Scopes, John Thomas

(b. c. 1895)

   Scientific Educator.

   Scopes was a young high school teacher in Dayton, Tennessee. In 1925 he was charged with teaching darwin’s theory of evolution in his science lessons. This was forbidden by Tennessee state law. The case gave rise to a sensational trial. On one side was the fundamentalist William Bryan, a congressman from Nebraska and three times an unsuccessful contender for the Democratic nomination, and on the other, a well-known sceptical lawyer, Clarence Darrow. Although in the end, Scopes was found guilty and was fined one hundred dollars, Bryan’s arguments were felt to be ill-informed and specious. The Scopes trial, as it was called, did much to discredit fundamentalism with the American public.

   W.G. Gatewood Jr (ed.), Controversy in the Twenties: Fundamentalism, Modernism and Evolution (1969);

   R. Ginger, Six Days or Forever? Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (1958).