Editing Butler Act (section)

==Provisions of the law==

The law, "An act prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof" (Tenn. HB 185, 1925) specifically provided:
:That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the [[University|Universities]], [[Normal school|Normals]] and all other [[Public school (government funded)|public schools]] of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds 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.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm# |title=Full text of the Butler Act and the bill that repealed it |access-date=2005-02-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090520091924/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm# |archive-date=2009-05-20 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

It additionally outlined that an offending teacher would be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined between $100 and $500 for each offense.

By the terms of the statute, it could be argued, it was not illegal to teach evolution in respect to non-human creatures, such as that [[ape]]s descended from [[protozoa]] or to teach the mechanisms of [[Genetic variation|variation]] and [[natural selection]]. The bill also did not touch on, or restrict the teaching of prevailing scientific theories of [[geology]] or the [[age of the Earth]]. It did not even require that the [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] story be taught, but prohibited solely the teaching that humans evolved, or any other theory denying that humanity was [[creationism|created by]] [[God]] as recorded in Genesis. However the author of the law, a Tennessee farmer and member of the Tennessee House of Representatives [[John Washington Butler]], specifically intended that it would prohibit the teaching of evolution. He later was reported to have said "No, I didn't know anything about evolution when I introduced it. I'd read in the papers that boys and girls were coming home from school and telling their fathers and mothers that the Bible was all nonsense." After reading copies of [[William Jennings Bryan]]'s lecture "Is the Bible True?" as well as [[Charles Darwin]]'s ''[[The Origin of Species]]'' and ''[[The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex|The Descent of Man]]'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Freeman_TheDescentofMan.html|title = Darwin Online: The Descent of Man}}</ref> Butler decided the teaching of evolution was dangerous.