Hi, it's Ira Flato, and you're listening to Science Friday.

On the show today, revisiting the Scokes trial, today marks the last day of the trial 100 years ago.

Why is the case still relevant today?

The issues that are being discussed, they have to do with change, but beyond that,

they have to do with freedom.

It's been a hundred years since the Scopes Monkey trial. Maybe you've studied in history class,

maybe you've seen the 1960

movie inherit the wind. And on its face, the case was relatively straightforward. A Tennessee

biology teacher, John Scopes, was on trial for teaching human evolution to his students,

which at the time was against the law. Both sides enlisted the help of

big-name lawyers to represent them. He had William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and

Clarence Darrow for the defense, and the case turned into a national spectacle as actually

they hoped it would. We might get into that a little bit more later. But like I say,

that was a hundred years ago. Why then has the legacy of the case persisted over the century?

And what can it help us understand about our current moment? Joining me now to help answer those

questions is my guest, Brenda Wineapple, author of Keeping the Faith, God, Democracy, and the Trial

that Riveted a Nation. She's based in New York. Welcome to Science Friday.

Hi, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. You're welcome. So nice to have you. Can we zoom out a little

bit and talk about the context? What else was happening in 1925 when the Scopes trial was taking place? I'm

talking about political, cultural context. Absolutely. In 1925, right smack in the middle of what's

called and everybody's familiar with the roaring 20s. But as I like to say, the roaring 20s didn't roar for

everyone. And one of the things

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