Professor Ed Larson Delivers Palmer Hotz Endowed Lecture at University of Arkansas

Professor Edward J. Larson was the guest speaker for the Palmer Hotz Lecture Series in the History of Science at the University of Arkansas Honors College. Professor Larson discussed the 1925 case The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes on the centennial of the decision. 

From the University of Arkansas Honor College:

As we approach its 100-year anniversary this July, the cultural salience of the “Scopes Trial” endures.

A misdemeanor legal case that was purposely staged into a contentious drama became a blazing emblem for America’s power struggle between individual freedoms and majority opinion. 

“Even when I walk into a high school biology class, most students have heard of the ‘Scopes Trial,’ and they all have their own ideas on why it’s still important today,” said Edward Larson, University Professor of history, Hugh and Hazel Darling Chair in Law at Pepperdine University and expert on the case. “I am convinced it’s the best-known trial in American history.”

Additional information may be found at University of Arkansas