labor unrest spread across the country. It was during this time that the National Civil Liberties Bureau changed its name to the American Civil Liberties Union and its focus from protecting pacifists to defending labor unions though the use of the First and Fourteenth amendments.

According to Larson, the ACLU struggled to litigate violations of civil liberties in court for two reasons. The first reason was that while the First Amendment provided for freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and religion, it protected against restrictions that were imposed only by the federal government. State and local authorities imposed the restrictions against labor unions. However, the ACLU argued that the Fourteenth Amendment prevented the states from actions that deprived people of life, liberty, and property without due process. Justice John M. Harlan interpreted “liberty” to cover the freedoms discussed in the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. The second reason was that the predominant judicial interpretation of the First and Fourteenth amendments, “a freedom that the majority could freely override for the general good” (66), meant that the ACLU would have fewer prospects going through the court system. The ACLU embraced other ways to advance its causes, such as test cases in courts, demonstrations, and publicity—methods that are evident in how they approached the Scopes trial. They were still seeking their first court victory at the time of the trial.

Arthur Garfield Hays, the most influential attorney on the ACLU executive committee, believed in “the direct action approach to the fight for civil liberties” (68), and as such, he was involved in many of the ACLU’s most renowned confrontations in the early part of the 20th century. This put him in direct contact with Clarence Darrow, “the nation’s premier legal defender of radical labor leaders” (69). After a brief foray into politics, he took up the cause of labor, which led him to shift his practice into criminal law. Many of his cases were highly publicized and involved political radicals or wealthy murderers. Darrow was an atheist and “delighted in challenging traditional concepts of morality and religion” (71). He spent much of his career deriding Christianity and saw the Scopes trial as a chance both for publicity and to debunk traditional Christian beliefs and notions. It was the only time in his career that he would offer free legal services. Darrow used science as a means to an end, picking whatever scientific evidence would best support his position or claims. As such, free speech and Scopes were not a priority for Darrow.

Academic freedom had been a concern for the ACLU from the very beginnings of the Union, as it sought to protect against classroom restrictions of unpopular ideas, such as pacifism and the international labor movement. The ACLU was repeatedly in court over the issue. At the time of the Scopes trial, there was a “de facto establishment of Christianity” (75) within the American public school system. There were an increasing number of liberally educated Americans who believed that public education should be free of religious and political influences. The initiative to separate education from outside influences began in higher education and led to the creation of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). This push for academic freedom eventually spread to secondary education, where the ACLU took a leadership role.

In 1924, the ACLU issued its first public statement on academic freedom, in which it offered to defend “the right of public school teachers to free speech both inside and outside the classroom” (81). They explicitly named antievolution laws as a priority. Thus, when an ACLU secretary found a news article about the proposed Tennessee law criminalizing the teaching of evolution, the ACLU issued a press release in the Chattanooga Times offering to challenge this new law. It sought a Tennessee teacher who was willing to accept ACLU services to be “a friendly test case” (83) to challenge the statute in court.