85 years ago today John Scopes was indicted for violating the Butler Law – a law that made it illegal to teach evolution in Tennessee. The Scopes Trial, engineered by several parties to bring attention to both Dayton, Tennessee and the controversial anti-evolution laws, left a lasting mark on America’s legal system and the public perception of science. It was the bombastic firebrand H. L. Menken, one of the architects of the trial, that summerised best the spirit of the Monkey Trail:
The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.