Editing Scopes trial (section)

=== Anti-evolution movement ===

The trial escalated the political and legal conflict in which strict creationists and scientists struggled over the teaching of evolution in Arizona and California science classes. Before the Dayton trial only the [[South Carolina]], [[Oklahoma]], and [[Kentucky]] legislatures had dealt with anti-evolution laws or riders to educational appropriations bills. <ref>{{Cite web |title=Anti-Evolution Movement {{!}} The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture |url=https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=AN011 |access-date=2024-07-30 |website=Oklahoma Historical Society {{!}} OHS |language=en-us}}</ref> After Scopes was convicted, creationists throughout the United States sought similar anti-evolution laws for their states.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trollinger |first=William V. |title=God's Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern Fundamentalism |date=1991 |ol=1888673M}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Laats |first=Adam |date=2011 |title=Monkeys, Bibles, and the Little Red Schoolhouse: Atlanta's School Battles in the Scopes Era |journal=Georgia Historical Quarterly |volume=95 |issue=3 |pages=335–355 |jstor=41304304}}</ref> 

By 1927, there were 13 states, both in the [[Northern United States|North]] and in the [[Southern United States|South]], that had deliberated over some form of anti-evolution law. At least 41 bills or resolutions were introduced into the state legislatures, with some states facing the issue repeatedly. Nearly all these efforts were rejected, but [[Mississippi]] and [[Arkansas]] did put anti-evolution laws on the books after the Scopes trial, laws that would outlive the Butler Act, which was repealed in 1967.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Halliburton |first=R. Jr. |title=The Adoption of Arkansas' Anti-Evolution Law |journal=Arkansas Historical Quarterly |date=1964 |volume=23 |issue=Autumn 1964 |page=280 |doi=10.2307/40038058|jstor=40038058 }}</ref><ref name="Christopher K. Curtis 1926">{{Cite journal |last=Curtis |first=Christopher K. |date=1986 |title=Mississippi's Anti-Evolution Law of 1926 |journal=Journal of Mississippi History |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=15–29}}</ref> In 1968, the [[United States Supreme Court]] ruled in ''[[Epperson v. Arkansas]]'' that laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution violated the [[Establishment Clause|Establishment Clause of the First Amendment]].<ref>{{ussc|name=Epperson v. Arkansas|link=|volume=393|page=97|pin=|year=1968}}. {{usgovpd}}</ref> 

In the Southwest, anti-evolution crusaders included ministers R. S. Beal and Aubrey L. Moore in Arizona and members of the Creation Research Society in California. They sought to ban evolution as a topic for study in the schools or, failing that, to relegate it to the status of unproven hypothesis perhaps taught alongside the biblical version of creation. Educators, scientists, and other distinguished laymen favored evolution. This struggle occurred later in the Southwest than elsewhere, finally collapsing in the [[Sputnik]] era after 1957, when the national mood inspired increased trust for science in general and for evolution in particular.<ref name="Christopher K. Curtis 1926" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Webb |first=George E. |date=1991 |title=The Evolution Controversy in Arizona and California: From the 1920s to the 1980s |journal=Journal of the Southwest |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=133–150, 0894-8410 |jstor=40169811}}</ref>

The opponents of evolution made a transition from the anti-evolution crusade of the 1920s to the [[creation science]] movement of the 1960s. Despite some similarities between these two causes, the creation science movement represented a shift from overtly religious to covertly religious objections to evolutionary theory—sometimes described as a [[Wedge Strategy]]—raising what it claimed was scientific evidence in support of a literal interpretation of the Bible. Creation science also differed in terms of popular leadership, rhetorical tone, and sectional focus. It lacked a prestigious leader like Bryan, utilized pseudoscientific rather than religious rhetoric,{{sfn|Gatewood|1969}} and was a product of [[California]] and [[Michigan]] instead of the South.{{sfn|Gatewood|1969}}