The Church Versus Galileo
RELIGION
CONFLICT
SCIENCE
On this new champion, Galileo,
the whole war was at last
concentrated. His discoveries had
clearly taken the Copernican
theory out the list of hypotheses,
and had placed it before the world
as a truth. Against him, then, the
war was long and bitter.
A. D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1900)
The Anti-Evolution Crusade (1920s)
Historical Context:
Background to the Trial
• aftermath of WWI
• secondary education
• North v. South
• Social Darwinism/eugenics
• modernism v. fundamentalism
• academic freedom v. local control
Quotes: Aftermath of WWI
• Vernon Kellogg, Headquarters Nights (1917)
Natural selection based on violent and fatal competitive struggle is the gospel
of the German intellectuals.
• George Barry O’Toole, The Case Against Evolution (1925)
The World War has done much to dampen the ardor of those who looked
forward with enthusiasm to the millenium of a purely scientific religion. In
this spectacular lesson they have learned that science can destroy as well as
build.
• W. J. Bryan, closing argument for Scopes Trial (1925)
Science is a magnificent material force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can
perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the
misuse of the machine . . . In war, science has proven itself an evil genius; it
has made war more terrible than it ever was before . . . but science does not
teach brotherly love. Science has made war so hellish that civilization was
about to commit suicide . . .
Quotes: Secondary Education
• James H. Leuba, The Belief in God and Immortality (1916)
The deepest impression left by these records is that . . . Christianity, as a system of belief, has
utterly broken down . . . [Among students] the proportion of disbelievers in immortality
increases considerably from the freshman to the senior year in college . . . [Among scientists]
the smallest percentage of believers is found among the greatest biologists.
• W. J. Bryan, In His Image (1922)
Can Christians be indifferent to such statistics [as Leuba’s]? What shall it profit a man if he
shall gain all the learning of the schools and lose his faith in God.
• W. J. Bryan, closing argument for Scopes Trial (1925)
Do bad doctrines corrupt the morals of students? We have a case in point. [Mr. Darrow] was
engaged about a year ago in defending two rich men’s sons who were on trial for as dastardly
a murder as was ever committed . . . [“Babe” Leopold] was an evolutionist and an atheist . . .
Psychologists who build upon the evolutionary hypothesis teach that man is nothing but a
bundle of characteristics inherited from brute ancestors. That is the philosophy which Mr.
Darrow applied in this celebrated criminal case . . . This is the quintessence of evolution,
distilled for us by one who follows that doctrine to its logical conclusion. Analyze this
dogma of darkness and death . . .
Quotes: North v. South
• H. L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun (July 14, 1925)
The net effect of Clarence Darrow’s great speech yesterday seems to be precisely the same as
if he had bawled it up a rainspout in the interior of Afghanistan . . . The very judge on the
bench, toward the end of it, began to look uneasy. But the morons in the audience, when it
was over, simply hissed it . . . [Bryan] has these hill billies locked up in his pen and he knows
it. His brand is on them.
• H. L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun (July 18, 1925)
The Scopes trial, from the start, has been carried on in a manner exactly fitted to the antievolution law and the simian imbecility under it . . . The rustic judge, a candidate for reelection, has postured before the yokels like a clown in a ten-cent side show . . . [Bryan]
realizes at last that the glories of this world are not for him, and he takes refuge, peasant-like,
in religious hallucinations. They depart from sense altogether. They are not merely silly;
they are downright idiotic. And being idiotic; they appeal with irresistible force to the poor
half-wits upon whom the old charlatan now preys . . . It serves notice on the country that
Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of
sense, and devoid of conscience . . . There are other States that had better look to their
arsenals before the Hun is at their gates.
Quotes: Social Darwinism/Eugenics
• W. J. Bryan, “The Prince of Peace” (1904)
The Darwinian theory represents man as reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law
of hate—the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak.
• George W. Hunter, A Civic Biology (1914)
Parasitism and Its Cost to Society. —Hundreds of families . . . exist to-day, spreading disease,
immorality, and crime . . . The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain
animals or plants become parasitic on society, these families have become parasitic on society . . .
They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.
The Remedy. —If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent
them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the
sexes in asylums . . . and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of
perpetuating such a low and degenerate race . . .
• Henry Fairfield Osborn, The Earth Speaks to Bryan (1925)
[The] press treats in descending order of importance the following subjects which daily affect our
lives: Fashion, Athletics, Political Misconduct, Politics, national and local (i.e., government), the
Stage and the Movies, Private Misconduct (crime, etc.), Foreign Politics, Education, Food &
Health, Religion. Small wonder that ours is not a religious age; small wonder that education,
which Lincoln regarded as the very first concern in the conduct of the State, is little in our
thought . . . [68-69]
Quotes: Modernism v. Fundamentalism
• Shailer Mathews, University of Chicago divinity school (July 10, 1925)
The writers of the Bible used the language, conceptions and science of the times in which
they lived. We trust and follow their religious insight with no need of accepting their views
on nature . . . We have to live in the universe science gives us. A theology that is contrary to
reality must be abandoned or improved . . . He who understands the Bible in accordance with
actual facts has no difficulty in realizing the truth of its testimony that God is in the
processes which have produced and sustained mankind . . .
• Henry Fairfield Osborn, Professor of Zoology, Columbia University (1925)
The earth speaks, clearly, distinctly, and, in many of the realms of Nature, loudly, to William
Jennings Bryan, but he fails to hear a single sound . . . The earth speaks not of succession of
distinct creations but of a continuous ascent, in which, as the millions of years roll by,
increasing perfection of structure and beauty of form are found . . . This is not perhaps the
way Bryan would have made the animals, but this is the way God made them! [5-6]
Evolution by no means takes God out of the universe, as Mr. Bryan supposes, but it greatly
increases the wonder, the mystery, and the marvellous order which we call “Natural Law,”
pervading all Nature. [24]
• John Greer Hibbon, President of Princeton University (1925)
I resent the attempt to force on me and you the choice between evolution and religion.
Quotes: Academic Freedom v.
Local Control
• W. J. Bryan, “Who Shall Control?” (June 1925)
The first question to be decided is: Who shall control our public schools? We have something
like twenty-six millions of children in the public schools and spend over one billion and seven
hundred thousands a year upon these schools. As the training of children is the chief work of
each generation, the parents are interested in the things to be taught the children.
Four sources of control have been suggested. The first is the people, speaking through their
legislatures. That would seem to be the natural source of control. The people are sovereigns and
governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . If not the legislatures,
then who shall control? Boards of Education? . . . All authority goes back at last to the people;
they are the final source of authority.
Some have suggested that the scientists should decide what shall be taught. How many scientists
are there? . . . If the number is put at eleven thousand, it makes about one scientist for every ten
thousand people—a pretty little oligarchy to put control of education of all the children . . .
The fourth source suggested is the teacher. Some say, let the teacher be supreme and teach
anything that seems best to him. The proposition needs only by stated to be rejected as absurd.
The teacher is an employee and receives a salary; employees take directions from their
employers, and the teacher is no exception to the rule . . .
The Courtroom Drama Unfolds
The Main Players . . .
John T. Scopes
Clarence Darrow
William Jennings
Bryan
Hollywood Versus History
“Inherit the Wind does not pretend to be journalism. It
might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow . . .”
Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee
How well does the film Inherit the
Wind reflect the historical reality of
the Scopes Trial?
• the movie is NOT about the trial
• Scopes & Dayton v. Cates & Hillsboro
• Bryan v. Brady
• Darrow v. Drummond