The Scopes Monkey Trial Centennial – Part 2
The Scopes trial of 1925 was a pivotal case for the teaching of evolution in public schools. At that time the State of Tennessee did not permit the evolution of man from lower primates to be taught in state-funded schools according to the Butler Act. Many other states had similar laws. The ACLU sought to challenge the validity of this law by offering to defend anyone accused of violating it. John Scopes agreed to be prosecuted. From a legal perspective, the trial was about whether Scopes had violated the Butler Act. But the defense attorney Clarence Darrow wanted to use this trial to discredit Christianity in general and creation in particular. He secured the written testimony of eight experts on the science of evolution. None of these were seen by the jury because the judge ruled that they were irrelevant to the legal issue of the trial. We examined three of these expert testimonies in part 1 and found that their arguments have not aged well. We here examine the testimonies of the remaining five experts.