Download Scopes Notes - Seaford School District

• March, 2017
Raw:
• What two
theories did the
Simpson’s
episode discuss?
• Who get’s
arrested and
tried during the
episode? What
for?
•AIM:
•What was
the real
debate
behind the
Scopes
Monkey
Trial?
I. What is Evolution?
•Charles Darwin’s Origin of
Species (1856)
•Animals adapt to their
environment
•Giraffe, Zebra, Cheetah
•PEOPLE??
II. What is Creationism?
• Creationism is the religious belief that life, the
Earth, and the universe are the creation of God.
• The Bible Belt is an informal term for a region
in the southern U.S. in which socially
conservative Protestantism is a major part of the
culture.
• Christian church attendance across the different
denominations is generally higher than the
nation's average.
Butler Act
• The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law
prohibiting public school teachers from denying
the Biblical Account of man’s origin.
• The law also prevented the teaching of the
evolution of man from what it referred to as
lower orders of animals in place of the Biblical
account.
III. Tennessee v. John Scopes
(May 5, 1925)
• John Scopes is arrested for teaching evolution in a
Tennessee school in violation of state law.
• Scopes purposefully incriminated himself so that the
case could have a defendant. (ACLU)
• The "Scopes Monkey Trial" pitted the country's
best lawyer, Clarence Darrow (representing
Scopes), against the veteran politician William
Jennings Bryan for the prosecution.
Scopes
Darrow
Bryan
The State of Tennessee v. John
Thomas Scopes
• The real debate of this trial set modernists, who
said evolution was consistent with religion,
against fundamentalists who said the word of
God as revealed in the Bible took priority over
all human knowledge.
• The guilty verdict for Scopes on July 21 ordered
to pay $100
What Came First???
• Would the
outcome of the
Scopes case be
the same if it
were tried
today? Why or
why not?
The 1925 trial of John Scopes reflects
the conflict between:
A. Science and religion
B. Isolation and international
involvement
C. Traditional roles and new roles for
women
D.Prohibition and organized crime
•Most people at the time did not take the trial seriously and called it
the Monkey Trial. What part do monkeys play in the trial?
Lesson Reflection
Thinking about the Simpsons Episode
from yesterday and today’s class about
the Scopes Trial:
• What was the real debate behind the
Scopes Monkey Trial?