Evolution On Trial.

Should schools teach science that conflicts with the Bible? The question has a history.

The vote this summer by the Kansas Board of Education to remove the theory of evolution from the state's public-school science curriculum gave many scientists a sense that history was repeating itself. They thought the same battle had been fought--and won--after the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, when a Tennessee high school teacher was charged with violating a state law forbidding the teaching of evolution.

John Scopes was a 24-year-old science and math teacher and football coach, who taught his Dayton, Tennessee, students that humans and other creatures had evolved into their present forms from a common ancestor over millions--perhaps billions--of years. Scopes was not out of line with his profession. By 1925, most science teachers had accepted the evolution theories of British naturalist Charles Darwin. But that theory differed from the Bible's story of the creation of human life, and fundamentalist Christians who believed the Bible should be taken literally considered it a threat to Christian values.

Fundamentalists crusading against the teaching of evolution won their first big victory in Tennessee in 1925, when state legislators passed the country's first anti-evolution law. It provided

that it shall be unlawful for any teacher in ... public schools of the State ... 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.

The law set a fine of between $100 and $500 for each offense. But its symbolic importance went far beyond those amounts, and it attracted national attention from the start. As soon as the law was signed by Tennessee's Governor, the American Civil Liberties Union offered legal aid to any teacher in the state who would challenge it.

Encouraged by fellow citizens of Dayton who wanted publicity for their town, Scopes agreed to be the first teacher to test the anti-evolution statute. As the Scopes trial shaped up to be a historic test case, both sides drew nationally prominent attorneys. Heading the prosecution was William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic nominee for President, a leader of the antievolution crusade, and one of the most brilliant orators of his time. Defending Scopes was the era's most famous trial lawyer, Clarence Darrow, who was as well known for his antireligious views as for his legal skill.

Darrow faced an uphill battle from the start. Judge John T. Raulston was a fundamentalist seeking reelection, who opened the proceedings each day with a prayer. Jurors included members of a group called the "Anti-Evolution League." And only days into the trial, the judge ruled that Darrow could not present scientists and other evolution experts on the witness stand. He said that the only legal question was whether Scopes had broken the law by teaching evolution, not whether evolution had scientific merit.

Without the ability to call expert witnesses, and conceding that Scopes had in fact taught evolution, Darrow didn't have much of a case left to defend. But he was determined to tease out what he saw as the absurdity of Tennessee's antievolution law. The New York Times reported that he used a light touch with one witness:

A youngster in white duck trousers and a white shirt opened at the neck, with his tie twisted under his ear, very wide-eyed and excited, sat down in the big witness chair. He was Howard Morgan, 14 years old, and he identified ... [a] book, General Science, which Mr. Scopes taught from.

"Did he teach about evolution?" asked [prosecutor] Attorney General Stewart.... [The boy said he had.] Mr. Darrow contented himself with few questions on cross-examination and ended by asking the boy: "It hasn't hurt you any, has it?" "No," said the boy, confidently.

Then, in a stunning move, Darrow called chief prosecutor Bryan himself to the stand. The other prosecutors objected, but Bryan considered himself a religious spokesman as well as a political leader. He agreed to testify, he said, so that Darrow could not "go out and tell his atheistic friends that I would not answer his questions." There followed what The Times called "the most amazing court scene in Anglo-Saxon history."

Why, Darrow asked, must we take the Bible's account of the creation literally, when we read most of the Bible as a symbolic story? He then asked Bryan if it was precise fact that, as the Bible said, Jonah had survived in a whale's belly for three days, or that Joshua had made the sun stand still. Finally, he got Bryan to admit that even he did not take everything in the Bible literally:

Darrow: Have you any idea how old the Earth is?

Bryan: No.

Darrow: The book you have introduced in evidence [the Bible] tells you, doesn't it?

Bryan: I don't think it does, Mr. Darrow.

Darrow: Let's see whether it does. Is this the one?

Bryan: That is the one, I think.

Darrow: It says [the Earth was created in] B.C. 4004?

Bryan: That is Bishop Ussher's calculation.

Darrow: That is printed in the Bible you introduced?

Bryan: Yes, sir....

Darrow: Would you say that the Earth was only 4,000 years old?

Bryan: Oh, no; I think it is much older than that.

Darrow: How much?

Bryan: I couldn't say....

Darrow: Do you think the Earth was made in six days?

Bryan: Not six days of twenty-four hours.

The Times reported,

The greatest crowd of the trial had come in anticipation of hearing Messrs. Bryan and Darrow speak, and it got more than it expected. It saw Darrow and Bryan in actual conflict--Mr. Darrow's rationalism in combat with Mr. Bryan's faith--and forgot for a moment that Bryan's faith was its own.... When Mr. Bryan, pressed harder and harder by Mr. Darrow, confessed that he did not believe everything in the Bible should be taken literally, the crowd howled.

Bryan floundered through the rest of his testimony. Instead of finishing off Darrow, he showed just how hard it was to take a literal interpretation of the Bible seriously as science. Nonetheless, the jury did find Scopes guilty, and the judge imposed a fine of $100. But many thought Darrow had won a moral victory by making Bryan's position look silly. Added The Times:

Many people of the State crowded around Mr. Darrow after the court was over to thank him for his defense of Mr. Scopes and to say that they were ashamed of the anti-evolution law.

Just 18 months later, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Scopes's conviction. And the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that stance in another case in 1968. But controversy over the teaching of evolution persists today.