The Scopes 'Monkey
Trial' vs. "Inherit the Wind"
|
Author: Curt Sewell |
Essays by
Author |
This piece was originally written as a
review of the TV Movie, "Inherit the Wind," which came out in March
of 1988. Thus, as of this present date
(October 1999), it's not exactly up-to-date, because there have been other
versions produced. However, I think
they all follow the same set of basic errors, so that what I've pointed out
here is probably still correct.
Curt Sewell, October1999
The Scopes
'Monkey Trial' TV Movie
The March 20 TV movie, Inherit the
Wind, was made to portray the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial." The original 1960 version of this movie has
been shown in countless school classrooms across the nation, and is said to be
historical. It has influenced many
people against creationism. But it had
so many gross distortions that, in all fairness, some clarification must be
made. From just seeing the movie,
almost any reasonable person would conclude that "religious
fundamentalists" are totally unreasonable, while evolutionists are
rational thinkers.
In the discussion below, several
parts of the movie are compared with the official transcript of the trial --
The World's Most Famous Court Trial, (Cincinnati, Ohio: National Book Co.,
1925), The Great Monkey Trial, by Sprague de Camp, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday
& Co., 1968), and other historical books.
I've condensed it from a longer article by Dr. David N. Menton, in BSA
Contrast, Jan-Feb 1985. The first major
discrepancy concerns the beginning of the case.
MOVIE: A minister, lawyer, and policeman go into a classroom where Cates
(representing John Scopes) is teaching evolution. They place him under arrest, and take him off to jail.
FACT: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wanted a test case to
nullify the Butler Act, which said that no public school teacher could deny the
Biblical creation account and teach that man was descended from apes, so they
placed a notice in the Chattanooga Daily Times newspaper saying, "We are
looking for a Tennessee teacher who is willing to accept our services in
testing this law in the courts." A
local mine operator, George Rappleyea, had a grudge against churches, and
persuaded Scopes to agree to be arrested.
Rappleyea's telegram to the ACLU is on record.
FACT: Scopes was not a biology teacher; he was the football coach. He only substituted for two weeks for the
regular biology teacher, Mr. Ferguson, who was ill. During this time, the schedule called for a class on evolution,
but Scopes is quoted as telling William E. Hutchinson of the International News
Service, "There's something I must tell you. It's worried me. I didn't
violate the law ... I never taught that evolution lesson. I skipped it. I was doing something else the day I should have taught it, and I
missed the whole lesson about Darwin, and never did teach it. Those kids they put on the stand couldn't
remember what I taught them three months ago.
They were coached by the lawyers."
================
MOVIE: Cates was shown as being held in jail during the entire time of
the trial. He is portrayed as a
dedicated teacher, willing to be prosecuted for standing up for the truth.
FACT: Scopes was arrested on a warrant sworn out by Rappleyea, and then
was immediately released on $1000 bail.
He was never put in jail.
================
MOVIE: In several spots, lawyers and a witness refer to a book by Darwin
being used in class.
FACT: No Darwin book was ever used in the classroom -- the class
textbook was Civic Biology by Hunter.
================
MOVIE: The prosecuting lawyer, Matthew Brady (representing William
Jennings Bryan) is shown as a pompous, ignorant bigot. Most people would naturally dislike this
character.
FACT: Bryan was the likeable and highly respected leader of the
Democratic Party for many years; three times he was the national Democratic
presidential nominee; he served as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson; and
he was known as the best orator in America for thirty years. He had a long record as successfully
fighting for liberal legislation; he was credited with creation of the Department
of Labor, and was one of the leaders in obtaining women's suffrage (right to
vote). The trial transcript shows that
his manner in the courtroom was always courteous.
In contrast, defense attorney Clarence
Darrow was cited for contempt of court, and the transcript shows that several
times he was condescending and rude toward witnesses and Judge Raulston.
=================
MOVIE: On the stand, Brady testified that he had never read any of
Darwin's books. He expressed contempt
for any knowledge outside the Bible.
Brady would not allow Darwin's books to be placed in evidence.
FACT: Actually, Bryan had read Origin of Species in 1905 (20 years
earlier). He had published several
well-researched articles, criticizing technical aspects of evolution theory. The actual transcript shows Bryan asking
witnesses well-thought-out technical questions about evolution, showing that he
had a good understanding of it. Bryan
himself entered Darwin's Descent of Man into evidence, to show that it did indeed
teach that man descended from apes (transcript, page 176).
=================
MOVIE: Cates' fiancé, Rachel Brown, is put through an ordeal on the
witness stand. Brady browbeats her
until she is in tears, asking questions about Cates' religious beliefs.
FACT: The transcript shows that there were no female witnesses at
all. Scopes had no fiancé, but had
dated several local girls.
MOVIE: Brady had been made an honorary colonel; Drummond objected to
this title of respect for his opponent, so he was hastily given a title of
'temporary honorary colonel.'
FACT: This courtroom scene did not occur. In Tennessee the title of 'Colonel' was often used for all
officers of the court. The transcript
shows Darrow and Bryan both being addressed in this way. Incidentally, Bryan was actually a real Colonel
in the U.S. Army.
=================
MOVIE: Drummond objects to a courtroom announcement of a prayer meeting
that night, and objects to a banner over the courthouse entrance saying
"Read Your Bible Daily."
FACT: History shows there was no such announcement. Darrow did object that each day's court
session was opened with prayer; but this was normal practice in Tennessee at
that time, and is still true in some courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
=================
MOVIE: The defense lawyer, Henry Drummond (representing Clarence
Darrow), got Brady on the witness stand, asked him questions about his Bible
beliefs, and by questioning miracles led him to make a complete fool of
himself. He even got him to say that
all sex was 'original sin.' The next
day Drummond waived his right to a summation speech, and the jury retired for
deliberation.
FACT: The transcript shows that nothing at all was said about sex.
FACT: Bryan did not claim literal 24-hour days for the period of
creation. The following exchange is in
the record:
Darrow:
"Mr. Bryan, could you tell me how old the earth is?"
Bryan:
"No, sir, I couldn't."
Darrow:
"Could you come anywhere near it?"
Bryan:
"I wouldn't attempt to. I
could possibly come as near as the scientists do, but I had rather be more
accurate before I give a guess."
FACT: Bryan agreed to go on the stand to explain his Bible beliefs, on
the condition that Darrow would also become a witness to explain his agnostic
and evolution beliefs. The judge had
also agreed to this condition (transcript, page 284). Darrow did put Bryan through quite an inquisition. When he finished, and it should have been
Bryan's turn to question Darrow, Darrow surprised everyone by suddenly
announcing that his client pleaded guilty (abstract, page 306), and
requested Judge Raulston to issue a
directed verdict of guilty. This
automatically stopped the trial. Bryan
objected, wanting to question Darrow, but it was too late; Scopes was already
guilty -- the trial was over. The jury
did not ever retire for deliberation.
=================
MOVIE: Brady, frustrated in his attempt to give a summation, made a
pitiful speech to an emptying courtroom, fell over, and died.
FACT: Bryan died in his sleep five days later. His summation speech, although not given in
court, was published as part of the official trial transcript. As might be expected from a man with Bryan's
reputation as a great orator and good lawyer, his summation was a moving
speech, with a number of citations showing that Scopes was guilty. He argued effectively against several
technical points in Darwin's "Descent of Man."
This was
written by Curt Sewell, based
on the much
longer article Inherit The Wind:
A Hollywood
History of the Scopes Trial,"
by David N.
Menton, Ph.D.
********************
Bibliography
(used by
original writer)
"The
World's Most Famous Court Trial,"(Cincinnati, Ohio: National Book Company, 1925)
Darrow,
Clarence; "The Story of My Life," (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1965)
de Camp,
Sprague, "The Great Monkey Trial," (Garden City, NY: Doubleday &
Company Inc., 1968)
Coletta,
Paolo: "William Jennings Bryan III, Political Puritan 1915-1925,"
(Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1969)
Lavine,
Lawrence: "Defender of the Faith. William Jennings Bryan: The Last Decade
1915-1925," (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965)
Morris,
Henry M.: "History of Modern Creationism," (San Diego, CA: Master
Book Publishers, 1984)
**********************
Why Is
"Inherit the Wind" So Widely Used?
Curt Sewell,
1999
Even though "Inherit the
Wind," in all of its forms, is called a "documentary-drama,"
rather than a historical reconstruction, it's consistently been used as a
devise to persuade its viewers to consider those who believe in evolution to be
reasonable and intelligent people, while those who believe in the miracles of
the Bible are rude and ignorant "fundamentalists." It portrays the continuing conflict as
"science vs. religion."
If this isn't the case, then why is it
repeatedly shown in history, social science, or science classes in public
schools? "Inherit the Wind"
certainly doesn't show any true facts of either science or history -- it's
distorted in almost every scene, it's strictly a propaganda hit-piece.
The net effect of this mass distortion is very prejudicial against
creationists and Bible-believers. Polls
show that this includes over half of the population of our country, so this
prejudice is against a large fragment of students.
It's actually one more illustration of
the apparently deliberate distortions and deceptions used by evolutionists to
persuade people not to believe in the God of the Bible, or his miraculous
creation. Other such deceptions include:
Their
confusing misuse of the terms "microevolution" and
"macroevolution," and their confusing application of these terms in
regard to 'proving' the case for large-scale evolution in general.
For example,
creationists and evolutionists alike all believe in microevolution -- as used
by horticulturists and animal breeders (using intelligent selection) and also
as occurring in nature -- Darwin's finches and many others (using natural
selection). These almost all utilize
genetic variability as the raw material for change -- the versatility put into
the gene pool by the Creator. None of
these changes have led to new Families, and few if any to new Genera. Dogs remain dogs, corn remains corn, finches
remain finches. Even after thousands of
generations of fruit-fly experimentation, they all remain fruit-flies. Most show degeneration, none show real
improvement.
But
evolutionists say that this fact of change through gradual time, which is
commonly seen, proves that macroevolution also occurs -- that this same process
has operated over extreme time to produce "molecules-to-man"
evolution. However, not a single new
Phylum, Class or Order has ever been observed to form. These all appear suddenly in the fossil
record, as if they had been suddenly created.
A second
major deception lies in the series of pictures, said to represent stages of
embryonic recapitulation in the human embryo.
These were first made by Dr. Ernst Haeckel over 100 years ago. But Haeckel had faked them, and despite
this, they are still shown in many textbooks, even though they've been known to
be completely misleading for many decades.
The third
completely misleading 'evidence of evolution' is the series of horse fossils,
again shown in many textbooks.
Knowledgeable evolutionists have lamented their use, saying that they
represent fossils that have no relationship with each other, and the earliest,
Eohippus (dawn horse), was not a horse.
Finally,
there are the deliberate fakes or hoaxes -- Piltdown man, Java man, Nebraska
man, and probably Peking man.
It remains true that the primary
evidence favoring macroevolution lies in the fertile imagination of the leaders
of evolutionary theory. They are
masters of 'just-so stories.' Why
should they do this?
Their philosophy, or basic
world-view, drives them. If one refuses
to accept the idea of a supernatural creator, the only alternative is to claim
some natural process. There's no other
choice. Macroevolution is their only
hope.
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