The, Anti Evolution And The State Of Arkansas

I am humbly asking that the court of Tennessee will appeal its verdict in regards to the nationally recognized Scope v. State, in 1925. This case will argue the liberties in educating future scientist and general students; and not subjecting religious beliefs in a publicly taxed arena. John Scopes( the defendant) is an educator serving as a substitute teacher at Rhea County High School in Dayton, Tennessee public school system. The defendant was accused of violating the “Butler Act” on the 25th of May, 1925 ,which forbade the teachings of Evolution in public schools because, of the major contradictions to biblical doctrines. William Jennings Bryan( the Prosecutor) was a highly respected lawyer and former secretary of State. Clarence Darrow was an extremely notable attorney who served as legal counsel for Mr. Scopes.The defendants actions resulted in a criminal trial that was held for eight days. Coverage of the case was the first to be publicized by a reporters in the courtroom. The verdict was in favor of the state of Tennessee which motioned that the Butler Act was broken. Scopes found guilty and charged with a substantial fine of $ 100 dollars($1366 in 2017). It is my argument that the defendant was poorly favored by the court because, the testimonies examined where those persons whom Mr. Scope taught the chapter Evolution to. Testimonies that would support the defendant was overruled.

Louisiana legislators established the Louisiana Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act. The Act forbids the teaching of the theory of evolution and the theory of “creation science” in public elementary and secondary schools unless accompanied by the instruction of the theory other. The Act defines the theories as the scientific evidence for creation or evolution and inferences from those scientific evidence. The lower courts established that the Act violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because it lacked a clear secular purpose.

The Scopes trial, writes Edward Larson, to most Americans embodies “the timeless debate over science and religion.” (265) Written by historians, judges, and playwrights, the history of the Scopes trial has caused Americans to perceive “the relationship between science and religion in . . . simple terms: either Darwin or the Bible was true.” (265) The road to the trial began when Tennessee passed the Butler Act in 1925 banning the teaching of evolution in secondary schools. It was only a matter of time before a young biology teacher, John T. Scopes, prompted by the ACLU tested the law. Spectators and newspapermen came from allover to witness

In the late nineteen-eighties, Edwards v. Aguillard argued that a Louisiana law was against the First Amendment of the Constitution. This law prohibited public schools from teaching about evolution and the evolutionary processes unless the topic was taught alongside religious based creation theories. More specifically, this law imposed on public schools was argued to have broken the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This clause simply says that absolutely no law can establish or support a religion (“Establishment Clause”, 2011). Many people challenged the state’s law including local parents and teachers as well as men and women with religious affiliations. Ultimately, the Supreme Court found that the state’s act was unlawful according to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment due to the fact that there was no non-religious basis to the act. The creation theories are entirely based around the idea that an all-powerful god created the human race. Therefore the state is promoting this religious teaching. Although it was argued that the act was to give students more opportunities to learn, the point was made that the teachers lost the power to make decisions in his or her own classroom. Furthermore, the law inhibits the learning of children by banning the teaching of evolution unless creation is also taught in the classroom. The law

In one corner we had William Jennings Bryan who was an unsuccessful presidential candidate and seasoned leader of the Democratic Party. Although Bryan was a conservative Christian he was also a complex man. The fundamentalist man was far from a legal or political dummy; he'd previously served as secretary of state and he was an exceptional public speaker. Bryan was also a strong, verbal critic of the teaching of evolution in the United States. With experience and his legal and political expertise aiding his legal preparation Bryan attempted to make his personal beliefs, objectives, and motives a supplementary aspect in favor of creating a more nuanced basis for his argument. As Bryan focused on subtly weaving in his core Christian, fundamentalist beliefs into his argument he put himself in a position that allowed him to center his argument against teaching evolution in public schools at the taxpayer's expense. Bryan and many of his followers thought it was unfair that the Bible and Christianity could not be taught in public schools along with evolution. Many felt that taxpayers were paying for the instruction that they believed was undermining children's faith in their parents' religion. Bryan was also against teaching evolution as fact instead of just theory. As a result, Larson forces us to see a picture of conflict between the democracy, represented by Bryan, and individual rights, represented by Clarence Darrow and the

In 1925, the Butler Act was passed, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. The teaching of evolution was seen as a destructive force that would destroy civilization, and a threat to the word of God (Document 3a). An American teacher, John Scopes, was sent to trial for teaching evolution in his biology class. During the trial, Dudley Field Malone, an attorney at the time, argued that the courts were not debating whether Scopes taught a couple of pages of evolution to his class. Rather, they were debating whether or not society should be based on religion or science (Document 4). This produced a shift from ancient beliefs to modern ideas because the popular trial was able to finally bring science to life in

It was stated that Scopes didn’t deliberately teach the theory of Evolution, but the classroom assigned book by the state featured a chapter on it(Armstrong). The whole trial proved that the judge treated everything with extreme bias, from allowing a prayer before each day to making it nearly impossible for Darrow to get a good argument that would be allowed to stay in the records(Noah). When Scopes was asked what point in time that he taught Evolution he said that he didn’t remember if he did at all because it wasn’t in his lesson plans(Noah). This case was held with the most disrespect a judge or state could give a

On January 20, 1925, a Tennessee state senator named John A. Shelton proposed a bill to make the teaching of evolution in the state’s public schools a felony, or a criminal act. Fundamentalists had been supporting and pushing the passage of laws such as this for years, because the teaching of evolution and Darwinism contradicts the religious beliefs of creation in Christianity. Popular evangelist, Billy Sunday, undertook an eighteen-day crusade in Memphis in support of the prospective bill. Night after night, Sunday’s audiences grew until more than two-hundred thousand people heard him preach against the evils of evolution. The bill, known as the Butler Act, was officially passed on March 21, 1925, just 3 months after its proposal. Just as state legislators suspected, the ink had hardly dried on the Butler Act before its first challenger emerged.

The Tinker v. Des Moines case had lots of impacts; including the Tinker family’s lives over the years. Mary Beth continued in activist movements such as peace, anti-war, and civil rights efforts. John Tinker continued his anti-war movements in college. He even ended up majoring in protest. In addition, only 2 years after the ruling, leading attorney for the Tinkers, Dan Johnston, was invited to Roosevelt High School to be their commencement speaker (Anker). Secondly, to mark the 50th anniversary of the case, On December 15, 2015, Mary Beth and John Tinker visited Roosevelt High School and discussed students’ rights. Besides the effects of the people involved in the case, many subsequent cases have also been affected from the Tinker v. Des Moines case. For example, a subsequent case similar to the Tinker case would be Epperson v. Arkansas. In this case, a teacher, in a public school, sued the school for prohibiting her from teaching human evolution. The Supreme Court, with Justice Abe Fortas writing the opinion, concluded that "The State's undoubted right to prescribe the curriculum for its public schools does not carry with it the right to prohibit, on pain of criminal penalty, the teaching of a scientific theory or doctrine where that prohibition is based upon reasons that violate the First Amendment” (qtd. in “Epperson v.

“In 1925, Tennessee outlawed teaching the theory of human evolution in public schools.” This ban of evolution was taken to court and was named the Scopes Monkey Trial, since the Tennessee teacher John Scopes was the defendant in the case. However, as Ronald Numbers states in his book, Galileo Goes to Jail: and other myths about science and religion, this was a response “to the invitation of the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposed the statute on free-speech grounds, [so] town leaders in Dayton, Tennessee, decided to test the new statute in court by arranging a friendly indictment of a local science teacher named John Scopes.” In this trial many celebrities in politics and law presided over this trial, in the end it was more of a publicity stunt than anything else. Yet for many years, this trial was believed to be entirely about how the very Christian based community of Tennessee didn’t agree with the teachings of evolution. This event was misconstrued so much that it was even printed in school books that give examples of Sciences fight against the tyranny of Christianity. Newspapers printed headlines about this trial for years to come and it lead the public to believe that this was not just about publicity but about the actual fight of science vs

The Scopes Trial and the Butler Act highlighted the conflict between the progressives and the traditionalists. The Butler Act banned schools in Tennessee from teaching anything other than the biblical account of creation, and a teacher named John T. Scopes challenged that law in court in 1925. Supporters of the Butler Act strongly voiced their opinions, and Mrs. Sparks, one of the supporters, called the theory of evolution “one of the destructive forces which will destroy our civilization. (Document U)”

The 1920’s was a time of prosperity and change in the United States, but with change comes disagreements. One of the largest debates during this time period, and still today, was the debate between science and religion. Many people were Christians in America during this time and they believed that the story of how God created the Earth should be taught in public schools. These people were called “fundamentalists.” They believed nothing could compare to or be as powerful as God’s word. The other side to this debate were the Modernists, or the ones who believed in science rather than religion. Modernists wanted to teach the theory of evolution in public schools instead of the Creation story the Fundamentalists believed in (“United States in History”). All of these different opinions led to one of the most famous trials known as the Scopes v. State of Tennessee trial. John Scopes was a substitute teacher in Tennessee who decided to teach the theory of evolution to a science class. Scopes was accused of violating the Butler Act, which states that teaching anything that

The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) gave an ad in the paper saying that it would financially help defend anyone who would teach evolution in a public school thus breaking the law. And George Rappleyea an oposser of the butler act went to see the town's school board's head school concerning this matter and they decided not only would this help the small town of Dayton but also will either

In early 1925, Tennessee passed a law that made it illegal to teach evolution. In the summer of 1925, a young schoolteacher named John Scopes stood trial in Dayton, Tennessee, for violating the state law against the teaching of evolution (The Scopes Trial).The jury found Scopes guilty of violating the law and fined him $100 (Scopes Trial). The Scopes trial resulted in two enduring conclusions: that legislatures should not restrain the freedom of scientific inquiry, and that society should respect academic freedom (The Scopes

Starting with the Scopes Trial, many more cases have occurred concerning the teaching of evolution. “By 1928 every southern state except Virginia had debated or was considering legislation banning the teaching of evolution in the