What Was The Significance Of The Scopes Trial

Scopes's involvement in the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial came about after the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it would finance a test case challenging the constitutionality of the Butler Act if they could find a Tennessee teacher who was willing to act as a defendant. John Thomas Scopes was this defendant. The prosecutor for the trial pointed out that while the Butler Act prohibited

The last argument that made me not want to vote to convict John Scopes is the argument he made that religion has caused people to have different opinions. But some things should be between an individual , his maker or his God. Darrow says that the constitutional convention should leave the questions of religion between man and what he worships. Questions of religion shouldn’t be brought into the classrooms of

wildly and utterly impossible. " Pro-evolutionists started a worldwide boycott against the hearings. Many people believe that they are not related to monkeys and many claim that their old teachers were Christian and spoke out in class disagreeing with the science curriculum stating that human evolved from primates. The hearings confused the public and were “intended to mislead and were reflective of religious views, not science.” There were several differing opinions during the hearing and little agreement.

The Scopes “Monkey Trial” changed the way science and evolution are taught in America’s school systems today. The trial came about when John Scopes, an algebra and science teacher, taught evolution as a plausible theory while filling in for a biology teacher at Rhea County Central High School in Dayton, Tennessee. The action went against Tennessee’s “Butler Act,” which prohibited teachers in public schools 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 descended from a lower order of animals.” Scopes, along with others in the community, wanted to change the law so that students could be taught Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the matter was taken to court. The

July 1, 1925 John Thomas Scopes a substitute high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was accused of violating Tennessee's a Butler Act, a law in which makes it unlawful to teach human evolution and mandated that teachers teach creationism. John Thomas Scopes was put on trial and eventually found guilty. The Scopes trial remains a controversial and historical event to this day. The theory of human evolution was developed by biologist Charles Darwin.

Key point being the fact that America has no set religion therefore schools should not teach only evolution, or only creationism. Both should be taught, or neither should be taught. Schools cannot teach neither though because there is valuable knowledge in both. During the trial Scopes said “... violation of my ideal of academic freedom-that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution of personal and religious freedom”(“Scopes”). John Scopes had a very eye opening point; stating that he can believe whatever he wants to believe in because he has those rights granted by the Constitution.

The debate on the “Scopes Trial” was another conflicting issues happened during the 1920’s. The “Scopes Trial” occurred on John Scopes who was a high school teacher of Dayton, Tennessee. John Scopes was charged with illegally teaching the theory of evolution. When the trial took place in 1925, William Jennings Bryan was among those who were against Scopes and wanted to ban the teaching of evolution throughout the nation. William Jennings Bryan, who was a Fundamentalist of old-time religion, believed God was powerful and the Bible should be taken literally.

More than two hundred newspaper reporters from all over the world had come to the small town of Dayton to witness the historical event take place; for the first time in history, a trial would be broadcast over the radio. (Johnson) The judge of the trial was John T. Raulston, a conservative Christian who craved publicity. The jury consisted of twelve men, the majority of them being farmers and church-goers. Superintendent White led off the prosecution’s list of witnesses with his testimony that John Scopes had admitted to teaching about evolution from Hunter’s Civic Biology textbook.

In the article “Evolution as Fact and Theory” Stephen Jay Gould who is one of the leading theorists in evolution argues that the debate between evolutionists and creationists is pointless since creationists’ arguments lack support and evidence. Gould writes that creationists’ main argument is that evolution is only a theory. However, Gould states that it is not only a theory but also a fact. He suggests that humans evolved from apelike— whether or not is happened by Darwin’s mechanism. What Gould is saying is that there is more than enough evidence to support the theory of evolution and the question that scientists are trying to answer is how exactly all living organisms are linked.

Darwin noted that small different heritable traits in animals form from their chances of survival in natural selection. Darwin also believed in agenesis, the single transformation of a species and speciation, the isolated genetic changes in a species. The splitting and specializing phenomenon was another strong principle to Darwin's discovery of Evolution. The splitting and specializing phenomenon was the idea that two species could form from one species. The amount of shared characteristics between any species specifies how soon they have evolved from a shared lineage.

Members of the ACLU met with officials of the town of Dayton, Tennessee to arrange a “friendly indictment”, and recruited public high school football coach, and substitute science teacher, John T. Scopes to serve as the defendant (Numbers, p. 178). Local attorneys were hired for the prosecution, and a defence argument introduced that had little to do with the alleged “crime”. Though pleading guilty as charged, Scopes original head defence lawyer, Dudley Field Malone of New York, intended to prove that the theory of evolution did not interfere with the teachings of the Bible if some level of individual interpretation was permitted (Larson, p. 171). To garner support for future appeal, Scopes was portrayed to the press as an “all-American” man. This image was cultivated by

Darwin's theory of natural selection is the most scientifically supported form of evolution. This is supported by a variety of evidence

Seth Justus English 2 Mr. Johnson Project Eagle Paper on Charles Darwin Thesis Statement: Charles Darwin shaped evolutionary Biology into the way we see it today with his writings on how genetic variations of species between generations, how climate and many other things can cause variations between species, and just his idea of survival of the fittest in The Origin of Species. Primary Source: The Origin of Species The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, published on November 24th 1859 is considered to be the foundation to evolutionary biology. The Origin of Species introduces the scientific theory that populations of species evolve over long periods of time through the process of Natural Selection.

Evolution is a very controversial subject throughout the world, especially in the United States. Despite mounting evidence in favor of evolution, there are still people who deny the theory, for the most part on the basis of religious beliefs. However, there are many people who also believe that religion and evolution are compatible with each other. Even still, there are those who believe that evolution discounts the majority of religions in the world. Charles Darwin summarized the theory of evolution in his book On The Origin of Species, originally published on November, 24, 1859 which had six revisions.

Merely my reason being is that teaching evolution can be taught as what happened after life was on earth, not how life came to be on earth. Even if God put life on earth, the life he put did change and evolve. It should still be taught no matter what your beliefs are because it is science. There IS scientific backing that supports the theory of evolution. The fossils say