Editing Scopes trial (section)

== Aftermath and legacy==

=== Creation versus evolution debate ===
{{further|Rejection of evolution by religious groups}}
The trial revealed a growing chasm in American Christianity and two ways of [[Epistemology|finding truth]], one "biblical" and one "evolutionist".<ref name=goetz>David Goetz, "The Monkey Trial". ''Christian History'' 1997 16(3): pp. 10–18. 0891-9666</ref> Author David Goetz writes that the majority of Christians denounced evolution at the time.<ref name=goetz />

Author Mark Edwards contests the conventional view that in the wake of the Scopes trial, a humiliated fundamentalism retreated into the political and cultural background, a viewpoint which is evidenced in the 1955 play ''[[Inherit the Wind (play)|Inherit the Wind]]'' (and subsequent [[Inherit the Wind (1960 film)|1960 film]]), which fictionalized the trial, as well as in the majority of contemporary historical accounts. Rather, the cause of fundamentalism's retreat was the death of its leader, Bryan. Most fundamentalists saw the trial as a victory rather than a defeat, but Bryan's death soon after it created a leadership void that no other fundamentalist leader could fill. Bryan, unlike the other leaders, brought name recognition, respectability, and the ability to forge a broad-based coalition of fundamentalist and mainline religious groups which argued in defense of the anti-evolutionist position.{{sfn|Edwards|2000}}

Adam Shapiro criticized the view that the Scopes trial was an essential and inevitable conflict between [[Relationship between religion and science|religion and science]], claiming that such a view was "self-justifying". Instead, Shapiro emphasizes the fact that the Scopes trial was the result of particular circumstances, such as politics postponing the adoption of new textbooks.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Antievolution Movement in American Schools|last=Shapiro|first=Adam R.|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2014|pages=4–5}}</ref>

=== 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}}

=== 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" />

=== Other implications ===
Historian [[Randall Balmer]] argues that the Scopes trial and Bryan's death resulted in a decline in the influence of Christian fundamentalists in American politics. While a subculture of evangelical organizations developed over the succeeding decades, conservative Protestants were not mobilized into a distinct [[voting bloc]] and were in effect politically inactive. It was not until the rise of the [[Christian right]] in the late 1970s that conservative fundamentalists became politically active and powerful again.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kee|first=Howard Clark|title=Christianity: A Social and Cultural History|year=1998|publisher=Prentice Hall|location=Upper Saddle River, NJ|isbn=0-13-578071-3|pages=484|author2=Emily Albu |author2-link= Emily Albu |author3=Carter Lindberg |author4=J. William Frost |author5=Dana L. Robert }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Balmer |first=Randall |author-link=Randall Balmer |date=August 10, 2021 |title=Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kcuAEAAAQBAJ |location=Grand Rapids, Michigan |publisher=[[William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company]] |page=<!--Pages are unnumbered--> |isbn=9781467462907 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Balmer |first=Randall |date=December 29, 2024 |title=Jimmy Carter: The Last Progressive Evangelical |url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/29/jimmy-carter-progressive-evangelical-00084165 |work=Politico |location= |access-date=January 8, 2025}}</ref>

=== Commemoration ===
[[File:Rhea county courthouse usda.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.8|The [[Rhea County Courthouse]], the site of the Scopes trial, is a [[National Historic Landmark]].<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|2013a|dateform=mdy|accessdate=April 28, 2025|refnum=72001251|name=Rhea County Courthouse}}</ref>]]
[[Bryan College]] is a private Christian college in Dayton that was established in 1930 in honor of William Jennings Bryan. Bryan had long expressed a desire for the establishment of a fundamentalist Biblical higher educational institution, and during the trial suggested that such a school be established in Dayton.<ref>{{cite web |last=Ketchersid |first=William L. |date=March 1, 2018 |title=Bryan College |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/bryan-college/ |location=Nashville |publisher=Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture|access-date=April 28, 2025}}</ref>

The [[Rhea County Courthouse]] was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1972 and was designated a [[National Historic Landmark]] by the [[National Park Service]] in 1976 for its role in the trial.<ref name="nris"/><ref>{{cite web |author=<!-- not stated --> |date=<!--Not given--> |title=List of NHLs by State |url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalhistoriclandmarks/list-of-nhls-by-state.htm |website=nps.gov |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=National Park Service |access-date=April 28, 2025}}</ref> Between 1977 and 1979 a rehabilitation project was undertaken on the 1891-built courthouse, which had fallen into disrepair. This included restoring the second-floor courtroom to its appearance during the Scopes trial and the establishment of the Rhea County Heritage and Scopes Trial Museum, which opened on May 11, 1979.<ref>{{unbulleted list citebundle|{{cite news |last=Yarbrough |first=Willard |date=February 4, 1977 |title=Courthouse of Scopes Trial Fame Renovated To Restore Its 1925 Look |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-knoxville-news-sentinel-courthouse-o/171258200/ |page=C-1 |work=The Knoxville News-Sentinel |access-date=April 28, 2025 |via=Newspapers.com}}|{{cite news |last=Yarbrough |first=Willard |date=April 9, 1978 |title=NS Trip-of-the-Month Season Opener To Visit Site of Scopes 'Monkey Trial' |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-knoxville-news-sentinel-ns-trip-of-t/171258596/ |pages=A-1, [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-knoxville-news-sentinel-ns-trip-of-t/171258636/ A-2] |work=The Knoxville News-Sentinel |access-date=April 28, 2025 |via=Newspapers.com}}|{{cite news |author=<!-- not stated --> |date=May 6, 1979 |title=Play based on '25 'Monkey Trial' Opens Friday in Home Courtroom |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-knoxville-news-sentinel-play-based-o/171258519/ |page=G-2 |work=The Knoxville News-Sentinel |access-date=April 28, 2025 |via=Newspapers.com}}|{{cite news |last=Holman |first=Connie |date=July 19, 1979 |title=Friendly ghost haunts site of famous trial |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-jackson-sun-friendly-ghost-haunts-si/171258313/ |pages=1C, [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-jackson-sun-friendly-ghost-haunts-si/171258318/ 2C] |work=The Jackson Sun |access-date=April 28, 2025 |via=Newspapers.com}}}}</ref> Located in the basement of the courthouse, this museum contains such memorabilia as the microphone used to broadcast the trial, trial records, photographs, and an audiovisual history.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Scopes Trial Museum & Rhea County Courthouse |url=https://tennesseerivervalleygeotourism.org/entries/the-scopes-trial-museum-rhea-county-courthouse/bd764964-b5ec-4b8d-baed-64a54712dc58 |website=tennesseerivervalleygeotourism.org |publisher=National Geographic |access-date=May 18, 2025 |date=<!--Not given-->}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Rhea County Heritage and Scopes Trial Museum |url=https://www.rheacountyheritage.com/ |website=rheacountyheritage.com |publisher=Rhea County Historical Society |access-date=May 18, 2025 |date=<!--Not given-->}}</ref>  

Since 1988, locals have participated in a play called "Destiny in Dayton", a re-enactment of key moments of the trial in that takes place in the courtroom during July. This evolved into the larger Scopes Trial Festival in 1989, which includes vendors, craftsmen, and live music.<ref name="tnmag25">{{cite journal |last=Carey |first=Bill |date=April 1, 2025 |title=Festival has Kept Alive the Story of the Scopes Trial |url=https://www.tnmagazine.org/festival-has-kept-alive-the-story-of-the-scopes-trial/ |journal=The Tennessee Magazine |volume= |issue= |publisher= |pages= |doi= |access-date=May 14, 2025}}</ref> The [[Tennessee Historical Commission]] erected a historical marker in front of the courthouse which commemorates the site of the trial. In 2005, a statue of William Jennings Bryan was dedicated on the courthouse lawn, funded by a donation from nearby Bryan College. In 2017, a statue of Clarence Darrow was unveiled near Bryan's statue, funded by a donation from the [[Freedom From Religion Foundation]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Fausset|first=Richard|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/us/darrow-bryan-dayton-tennessee-scopes-statues.html |date=July 14, 2017|title=At Site of Scopes Trial, Darrow Statue Belatedly Joins Bryan's |work=[[The New York Times]] |accessdate=July 15, 2017}}</ref>