The Scopes Monkey Trial
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On this page:

Was there - or Wasn't there?

Mental Development

Geological Dating

Vestigial Structures

Alleged "Straight Line" Evolution of the Horse

The Necessity of Teaching Evolution (1)

The Necessity of Teaching Evolution (2)

The Meaning of Evolution

The Meaning of the Fossil Record

Who Needs Darwin, Anyway?

The Formation of the Grand Canyon

The Biogenetic "Law"

Homology is Crucial

No Facts - Only Opinions
 

 

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Myth:   The expert witnesses were there to present 'facts', not opinions.

6:   The Expert Testimony

Was there - Wasn't there?

Many discussions of the Scopes "Monkey" Trial claim that the judge refused to allow the expert witnesses to present their evidence.  Which isn't really true.  In fact he allowed one expert - Dr. Maynard Metcalf - to give evidence in person before ruling that such evidence was irrelevant because the indictment related to whether Scopes had taught evolution and not whether evolution clashed with the story of the creation of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis.
The defense argument was that if the theory of evolution did not clash with Genesis then Scopes had not violated the act.  It was an interesting idea, but it really didn't have a leg to stand on given that most if not all of the experts rejected the notion that humans were the result of an act of special creation - and therefore whatever their personal views on evolution might be, they most certainly did contradict the account in Genesis.

So what alternative explanations did the experts offer?
If you've ever searched the Internet for details of the expert testimony offered at the Scopes Trial you may have been surprised to find how little information there is.  There's plenty of material (though mostly incomplete and misleading) on the confrontation between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, but almost nothing about the thousands of words of expert testimony entered, in affidavit form, into the court record (so that the testimony could be raised in the appeal court).

In the case of Wesley R. Elsberry's site: "The Scopes Trial: Frequently Rebutted Assertions", for example, we find this as the final item in the list:

"Assertion: The evidence presented in the Scopes trial is no longer considered evidence of evolution."

Unfortunately Mr Elsberry, a keen evolutionist who has contributed to websites such as TalkOrigins, appears to have ceased work on his site before he could offer any evidence or explanation of how this assertion has ever been rebutted.  Consequently all we are left with is the cryptic acronym: "TBD" - To Be Decided.

In practice, even the most ardently pro-evolutionist descriptions of the trial give little or no information on this subject.
And did you ever wonder why?

Mental Development

The first affidavit that appears in the court record - the testimony of Charles Hubbard Judd - is notable not only for its brevity but also because it deals with mental development, a subject not touched on by any of the other expert witnesses.
According to Professor Judd, of whom much more will be said in Part 13:

"It is quite impossible to make any adequate study of the mental development of children without taking into account the facts that have been learned from the study of comparative or animal psychology."

Now it must be said that Professor Judd, like his colleagues, was telling no more and no less than the generally accepted "truth" - as it understood in 1925.
In the field of psychology, in which Judd had a Ph.D from the University of Leipzig, the prevailing mindset during the first half of the 20th century was based on the experiments of men like Watson and Pavlov, the pioneers of behaviourism, much of whose work was based on research carried out on animals, such as Pavlov's famous "salivating dogs" experiments.  As it turned out, however, whilst the behaviourist's work was indeed valuable - up to a point - it only had limited application as far as human beings are concerned.

Judd went on to say:

"It will be impossible, in my judgment, in the state university, as well as in the normal schools, to teach adequately psychology or the science of education without making constant reference to all the facts of mental development which are included in the general doctrine of evolution."

What Judd meant by "the general doctrine of evolution" is not clear, but it is quite certain that one can study educational methods, human learning, etc., today with little or no knowledge of evolution.
(This I say from practical experience, having taken a degree in social psychology during which only one term was taken up with a half-hearted study of the fundamentals of heredity, and I cannot recall so much as a single seminar or tutorial on the subject of evolution.  This, I might add, at a university where the internationally renowned evolutionist, Professor John Maynard Smith, was head of the biology department.)

In the course of time psychology has turned away from behaviourism in favour of a far more cognitively-oriented viewpoint.  In this regard, then, the supposedly "factual" expert testimony has most definitely a matter of opinion, and an opinion which is now obsolete.

Geological Dating

Next, let's move on to something really simple and straightforward - the geological dating of the earth.

According to the experts at the Scopes Trial, "radium emanations" showed that:

The earth was "at least 100 million years" old.
The Palaeozoic Era began at least 50 million years ago.
The Mesozoic Era began at least 25 million years ago
.
And our present time period, the Cenozoic Era began 5-10 million years ago.

Writing in Six Days or Forever? (1958), Ray Ginger notes that "Since 1925 scientists have devised much more rigorous techniques of geological dating, based on the new knowledge of the disintegration of radioactive materials" and gives a new set of dates.

According to Ginger:

"the age of the earth is now estimated, with great confidence, at 4.5 billion years".
The Palaeozoic Era began 500 million years ago.
The Mesozoic Era began at least 200 million years ago
.
And the Cenozoic Era began 70 million years ago.

Well, apparently the scientists of 1957 were close, but not quite rigorous enough, because the Cambridge Encyclopaedia (2nd ed., 1995) gives the following information:

The start of the Precambrian Era (which starts when the earth was formed) has shifted very slightly, to "4.6 billion years".
The Palaeozoic Era began 590 million years ago.  That's an 18 per cent increase.
The Mesozoic Era began at least 250 million years ago.  That's a 25 per cent increase.
And the Cenozoic Era began 65 million years ago..  That's a decrease of slightly over 7 per cent.

In short, the dates given in 1925, far from being "facts", were wildly inaccurate according to later information.  Indeed, even the early radioactive dates were none too accurate.
And that's only the beginning.

Vestigial Structures

"... there are, according to Wiedersheim, no less than 180 vestigial structures in the human body, sufficient to make a man a veritable walking museum of antiquities."

This list would have included the coccyx, body hairs, the pituitary gland, the appendix and so on and so on.  Since 1925, however, our medical and technical knowledge have broadened and deepened, and the list of supposedly vestigial structures has been whittled down as each was found to serve a useful purpose at some point in the human life cycle.
That list of 180 alleged "leftovers" is now down to approximately half-a-dozen, and on the basis of past experience is likely to shrink still further.

The evidence on vestigial structures is therefore not a "fact" but an erroneous "opinion".  Indeed, even the term "vestigial" seems to have changed.  On the one hand, the experts in 1925 are as one with the experts in 2005 in believing that "vestiges" are structures which were important to us in some previous stage of our evolution.  However, where the experts of 1925 defined these items in a very explicit manner: "functionless in man" (Cole), and "structures of no conceivable present use." (Curtis), many modern evolutionists prefer to describe vestigial structures rather more vaguely, as being simply "unnecessary".

Alleged 'Straight Line' Evolution of the Horse

... the course of evolution of the horse family (Equidae) ... One could hardly ask for a clearer or more conclusive story of evolution than this ..."
Horatio Hackett Newman

We will look at this subject in a little more detail when we come to the details on Hunter's A Civic Biology.  For the moment let me simply quote David Raup, Curator of Geology, in the Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (1979):

"... some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information ..."

So the evidence on the evolution of the horse family (Equidae) wasn't "fact", either, but an erroneous "opinion" based on misleading information.

The Necessity of Teaching Evolution (1)

According to the commentary on the UMKC (University of Missouri, Kansas City) Law School site:

Dr Curtis was a zoologist from the University of Missouri.  The defense believed he would make a good witness because he tended to empasize the spiritual rather than the material influences of science ... Curtis argued that evolution is a necessary instrument in the search for answers to important cosmological, geological, and biological questions."
(emphasis added)

On May 18th, 1925, the Daily Science News Bulletin published an article entitled Scientists Pledge Support to Tennessee Professor [sic] Arrested for Teaching Evoltion (based on a press release issued by the ACLU), which confirmed the AAAS's promise to provide expert witnesses for the defence.  The promise was in accordance with a formal resolution drawn up by Henry Fairfield Osborn (of Nebraska Man fame), a palaeontologist; Charles B. Davenport, a eugenecist (whose ideas appeared in the Hunter textbook); and Edwin G. Conklin, a biologist.

Nearly twenty years after the Scopes trial, in 1943, Conklin made the following observation in his book, Man, Real and Ideal:

"The concept of organic evolution is very highly prized by biologists, for many of whom it is an object of genuinely religious devotion, because they regard it as the supreme integrative principle.  This is probably the reason why severe methodological criticism employed in other departments of biology has not yet been brought to bear on evolutionary speculation."

Is this really evidence of the compatibility of evolutionary science and the Christian religion?  It seems that Dr Curtis, who "tended to emphasize the spiritual rather than the material influences of science", and who "argued that evolution is a necessary instrument in the search for answers to important cosmological, geological, and biological questions" would be a perfect fit for Conklin's description of the scientists who regard evolution as "an object of genuinely religious devotion ... the supreme integrative principle."
Which surely demonstrates that for some scientists at least, the confrontation at Dayton was not between science and religion but between one set of religious beliefs and another.

The Necessity of Teaching Evolution (2)

Charles Judd, in his affidavit, stated that:

"It will be impossible, in my judgment, in the state university, as well as in the normal schools, to teach adequately psychology or the science of education without making constant reference to all the facts of mental development which are included in the general doctrine of evolution. ...
"In my judgment it will be quite impossible to carry on the work in most of the departments in the higher institutions of the state of Tennessee without teaching the doctrine of evolution as the fundamental basis for the understanding of all human institutions."
(Italics added for emphasis)

Now Judd really should have known what he was talking about on this subject, since he had been the Director of the School of Education and head of the Department of Education at the University of Chicago for some sixteen years at the time of the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Unfortunately we find that at least two members of the defense team had no sensible knowledge of evolution - and therefore presumably, according to Dr. Judd, would be unable to understand the very subject which they practised - one of the most fundamental of human institutions - the Law:

Dudley Field Malone on evolution:

"The embryo becomes a human being when it is born.  Evolution never stops from the beginning of one cell until the human being returns in death to lifeless dust.  We wish to set before you evidence of this character in order to stress the importance of the theory of evolution."

Arthur Garfield Hays on evolution:

"I know that in the womb of the mother the very first thing is a cell, and that cell grows, and it subdivides, and it grows into a human being and a human being is born.  Does that statement, as the boy stated on the stand, that he was taught that man comes from a cell - is that a theory that man descended from a lower order of animals?  I don't know, and I dare say your honour has some doubt about it.  Are we entitled to find out whether it is or not in presenting this case to the jury."

Indeed, it is not entirely certain that the one expert witness for the defense who was allowed to take the stand was completely clear about the meaning of "evolution".
On being called to testify, Maynard Metcalf introduced himself thus:

"I have always been particularly interested in the evolution of the individual organism from the egg, and also the evolution of the organism as a whole from the beginning of life, that has been a peculiar interest of mine, always."

Metcalf later gave a slightly more coherent description of the term "evolution" (see below), but this introductory explanation was, in itself, contrary to the modern understanding of the term for individual organisms do not evolve - only populations.  Once again, by today's standards, this statement reflected an "opinion", not a "fact".

In all of the last three quotes the speaker indicates a belief that "evolution" is a process that takes place within the individual.  The current view holds that the process that makes evolution possible - genetic mutation - occurs within individuals.  But evolution itself only occurs when the altered genetic material enters the gene pool.  Thus individuals do not evolve - only groups of individuals:

"Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve."
Futuyma, Douglas J. in Evolutionary Biology, (2nd ed., 1986)

Clearly the claim that it would be impossible to carry on any higher education without teaching the 'doctrine' of evolution is categorically an "opinion", not a "fact".

The Meaning of "Evolution"

As we saw earlier, it was Maynard Metcalf's contention that "evolution" was a "fact", even if no one could agree on how or why it happened.  But what did Metcalf mean by "the fact of evolution"?

"Evolution, I think, means the change -- in the final analysis I think it means the change of an organism from one character into a different character, and by character I mean its structure, or its behavior, or its function or its method of development from the egg or anything else - the change of an organism from one characteristic which characterizes it into a different condition, characterized by a different set of characteristics, either structural or functional, could be properly called, I think, evolution - to be the evolution of that organism; but the term in general means the whole series of such changes which have taken place during hundreds of millions of years which have produced from lowly beginnings - the nature of which is not by any means fully understood - to organisms of much more complex character, whose structure and function we are still studying, because we haven't begun to learn what we need to know about them."

Metcalf, a researcher in zoology, seems to have been yet another expert who believed that individuals evolve.  It says a lot about either the mendacity or the ignorance, or both, of H.L. Mencken - the journalist frequently associated with the Scopes Trial - that he described Metcalf's verbal testimony thus:

" Then began one of the clearest, most succinct and withal most eloquent presentations of the case for the evolutionists that I have ever heard .... The doctor was never at a loss for a word, and his ideas flowed freely and smoothly."

Which seems to be a trifle starry-eyed, to say the least.
For myself, even if I knew what on earth Metcalf was trying to say, it strikes me that this answer is framed very much as an "opinion" as to the popularist definition of evolution at that time rather than as the statement of a scientific "fact".
What is certain is that at least part of this statement falls into a common trap described by Douglas Futuyma:

'[Evolution's] tenets have frequently been misinterpreted (for example, "evolution" is often equated with "progress")'
Evolutionary Biology, (2nd ed., 1986)

To be fair, here, what most people forget is that the meaning of "evolution" in 1925 was significantly different from what "evolution" means today.  Part 12:   Evolution and Species, deals with this subject in more detail.

The Meaning of the Fossil Record

The UMKC Law School site also tells us that:

[Kirtley Mather] offered extensive testimony on how geologists are able to accurately tell the history of various animal and plant life by discovering and researching fossil remains.  He testified that in many rocks they find, there are fossil remains of both plants and animals that are as old as the rocks in which they are found.  Mr Mather then traced out a chronological time line of the oldest rocks and the fossils found."

Douglas Futuyma makes this simple observation:

"Most people suppose that evolutionary relationships can be read directly from the fossil record, but this is seldom the case.  For most groups, especially those that do not fossilize rapidly, the paleontological record is too fragmentary to be useful.  Even in groups with a good fossil record, there are seldom evenly graded series of fossils between old and young forms ... relationships cannot be inferred solely from temporal sequences of fossils."

Please note that Futuyma is not arguing against the theory of evolution, nor is he saying that there are no fossil lines in which there are transitional forms.  Nevertheless, when the whole story is told we find that what few examples there are of unbroken fossil ancestry are never unequivocal and are therefore inevitably open to interpretation.
Kirtley Mather was clearly stating an "opinion", not a "fact".

Who Needs Darwin, Anyway?

One of the most breathtaking pieces of "expert" testimony came from Wilbur Nelson, the Tennessee state geologist:

"In his affidavit, he asserted that Tennessee could not have taught geology for ninety-seven years prior to this trial without stressing the doctrine of evolution as a foundation for this field of study."

Truly amazing!
Using the most basic arithmetic, if I take 97 (ninety-seven) away from 1925 I get 1828.  Which means that, according to this witness, the state of Tennessee geology department was using the theory of evolution as its guide:

  • two years before the publication of the first volume of Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology
  • nine years before Charles Darwin started his first notebook on The Species Question
  • and a staggering thirty-one years before the first publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species.

One cannot help but marvel at Mr Nelson's desire to serve the cause, but with all due respect this is clearly not as straightforward as Mr Nelson made out.
(For more details see:
Alas, Poor Darwin - I Knew Him Well.)

The Formation of the Grand Canyon

Seeking to provide proof of the vast age of the earth, Professor Curtis commented:

"For example, such a vast chasm as the Grand Canyon is explained not as produced by miraculous creation or by sudden catastrophe, but by running water acting upon the rock throughout innumerable centuries."

Wrong, and wrong again, Professor.  It is now widely believed by geologists that the Grand Canyon was very much the result of 'catastrophic' geological activity - about 13 catastrophies, in fact.
Instead of the "erosion over eons" scenario, it is now thought that lava streams resulting from volcanic activity in the area produced a series of temporary dams.  According to the "Breached Dam" model, each dam caused a lake to form behind it, which eventually burst through the lava barrier and, following the path created by previous breaches, gouged away the rock and earth beyond.  So it's still 'no' to "miraculous creation", but a strong 'yes' to "sudden catatrophe".

Once again the expert evidence turns out to be "opinion" rather than "fact".

The 'Biogenetic Law'

Another of Professor Curtis' offerings related to the so-called Biogenetic Law:

"The kind of evidence [for evolution] everywhere discoverable may be illustrated by the gill slits in the embryos of higher vertebrates like reptiles, birds and mammals."

What Curtis is trying to demonstrate here, the "biogenetic law", proclaimed that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny".  In plain English that means that, allegedly, if a creature has evolved by way of fishes, reptiles and dog-like mammals then its embryo will develop through successive stages where it resembles (to some extent) a fish, a reptile and a dog-like creature.
In truth, however, the good professor was again presenting two errors wrapped up in one.

In the first place it turns out that the biogenetic law, dreamed up by a German biologist Ernst Haeckel in the late 1800s, was effectively a complete fabrication.
Secondly, the 'gill slits' aren't gill slits at all.

Ernst Haeckel was almost obsessively pro-Darwinist, so much so that he believed that he was entirely justified in faking evidence that would (appear to) prove Darwin's ideas correct and confound his opponents.
To this end Haeckel created a set of drawings which, he claimed, accurately depicted fish, salamander, tortoise, chicken, pig, calf, rabbit, dog and human embryos, all of which appeared to be passing through almost identical stages of development.  This, Haeckel said, proved that all of the embryos in the study shared a common ancestry.
What he carelessly forgot to mention was that the drawings had all been carefully 'doctored'.

As embryologist Michael Richardson noted, when he tried to replicate Haeckel's illustrations in 1997 (but using photography rather than sketches), "... not only did Haeckel add or omit features ... he also fudged the scale to exaggerate similarities among species, even when there were 10-fold differences in size."

The picture below shows, on the upper line, six of Haeckel's drawings as they appeared, for example, in his 1874 textbook on embryology - Anthropogenie.  The lower line shows photographs of actual embryo's (of the same creatures) at approximately the age of the embryos in Haeckel's drawings:

Haeckel's drawings and modern photos

One of the features that had convinced Haeckel that he was merely demonstrating the obvious was his complete misinterpretation of the features referred to as "gill slits" found in the human embryo.
Indeed, so widespread did this myth become that even in 1958, Ray Ginger was still offering an explanation that seems to claim that every human embryo actually evolves during the gestation period:

"Or take the gill slits of the human embryo.  These structures exist in the embryo because of the inheritance from man's early aquatic ancestry, but their lack of function in the human adult caused their disappearance in favor of more useful structures."

Even more surprisingly, Haeckel's illustrations are still being used as though they were accurate.  For example, one version appeared in a book on child development - What's Going on In There? by neurologist Lise Eliot, PhD. - published as recently as 1999.

So that's no points to Dr Haeckel, no points to Professor Curtis, no points to Dr. Eliot, and no points to Professor Ginger BECAUSE -

These structures never were 'gill slits'.  As the embryo matures they develop into the middle ear, the parathyroid and the thymus gland!

And that isn't the only error that comes from judging by appearances ...

"Homology is Crucial"

Since Professor Ginger has been so forth-coming on the subject of the expert testimony, let's ask him to stay a little longer and tell us about that vitally important subject: homology.

'The evidence of evolution did not consist merely in the fossil records; the theory could also be tested experimentally by many laboratory sciences.  This was true because, as [Horatio Hackett] Newman put it, "the entire fabric of evolutionary evidence is woven about a single broad assumption": that structural resemblance arises from kinship.'

Clear?  No?  Okay, Ginger goes on to explain:

"The principle of homology is crucial: homologous structures have the same embryonic origin and the same relation to other structures, but they are superficially quite different in appearance and they play quite different functional roles.  The human arm is homologous with the foreleg of a horse, the wing of a bird, the flipper of a whale."

What Ginger failed to mention, and almost certainly didn't know (we'll see in a moment how wrong he was about embryonic origins), is that there are four significant problems associated with the claim that homology is evidence of common descent.

Firstly, if homology is to be used as evidence that various creatures are linked by evolutionary descent, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the homologous features of, say, a man, a newt and a lizard, are all arrived at by the same process of development in the embryo until some point where each begins to take its final form (arm, fin, leg).  Indeed, Professor Newman made more or less that exact point in his affidavit:

"There should be no sharp division between the evidences from comparative anatomy and those from embryology.
Those two branches of biology are inseparable; one must be interpreted in the light of the other."

Yet time an again, modern embryology has shown that supposedly related features are actually arrived at by differing routes - to a greater or lesser degree.  In the example just given, the newt's fin develops from segments 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the trunk; the lizard's front legs develop from trunk segments 6, 7, 8 and 9; and a human arm develops from trunk segments 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.

Secondly, scientists are now aware that structures which appear to be similar can develop quite independently.  This is known as homoplasy .  As Futuyma comments:

"... the leaflessness and growth form of New World cacti and some Old World Euphorbiaceae are extremely similar adaptations to arid conditions; ..."

In other words, apparantly homologous features may be found where, to the best of our knowledge, no ancestral relationship is involved.

Thirdly, there are supposedly homologous features which resist a homologous interpretation.  Thus Professor Newman, apparently without recognizing the implications of his claim, wrote that:

"The leg of man, a specialized walking appendage, is much less versatile than is the arm; yet it is closely homologous with the latter.

And he's quite right, of course.  So the only question is: Did our arms evolve from our legs, or our legs from our arms?

The fourth problem is the most insurmountable of all, again in a man which Newman hints at but fails to see:

According to Newman:

"the entire fabric of evolutionary evidence is woven about a single broad assumption": that structural resemblance arises from kinship.'

But here's the problem: If homolgy is defined as 'similarity of structure being the result of common descent', then it cannot also be evidence of common descent because that results in a circular argument which goes:

"You can prove that life forms which are homologous (i.e. which have similarities in structure) are descended from a common ancestor because being homologous means being descended from a common ancestor."

In the case of this last point it must be said that readers can still find the "homolgy is descent/homology proves descent" argument being offered in modern textbooks.
Nevertheless, insofar as we have shown that homology cammot be used to support the notion of descent from a common ancestor, this element of the expert testimony clearly was not a "fact" in 1925, any more than it is a fact now.

Yet again, the expert testimony turns out to be "opinion" and not "fact".

No Facts - Only Opinions

We could go on like this for a good deal longer, but we would only be repeating the same simple fact - that Hays was wrong about the kind of evidence the defence 'experts' would give.  In reality, though it was undoubtedly presented in all good faith, and based on the best information available in 1925, a great deal of the scientific evidence offered at the Scopes Trial did not consist of facts - it was, instead, a catalogue of opinions.
And inaccurate opinions at that.

Some people will no doubt argue that this is all a bit of a red herring, since evolutionists have now corrected the errors of their predecessors.  But this is beside the point.
The question we set out to answer was simply: Was the expert evidence put forward at the Scopes Trial "fact" or "opinion"?  And we have shown that on a number of crucial points the evidence was all opinion and no facts.

And maybe that's why the expert evidence for the defence gets so little 'air time'?

The Scopes "Monkey" Trial Site Map
 

Introduction
A brief description of the Scopes Trial - the original proceedings, the effective fictionalising of the event in F.L. Allen's book Only Yesterday, and the confusion surrounding the play Inherit the Wind.  Also a short biography of the author.

Part 1: Summary
A short history of the events leading up to the Scopes Trial, the trial itself, and what happened afterwards.  Includes lists of the lawyers, witnesses, jurors, etc. involved in the Scopes Trial.  Explains why it was called the "Monkey" trial.

Part 2: Inherit the Wind
Looks at the real story behind the writing of the play Inherit the Wind, and some of the key differences between the play and the actual trial.  Explains where the title came from, and what it signifies.

Part 3: A Cult of Misinformation
The Scopes Trial has been the subject of a mountain of misinformation from the time of the trial through to the present day.  The members of this "cult" include not just journalists and authors but also lawyers, university professors, the Encyclopaedia Britannica and even the Library of Congress.  This section shows why the real life events are so widely misunderstood today.

Part 4: How it Began
Discusses the Butler Act (the basis for the charge against John Scopes), the action of the ACLU, the "Drugstore Conspiracy" which led to the trial being staged in Dayton, and how the two sets of lawyers were selected - or in some cases selected themselves.  This section includes the names of all of the lawyers on both sides.

Part 5: The Experts - and Others
Details of the expert witnesses due to give evidence for the defense - and two potential witnesses, one of whom did make an appearance (Piltdown Man), and one who didn't (Nebraska Man).

Part 6: The Expert Evidence
Arthur Hays claimed that the expert witnesses would deal only in "facts."  This section discusses specific items of "expert testimony" in the light of that claim and subsequent discoveries.

Part 7: Hunter's Civic Biology
Details of the true nature of the contents of Hunter's textbook A Civic Biology.
Part 8: The Trial - Part 1     In preparation
A timeline of the main events of the trial on a day-by-day basis.

Part 9: The Trial - Part 2
A detailed evaluation of the confrontation between Darrow and Bryan on the afternoon of day 7, with numerous quotes from the trial transcript and elsewhere.

Part 10: The Appeal
Many people know that the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the original result of the trial, but why?  Was John Scopes found "not guilty"?  What reasons did the Supreme Court give for their decision?
And what the heck is a nolle prosequi anyway?

Part 11: Was Scopes Guilty?
Another remarkable feature of the Scopes Trial was the number of lies involved - the biggest of which centers on the likelihood that the defense lawyers deliberately concealed the fact that Scopes was genuinely "not guilty."

Part 12: 80 Years of Evolution and Species
(Under Construction.  Additional material will be added.  Existing material may be subject to further editing.)
In Part 6 we looked at the kind of "evidence" offered by the expert witnesses.  In this section we look specifically at the meaning of terms such as "evolution" and "species" in 1925 and 2006.

Part 13: Education After the Scopes Trial
This section describes what happened to the teaching of evolutionary theory in American schools after the trial; and what Americans believe about the teaching of evolutionism and creationism today.

Part 14: Clarence Darrow - Attorney for the Damned?
Whilst the ACLU triggered the Scopes Trial, and the "drugstore conspirators" brought it to Dayton, the guiding force behind the events during the trial itself was Clarence Darrow.  This section looks at what motivated Darrow to essentially hi-jack the ACLU campaign and use it for his own ends.

Part 15: The Significance of the Scopes Trial
This section considers some of the many clashes in American society in the 1920s and considers whether they were genuine clashes, and if they were, what influence the Scopes Trial had an on any of them.
It also reveals what will be, for many people, surprising new information about the role of the University of Chicago in American culture at that time discovered by Professor of the History of Science, Edward Davis.

Part 16: The Play, the Movie and the Trial
(Under Construction.  Additional material will be added.  Existing material may be subject to further editing.)
A detailed examination of the differences between the play and first film version of Inherit the Wind, and the real life Scopes Trial.

Part 20: Links and Resources
A list of websites and books related to the Scopes Trial, including the trial transcript and the script of Inherit the Wind.