I should explain, at this point, that I did not go looking for these mistakes.  They all turned up in places where I was expecting to find accurate, reliable information.  I list them here for two reasons:

1. To demonstrate just how carefully one needs to filter information on this topic.  Because for some reason which I can only guess at, misinformation seems alnmost to be the rule rather than the exception.
    
2. To highlight the strange double-standard that seems to apply to teaching in America on the subjects of the Scopes Trial (history) and Inherit the Wind (English Literature).
   Whilst both subjects are widely taught, and presumably in a manner that implies that they are subjects worthy of careful study, it turns out that a number of educators, at all levels of the education system, are either passing on misinformation because they don't know that it's misinformation; or in some cases (and I'm going by some of the e-mails I've received), educators are passing on misinformation even though they know that's what they're doing, because they just don't care.

Anyway, here's the evidence I've accumulated over the last few years.  I leave it to you, the reader, to decide how serious the situation is.

"Tweeking" to "teach a larger point"!

If ever there was any doubt that the subject of the Scopes Trial is subject to deliberate misrepresentation within parts of the American education system, here is the evidence:

On September 22nd, 2005, I came across a description of the Scopes Trial on the website of the Social Studies Help Center (http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/USRA_1920s.htm).  To say it is inaccurate is an understatement.  For example:

What isn't so clear is how the inclusion of so many inaccuracies could be dismissed as mere "tweeking," or how - in this case - the "tweeking" could possibly serve to "teach a larger point" - other than giving the students who read it, and the teachers who use it, a seriously distorted view of the facts concerning the Scopes Trial.

UPDATE 2008:

1. As of March 8th, 2008, the misinformation above is still online.
    
2. It has, however, changed its address.  The URL for this page is now http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/Lesson_78_Notes.htm
    
3. Moreover, the site also appears to have been left to stagnate since "2/14/06"

An Error in Times Breeds...

Of course the errors and myths surrounding the Scopes Trial aren't only a recent phenomenon - they started right back at the time of the trial.  The issue of TIME magazine for August 3rd, 1925, for example, in an article entitled The Great Trial, informed its readers that:

"Judge Raulston, having denied the defense an injunction against Teacher Scopes' indictment on the ground that the state anti-Evolution law was quite unconstitutional, and having further refused to admit scientific evidence (save as affidavits in the record to instruct higher courts) by which the defense would have sought to disprove Scopes' misdemeanor through 'reconciling' the Biblical with the scientific account of creation, there remained to the trial nothing but the bald testimony of two schoolboys that Scopes had 'taught Evolution'."
(Accessible online, at the time of writing (April 14, 2006) at: http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1090585,00.html?internalid=ACA)

Just how. or why, the (unnamed) writer of the article would make such a basic mistake less than two weeks after the trial ended defies explanation.  Yet "mistake" is the kindest interpretation we can put on this piece of misinformation, for in reality:

1. The prosecution called four witnesses, not two;
2. Whilst the evidence of the two students was barely sufficient to prove the point, the evidence of the other two witnesses was far more significant:
3. Before the first student (Harry Morgan) gave evidence School Superintendant Walter White took the stand.  Included in his testimony was the statement that Scopes had admitted to teaching evolution;
4. After the second student, Harry Shelton had given evidence, Frank Robinson, drug store owner and Chairman of the School Board took the stand.  Robinson's testimony included details of the text book Civic Biology, used at the High School, plus Robinson's firsthand account, on the witness stand, of the scene at the drug store when the ACLU's offer was originally discussed:
   

   "Scopes said that any teacher in the state who was teaching Hunter's Biology was violating the law; that science teachers could not teach Hunter's Biology without violating the law. ... Dr. Rappelyea ... [asked] if he had taught this in regard to evolution, since this law was passed.  He said: yes, I reviewed the book."

More Record Holders

One of the most outlandish descriptions of the Scopes Trial - from a respected publishing house and a supposedly authoritative source - can be found in a book entitled Tracking Fossil Man (1970), written by Sharon S. and Thomas W. McKern.  Thomas W. McKern was Dr. Thomas McKern, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Kansas when the book was written and published, and editor of Readings in Physical Anthropology.  Sharon McKern was Dr. McKern's wife, a freelance writer and a consultant on osteological identification for the University of Kansas.  Fairly impressive credentials, you might think, and surely two such academically-oriented authors would be able to get their facts right on such a well-documented subject.
But you'd be wrong.  Very wrong.

Firstly, the McKerns pull off an amazing piece of time warping in which Darwin appears to have presented his ideas to the world in the early 20th century instead of just over halfway through the 19th century:

"American religious leaders were horrified by Darwin's revolutionary ideas.  Conservative Protestants, spurred on by the purest of religious motives, paused in their fight against 'demon rum' to deal with this new menace from abroad.  Aimee McPherson, preaching on the West Coast, presided at torch-lit rallies where 'monkey teachers' were hanged in effigy."
(Tracking Fossil Man, pages 4-5. Italics added for emphasis.)

This "new" menace?
Darwin's Origin of Species was first published in 1859.  Aimee Semple McPherson wasn't even born until 1890, eight years after Darwin's death!

The explanation of how Scopes allegedly violated the Butler Act is only exceeded in it's bizarre inaccuracy by the Dr. John D. Morris version (which we'll come to a little later):

"In 1925, a Dayton, Tennessee, high school senior asked his physics teacher about evolution.  The teacher, John Thomas Scopes, recklessly explained the theory in a few brief sentences and found himself in jail for his trouble, quickly indicted for unlawfully having taught evolutionary theory."
(Tracking Fossil Man, page 5. Italics added for emphasis.)

The mind boggles at comprehensive nature of the errors packed into those two sentences!

1. Scopes was indeed a part time physics teacher, and maths teacher, and chemistry teacher, and football coach, and occasional substitute teacher.  But why on earth would any student ask his or her physics teacher about evolution?  Isn't that a question for the biology teacher?
   In reality no student "asked ... about evolution" - Scopes was substituting for the usual biology teacher at the time he supposedly broke the law.
   And most important of all, after the trial Scopes denied ever teaching evolution - so the story is mythical in every respect.
2. Far from acting "recklessly", according to the scenario worked out by the Drug Store Conspirators Scopes was using the standard biology textbook for state schools in Tennessee - Hunter's Civic Biology - when the alleged misdemeanour occurred.
3. The implication that Scopes was arrested, charged and indicted "quickly" is absolutely ludicrous.  He allegedly broke the law on April 24th, but wasn't arrested and charged until May 7th.  It was another 2 days (May 9th) before Scopes went before a preliminary hearing which upheld the charge and bound him over on a $1,000 bond.
   Likewise the indictment was not confirmed until May 25th, when Judge John Raulston called a specially convened sitting of the Dayton grand jury (which would not otherwise have been due until August) in order to get things moving and fend off the threat that Chattanooga might provide the venue for a test case.  An indictment was handed down, and Raulston ordered that the Rhea County court be convened on July 10th to hear the case.
4. By the same token, Scopes categorically did not "[find] himself in jail" at any time in the proceedings.  After George Rappelyea, with Scopes' agreement, swore out a complaint, Scopes was "arrested" and charged with having taught the theory of evolution on April 24th.  He was released immediately.
   From then on Scopes remained at liberty, even during the trial, except for the times when he was actually appearing in court.

And that's not the end of it by any means.  The McKerns continue with a string of errors, the next of which completely misrepresents the reason why the "Monkey Trial" took place:

"For the anti-evolutionists (mainly good-intentioned Christians of various denominations who believed that Darwinian theory contradicted the word of God as related in the Holy Scriptures), the Scopes trial seemed an excellent opportunity to crush, once and for all, the evolutionary forces."
(Tracking Fossil Man, page 5.)

Who on earth are the McKerns referring to?
The ACLU wanted a case to establish, as they saw it, the unconstitutional nature of a ban on the teaching of evolutionist theory
The "Drugstore Conspirators" of Dayton wanted to bring the trial to their town to garner publicity and, they hoped, regenerate the town's declining fortunes
The prosecution team wanted to try the case on the specific and very limited question of whether or not Scopes had violated the Butler Act
So who's left?
Only Clarence Darrow who, in complete contradiction of the McKern's assertion, wanted to use the trial to "crush, once and for all," the anti-evolutionary forces!

Next the McKerns inform us that:

"[The anti-evolutionists] named, as commander-in chief for the prosecution, no less fervent a champion than William Jennings Bryan, perhaps the nation's greatest orator."
(Tracking Fossil Man, page 5. Italics added for emphasis.)

Wrong.  Bryan offered his services to the prosecution team, and he and his son, William Jennings Bryan Jnr. were accepted as assistant prosecutors.

"Throughout a long, hot July, these men argued the case under the most extraordinary circumstances ..."
(Tracking Fossil Man, page 5. Italics added for emphasis.)

Wrong.  The trial started on the morning of July 10th, and ended at lunchtime on July 21st.  That's just 12 days, or 8 if you ignore the two weekends, out of the traditional 31 days in the month of July.

"... Darrow, unable to get his prepared scientific evidence before the court, announced that he would call Bryan as a defense witness ..."
(Tracking Fossil Man, page 6. Italics added for emphasis.)

Wrong and wrong.  The "scientific evidence" was indeed placed before the court (though not before the jury), but almost entirely in the form of affidavits.  And it was Arthur Hays, not Darrow, who requested that Bryan be called as a witness by the Defense, and he did it on the same day that the "expert testimony" had been presented to the court.  In fact the McKerns' account is taken almost word for word from the script of Inherit the Wind on this point.

"Throughout the afternoon, and again the following morning, Darrow goaded his opponent, hoping to entangle him in a trap of logic."
(Tracking Fossil Man, page 6. Italics added for emphasis.)

Wrong again.  Darrow's questioning took place on the afternoon of July 20th only. and the session lasted only two hours, or thereabouts.  It's quite probable that both men would have liked to continue, but on the morning of the 21st, the last day of the trial, Judge Raulston announced that he believed he'd been wrong in allowing Bryan to be called as a witness, and that the questions put by Darrow were irrelevant to the question of "whether or not Mr. Scopes had taught that man descended from a lower order of animal."  He then gave an instruction that the entire session should be "expunged" from the court record.

The next three fragments form a single, continuous sequence in the McKern's book:

"Bryan ... [r]eluctantly admitting under oath ..."
(Tracking Fossil Man, page 6. Italics added for emphasis.)

Wrong.  According to the court transcript:

Next:

"Bryan ... [r]eluctantly admitting ... that some events in Biblical history must be taken as fable, he insisted nevertheless upon a literal acceptance of other events. ..."
(Tracking Fossil Man, page 6.)

Wrong.  Bryan did not "reluctantly admit" anything, so far as we can tell from the trial transcript.  The following exchange took place, near the start of the confrontation between Bryan and Darrow:

In other words, Bryan was a "fundamentalist" but not the rigid "literalist" that Darrow (and the McKerns) were trying to suggest.

" ... [Bryan] retreated again and again from Darrow's questions, taking refuge in his faith.
'The Bible states it,' he'd reply. 'It must be so.' "
(Tracking Fossil Man, pages 6-7.)

Wrong, yet again.  Not once did Bryan say the words which the McKerns present as though it were a direct quote.  What he did say, in various ways throughout the confrontation, went something like this:

This was after Bryan had explained his views on whether the Bible should be taken literally in all respects, and that looks, to me, like a straightforward answer to the question rather than any kind of "retreat".

It would be heartening to think that this travesty by the McKerns was a one-off event.  Unhappily it isn't.  Their book may contain the highest number of errors in the smallest space, but it this tendency to settle for misinformation rather than accuracy really does seem to be the general rule, as far as the Scopes trial is concerned.

Driving Strong Men Mad

Take this heading from the home page of the University of Virginia's Scope's Trial/Inherit the Wind website: