Evolution Went On Trial 100 Years Ago. Where Are We Now?

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🗓️ 9 July 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" — where a teacher was charged with the crime of teaching Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. At the time, it was illegal in Tennessee to "teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." The trial, which was orchestrated to be a media spectacle, foreshadowed the cultural divisions that continue today and led to a backlash against proponents of evolution.

Read more of science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce's reporting on the story.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from Curiosity Weekly. Science isn't just in the lab. It's in the voices of people
0:05.9	expanding what counts as science and opening up whose science is really for. Listen to Curiosity
0:12.1	Weekly wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:21.3	Hey, shortwavers. It's me, Regina Barber.
0:23.7	And today we're going to start with a famous play called Inherit the Wind.
0:27.8	Maybe you read it in high school or saw the classic movie made in 1960.
0:31.6	For our science lesson for today, we will continue our discussion of Darwin's theory of the descent of man.
0:40.7	This black and white film starts with town officials marching into a classroom.
0:44.8	There's a teacher standing next to this chart that shows a gorilla.
0:48.1	He's about to teach human evolution.
0:50.7	So he's arrested.
0:53.0	You're charged with violation of public acts 31428.
0:56.7	Volume 37, statute number 3.1.
0:58.7	The movie is about the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial, which happened 100 years ago this week.
1:05.0	Tennessee state law prohibited teaching human evolution.
1:08.5	And a teacher named John Scopes was put on trial for violating that law.
1:13.0	Yeah, but if your idea of this trial comes from Inherit the Wind, you better get ready for a shock.
1:17.7	That's NPR's science correspondent Nell Greenfield Boys. Hey, Nell. Hey there. So I'm excited to talk about
1:22.7	the Scopes trial with you because here in 2025, 100 years later, it still seems very relevant.
1:28.8	Yeah, I think in 1925, the nation really felt culturally divided and it kind of coalesced into
1:35.3	this one trial happening in the town of Dayton, Tennessee. And back then, the trial was this
1:40.1	huge, huge deal and it sort of foreshadowed a bunch of divisions in the country that I think to a certain
	...

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