Editing Scopes trial (section)

=== Teaching of science ===

The Scopes trial had both short- and long-term effects in the teaching of science in schools in the United States. Though often portrayed as influencing public opinion against fundamentalism, the victory was not complete.<ref name="Effects of the Scopes Trial">Grabiner, J.V. & Miller, P.D., Effects of the Scopes Trial, Science, New Series, Vol. 185, No. 4154 (September 6, 1974), pp. 832–837</ref> Though the ACLU had taken on the trial as a cause, in the wake of Scopes' conviction they were unable to find more volunteers to take on the Butler law and, by 1932, had given up.<ref name="Creationism in the United States: II. The Aftermath of the Scopes Trial">Moore, Randy, The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 60, No.{{nbsp}}8 (Oct. 1998), pp. 568–577</ref> The anti-evolutionary legislation was not challenged again until 1965, and in the meantime, William Jennings Bryan's cause was taken up by a number of organizations, including the Bryan Bible League and the Defenders of the Christian Faith.<ref name="Creationism in the United States: II. The Aftermath of the Scopes Trial" />

The effects of the Scopes Trial on high school biology texts has not been unanimously agreed by scholars. Of the most widely used textbooks after the trial, only one included the word ''evolution'' in its index; the relevant page includes biblical quotations.<ref name="Effects of the Scopes Trial" /> Some scholars have accepted that this was the result of the Scopes Trial: for example Hunter, the author of [[Civic Biology|the biology text which Scopes was on trial for teaching]], revised the text by 1926 in response to the Scopes Trial controversy.<ref name="Effects of the Scopes Trial" /> However, George Gaylord Simpson challenged this notion as confusing cause and effect, and instead posited that the trend of anti-evolution movements and laws that provoked the Scopes Trial was also to blame for the removal of evolution from biological texts, and that the trial itself had little effect.<ref>George Gaylord Simpson, Evolution and Education, Science February 7, 1975: Vol. 187, Issue 4175, pp. 389</ref> The fundamentalists' target slowly veered off evolution in the mid-1930s. Miller and Grabiner suggest that as the anti-evolutionist movement died out, biology textbooks began to include the previously removed evolutionary theory.<ref name="Creationism in the United States: II. The Aftermath of the Scopes Trial" /> This also corresponds to the emerging demand that science textbooks be written by scientists rather than educators or education specialists.<ref name="Effects of the Scopes Trial" />

This account of history has also been challenged. In ''Trying Biology'' Robert Shapiro examines many of the eminent biology textbooks in the 1910–1920s, and finds that while they may have avoided the word ''evolution'' to placate anti-evolutionists, the overall focus on the subject was not greatly diminished, and the books were still implicitly evolution based.<ref name=":1" /> It has also been suggested that the narrative of evolution's being removed from textbooks due to religious pressure, only to be reinstated decades later, was an example of "[[Whig history]]" propagated by the [[Biological Sciences Curriculum Study]], and that the shift in the ways biology textbooks discussed evolution can be attributed to other race and class based factors.<ref>Ella Thea Smith and the Lost History of American High School Biology Textbooks, Ronald P. Ladouceur, Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 41, No. 3, 2008, pp. 435–471</ref>

In 1958 the [[National Defense Education Act]] was passed with the encouragement of many legislators who feared the United States education system was falling behind that of the Soviet Union. The act yielded textbooks, produced in cooperation with the American Institute of Biological Sciences, which stressed the importance of evolution as the unifying principle of biology.<ref name="Creationism in the United States: II. The Aftermath of the Scopes Trial" /> The new educational regime was not unchallenged. The greatest backlash was in Texas where attacks were launched in sermons and in the press.<ref name="Effects of the Scopes Trial" /> Complaints were lodged with the State Textbook Commission. However, in addition to federal support, a number of social trends had turned public discussion in favor of evolution. These included increased interest in improving public education, legal precedents separating religion and public education, and continued urbanization in the South. This led to a weakening of the backlash in Texas, as well as to the repeal of the Butler Law in Tennessee in 1967.<ref name="Effects of the Scopes Trial" />