The Scopes Monkey Trial: Facts & Fictions

Coming Soon: Salvo 73 - A Special Scopes Centennial Issue

This summer will mark the 100th anniversary of the famous (or infamous) Scopes “Monkey Trial.” For background, in early 1925, Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which prohibited teaching human evolution to students in Tennessee public schools. Dayton, Tennessee, high-school teacher John Scopes agreed to serve as a “test case” through which the ACLU would challenge the law. The trial lasted eight days, and Mr. Scopes was found guilty on July 21. The ruling was later overturned on a technicality.

According to secularist legend, the Scopes trial represented a great showdown between ignorant, fundamentalist religion and enlightened, scientific progress. A 1955 stage play and 1960 movie that followed, both titled Inherit the Wind, memorialized in the public mind images of bigoted, backward yokels said to have clashed with science-minded, forward-looking progressives in the little Tennessee town.

But that's not exactly what happened, not by longshot, in fact. There is much more to the story. In Salvo 73 (Summer 2025), we will bring you background and commentary on Scopes that you’re not likely to hear in any legacy media account. Here’s a sampling:

Was Prosecutor William Jennings Bryan Right After All? —Rick Townsend

Scientific Materialism & Civilizational Evils —Bob Perry

Social Darwinism & Racist Science —Joshua Pauling

How Darwinism Affected Views of Masculinity —Nancy Pearcey

Inherit the Wind & Fictionalized History —Anthony Esolen

Scopes & the Road to Dogmatism in Science Education —Casey Luskin

Kitzmiller v. Dover: A Parade of Darwinian Errors — Jonathan Witt

Testing Evolution in Light of What Darwin Didn’t Know —Hugh Ross

Can Darwinism Ground Morality? —Douglas Groothuis

TIES that Blind: Are Students Being Trained to Ridicule & Reject Competing Ideas? —Emily Morales

Peterson Academy’s “Evolution Inference” —Richard Stevens

What About “Third-Way” Evolution? —Casey Luskin

Eugenics, Old & New —Bryan Just

What About the Age of the Earth? —Tom & Elizabeth & Siewert

ID 3.0 & the Design Revolution —Casey Luskin & Brian Miller

Gaslighting Atheists —Thomas Williams

The Future of Science in an Age of “Private Truth” —Denyse O’Leary

Media outlets will be talking about Scopes this summer, and secularists and skeptics will be celebrating it. Salvo 73 will offer a more full-orbed treatment of it—of the trial itself, the cultural moment in which it took place, and subsequent developments that have taken place since.

You won’t want to miss this issue. Please note that if you are a Salvo subscriber, you will receive this issue in June. Given the consequential nature of Scopes, however, we are also making the issue available for advance bulk-discount orders; orders place by May 15 will also get free shipping. So we invite you to consider placing an order for your church, educational institution, or study group to help your friends and family prepare to engage in this cultural conversation from a more informed perspective. Click here for more information and to place your order.