Professor Ed Larson, "Our 100-Year-Old Courtroom Drama" -- Common Good

Professor Edward J. Larson's opinion article, "Our 100-Year-Old Courtroom Drama: The Many Trials of Scopes," is published in Common Good. The article examines how the case State of Tennessee v. John Scopes shaped the next 100 years of American Christianity, public and private education, and beyond. Professor Larson is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Summer For the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion.

Excerpt from "Our 100-Year-Old Courtroom Drama: The Many Trials of Scopes"

The now-legendary 1925 trial of John Scopes for teaching the theory of human evolution in Dayton, Tennessee, public schools remains the most well-known battle in the supposed war between science and religion to occur on American soil. A media event then and the stuff of popular myth thereafter, the story did not begin with John Scopes defying the public will by teaching human evolution. He probably never taught the subject. He was a high school football coach and general science instructor, not his school’s biology teacher, who may have covered the topic. It was in the state-assigned textbook.

The complete article may be found at Common Good