Summer for the Gods

On this day in 1925 Dayton, TN football coach John Scopes was put on trial for teaching the theory of evolution (at the behest of the ACLU) while substituting in a biology class.

On the forty-second page of the Pulitzer Prize winning “Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion” historian Edward J. Larson wrote (emphasis added):

history would seem enough to condem Darwinism," Bryan thundered, drawing heavily on evidence from Leuba, Kellogg, and Kidd.²⁹ A second speech against Darwinism, "The Bible and Its Enemies," joined Bryan's repertoire later that year. The Commoner broke out of the starting blocks so fast that the back cover of the 1921 pamphlet containing the "Enemies" speech already referred to "Mr. Bryan and his crusade against evolution."³⁰

In addition to stressing the dangers of Darwinism, both speeches denounced the theory as unscientific and unconvincing. "Science to be truly science is classified knowledge," Bryan maintained, adopting an antiquated definition of science. "Tested by this definition, Darwinism is not science at all; it is guesses strung together."³¹ He entertained his audiences with exaggerated accounts of seemingly far-fetched evolutionary explanations for human organs—such as the eye, which supposedly began as a light-sensitive freckle. "The increased heat irritated the skin—so the evolutionsts guess, and a nerve came there and out of the nerve came the eye! Can you beat it?" Bryan asked rhetorically. "Is it not easier to believe in a God who can make an eye?"³² As the horistian Ronald L. Numbers noted, "Bryan was far from alone in balking at the evolutionary origin of the eye. Christian apologists had long regarded the intricate design of the eye as 'a cure for atheism,' and Darwin himself had readily conceded his vulnerability on this point."³³ Yet Bryan possessed an uncanny ability to exploit any such weakness in his opponent's arguments, at least with respect to winning over a popular audience—the only one that mattered to him. "The scientist cannot compel acceptance of any argument he advances, except as, judged on its merits, is convincing," the Commoner maintained in defiance of scientific authority. "Man is infinitely more than science; science, as well as the Sabbath, was made for man."³⁴

This sort of thinking predisposed Bryan to his later course of seeking a legislative judgment on teaching evolution and accepting a trial by jury to enforce any resulting restriction. Indeed, Bryan's mode of operation and optimistic temperament required offering readily political solutions to outstanding social problems—such as a silver-based currency to promote domestic prosperity or arbitration treaties to secure international peace—and his followers, especially those who called him their Perless Leader, expected an agenda for action. The Menace of Darwinism speech, however, included only a vauge call for "real neu[trality]

More information about “Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion” (and the book itself) is available from:

• Amazon.com
• Powell's Books
• Barnes & Noble

(Basic Books, October 2006. Paperback, 336 pages. ISBN: 046507510X; EAN: 9780465075102.)