The 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial has come to define the evolution vs. creationism debate like no other event in American history. It was supposedly going to "settle" the question once and for all. It was also intended as an intellectual battle royal between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, two of the greatest minds of the early 20th century. According to this book, the reality was a lot less interesting.

The American Civil Liberties Union was a new liberal organization in New York, looking for publicity. The Butler Act was a Tennessee state law which mandated the teaching of creationism alongside evolution (which had been taught in Tennessee for the previous 15 years). The ACLU put ads in local newspapers, looking for a teacher to be arrested to test the law. John Thomas Scopes, a teacher and athletic coach in Dayton, Tennessee (a former steel town that had fallen on hard times) was persuaded to be that person. The trial quickly became the talk of America.

Spectators descended on Dayton by the hundreds (the city fathers hoped for thousands). The trial was marked by a lot of procedural wrangling by both sides, with the jury absent, on such questions as whether or not each day’s session should open with a prayer. The jury only heard about 3 hours of actual testimony. There were moments of great eloquence during the trial, but there was little of the hoped-for Bryan vs. Darrow.

The authors don’t end with Scopes being found guilty of teaching evolution, which both sides had planned on, but looks at more recent things like intelligent design. Those who believe in ID are portrayed as flexible and willing to listen to skeptics, while those who believe in evolution are shown as dogmatic and totally unwilling to listen to anyone who doesn’t believe as they do.

If the authors had ended this book at the end of the trial, I would give it two thumbs up; I can understand showing the current state of the evolution debate. Whatever your feelings on the matter, this is still recommended. ( )