Short Wave - Evolution Went On Trial 100 Years Ago. Where Are We Now?

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" — where a teacher was charged with the crime of teaching Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. At the time, it was illegal in Tennessee 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 trial, which was orchestrated to be a media spectacle, foreshadowed the cultural divisions that continue today and led to a backlash against proponents of evolution.Read more of science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce's reporting on the story. Want us to cover more science history? Less? Either way, tell us by emailing [e-mail]! We'd love to know what you're hearing — and want to hear from us!Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, shortwavers, it's me, Regina Barber. And today we're going to start with a famous play called Inherit the Wind. Maybe you read it in high school or saw the classic movie made in 1960. For our science lesson for today, we will continue our discussion of Darwin's theory of the descent of man. This black and white film starts with town officials marching into a classroom. There's a teacher standing next to this chart that shows a gorilla. He's about to teach human evolution.

So he's arrested. You're charged with violation of public banks 31428. Volume 37, statute number 3.1.4.4. The movie is about the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial, which happened 100 years ago this week. Tennessee state law prohibited teaching human evolution. And a teacher named John Scopes was put on trial for violating that law. Yeah, but if your idea of this trial, comes from Inherit the Wind, you better get ready for a shock.

That's NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfield Boys. Hey, Nell. Hey there. So I'm excited to talk about the Scopes trial with you because here in 2025, a hundred years later, it still seems very relevant. Yeah, I think in 1925, the nation really felt culturally divided and it kind of coalesced into this one trial happening in the town of Dayton, Tennessee. And back then, the trial was this huge, huge deal. And it sort of foreshadowed a bunch of divisions in the kind of country that I think to a certain extent seem very much still in play. Yeah, I read it was the first trial ever broadcast on radio. Everyone was covering it. I mean, everyone. Newspapers all over the country followed it

extremely closely. And I think the Scopes trial is still well known today, but now it's kind of like folklore. I mean, the reality of the trial doesn't always match up with what people think they know. So today on the show, we'll look back at the 1925 Scopes trial. What really went down in Tennessee, how that affected the teaching of evolution, and why this still matters today, a century later. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. So now let's start at the beginning. What was this Tennessee law and where did it come from?

The law was the Butler Act and it outlawed teaching, quote, 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, unquote. So I guess that means like you could teach about like other animal evolution, just not humans. Exactly. Yeah. So it's really human evolution that was a big deal for people like William Jennings, Brian. He's this famous populist and public speaker. Historian Edward Larson, who wrote a book about the Scopes trial, told me that for Brian, the key thing was divine creation. As a Christian, he believed it was essential that humans were created in the image of God.

So for years before the Tennessee law was passed, Brian had been campaigning against the teaching of human evolution in public schools. He gave speeches where he sort of attributed all the ills of modern society to a belief in evolution. Well, back in 1925, wasn't evolution kind of like wrapped up in eugenics and like racist ideas about like some people being fitter than others? Yeah. You know, Brian was actually against eugenics. He thought it was brutal. But it's worth noting that the textbook that Scopes taught out of, disgust eugenics favorably. Anyway, for Brian and lots of others, evolution was also kind of a symbol of,

you know, abandoning old time religion and sort of losing touch with the old moral ways. Okay, so Tennessee passes this law. How was it that John Scopes came to be arrested? That's the thing. So unlike what's portrayed in the movie, this whole deal was a completely contrived event. The American Civil Liberties Union had just been founded a few years before and they wanted to challenge this law, and they were looking for a test case. And news of their search got reported in a Chattanooga newspaper, and some town leaders in Dayton saw that. And they thought, well, why not get some publicity for our town?

They literally dreamed this up in a drugstore, like at the soda fountain where local people gathered to chew the fact. So was Scopes in on this, too? Absolutely. He told radio legend Studs Terkel that the head of the school board called him in and was Like, look, can we use your name for this? And I said, well, okay. It was that simple.

In this interview, which is held by the Studs Terkel Archive, Scope says once he agreed to this plan. It was on the wires out of Chapman. Did you arrest? That I was arrested. But had you taught at school? Well, I had taught a class in biology for about three or four weeks. Yeah, that's not exactly like that full-throated admission of, like, teaching evolution. He was just a substitute teacher.

He basically told the town officials who were planning this thing, look, I'll do it as long as you can make it so that I don't have to perjure myself. Here's what Larson, the historian, told me. Scopes had never taught evolution. Nobody thought he did. Everybody, even the judge, understood that this was a manufactured event. Really, it was more of a staged public debate than a trial. And the two debaters were like famously Clarence Darrow, this well-known attorney, and William Jennings Bryan. Yeah, they both volunteered their services. They wanted to get anything. on this because it was clear it was going to generate a lot of publicity. Fascinating. You had two magnificent orators in Brian and Darrow making their arguments backed up by a legion of supporters who are also articulate on both sides. Larson told me the nation was riveted.

At one point, the judge moved the proceedings out into the courthouse lawn because of the heat and the crowds and you had kids walking around selling refreshments. I mean, it was not a trial in the traditional sense, not at all. I mean, but there was a jury. right? And there was a verdict. Yes. So I asked Ed Larson, you know, what's the biggest misbelief that people have about the case? Oh, that scopes won. That's the biggest misconception. In reality, it took the jury less than 10 minutes to find him guilty. Yet in this fictional account, Inherit the Win, it's portrayed as this, like, great moral victory.

Sure, both sides immediately declared victory. I mean, Larson told me that newspaper editorial is written back then. did not see any great win by either side. Wow. I mean, people who were observing it at the time mostly were just marveling at how divided the country was. And what's more, evolution disappeared from schools for decades after this. So did other states pass laws? A couple did, but really it was more just like, you know, look. I mean, if you were a textbook publisher trying to sell books, would you want to touch this issue?

Yeah, that's true. I talked with Kenneth Miller. a cell biologist. He told me when he was in high school in New Jersey in the 1960s, he first heard about the Scopes trial and also learned about evolution. But significantly, the textbook we used didn't mention the word evolution. And only in retrospect that I realized that that was sort of part of the aftermath of the Scopes trial. Wow. The textbook used this euphemism, organic variation over time. And that's like 40 years after. And that's like 40 years after scopes. Teaching evolution continued to be controversial. When I was growing up in the 1980s,

there were some key court cases that basically said you can't teach creationism in public schools. It's equivalent to religion. I can't really remember what was in my textbooks. I know I did definitely get taught Darwin and evolution. I mean, what about you? Yeah, I was taught evolution, but I grew up in a really small rural town. And my high school biology teacher, she was harassed. Her car was vandalized because she taught evolution. Wow. So that must have been in the 1990s. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So Ken Miller told me he, you know, co-wrote this biology textbook, which came out in 1990. It's now widely used used in all 50 states. He told me he and his co-author deliberately

peppered evolution all through the thing. I mean, he calls evolution the central idea in biology. Yeah. But even then, some of the books marketers found the whole thing worrisome. And they very much asked us to de-emphasize the E-word, which would be evolution. He and his co-authors stuck to their guns, and the book proved to be very popular, although it did still get embroiled in a couple of court cases, like in 2005 and 2006. Really? Like, tell me about that. It was just the same concerns about evolution and people wanting creationism or what some call intelligent design to get presented as alternatives in public school science classes.

I mean, Miller does see progress in getting evolution. taught and accepted in this country. After many years of the American public being 50-50 on evolution, we now have a substantial majority saying they accept evolution in terms of the evolution of the human species. But there's still a minority that doesn't buy it. Yeah, what are the latest figures on how many Americans reject human evolution? The Pew Research Center had a poll out earlier this year. it found that 17% of U.S. adults believe that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

I mean, 17%. That's millions of people. Yeah. I was talking with Ken Ham. He's the founder of the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter, which are in Kentucky. Have you heard of them? Well, is he the same person who, like, debated Bill Nye back in, like, 2014? Yeah, yeah. They debated evolution. Anyway, Ham was telling me, he sees the debate over evolution as just kind of the inevitable result of drastically different foundational worldviews. If there is a God who created us and it is the God of the Bible, then he determines right and wrong and good and evil, and we have an absolute authority. But if you are just the result of natural processes and there is no God, who determines right and wrong, who determines good and evil.

In his view, evolution versus creationism is really about who we are and like where we came from and what's the whole meaning and purpose of life? So I do feel like I should say that some people, lots of people, see no conflict between their religion and evolution. I mean, like Ken Miller, the textbook author, he told me he's a practicing Catholic. Yeah, I mean, I feel like today evolution is kind of more on the back burner in the sense that like other issues have taken up a lot more public attention,

transgender rights, for example, for one of them. Yeah, that's another thing where it comes down to like, you know, the Bible says God created man and woman. And then you got scientists saying, well, you know, it's more complicated than that. So it's similar to evolution in that sense. But then there's other controversial science topics like climate change or even vaccines. And, you know, the public can feel very divided, kind of hopelessly divided on these issues. And it's hard for one side to, you know, talk to or understand the other. I mean, to me, it does feel very much like the Scopes trial sometimes. It definitely does. And like if there's another big case like this in the future on any of these.

scientific issues, we'll expect you to come back and cover it for us. Well, I will. It's hard to imagine anything that could be quite like the Scopes trial. I'm trying to imagine who the popular figures would be on each side that would make arguments. But I will cover it and then I will turn my coverage into a movie script. That is my plan. Nell, thank you so much for bringing us this reporting. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson and edited by a showrunner Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones, check the facts.

Casey Lee was the audio engineer. Beth Donovan is our senior director, and Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting strategy. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.