00:00.81 kinkella Hello and welcome to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 135 and tonight the scopes monkey trial what's up with that all right nice to see everybody back. And by see everybody I mean I'm saying some stuff and nobody's around and I'm talking at two a m so ah, what should I talk about well tell you what I'm gonna talk about because you get no vote just like recording into a microphone by myself. I mean too bad man talking about the scopes monkey trial and so why do I want to do the scopes monkey trial. It's because um I think it came up last time for like just a moment. You know and as I was talking about last time's episode. Whatever it was um, you see I just I do these all the time man you know I'm just I just work for you people and it's constant and it's just never ending. And I'm like when did the scopes monkey tro come up last I'm like I'll even I even remember I just know it was episode one thirty four what did I what did I even talk about last time I don't even sad sad anyway, it came up for a second and I was like oh yeah. 01:37.83 kinkella Scopes monkey trial and so today I thought I would just kind of expand on that it sort of goes with my current focus on some of the old school classics. You know why not talk about some of this you know. Stuff that's been around for a long time. So okay, the setup with the scopes monkey trial is this this happens in 1925 it happens in the summer of 1925 so hey we're almost ninety nine years ago and it's called the scopes monkey trial because there was a teacher named John scopes right? and and this happens in the state of Tennessee this teacher John Scopes is basically. Teaching evolution to his students and he's breaking Tennessee law because Tennessee at the time just had this new act come in called the butler act and the butler act said and you guessed it that you. Can't deny genesis and the bible in your teaching you must teach that and you can't teach evolution. Basically so of course you can see you can see the major litigation possibilities here because as we all know we have the first amendment. 03:11.72 kinkella Right? Separation of church and state. So you're supposed to be able to just teach evolution teach science but according to this new act this sort of extremely. You know, religious right? act that they had just passed in 1925 that you couldn't do that and you had to. Make sure the bible got due diligence the the part about the scopes monkey trial I bet a lot of you've heard this you know name before you go? Oh yeah, scopes monkey trial evolution. Whatever but I find some of the um, the. The lesser known aspects of it. Really interesting like the trial itself the trial itself is staged and what I mean by that is it's still a real trial. Okay, it's not a fake trial. But. So the you know the purse is is really on trial and there's a real judge and there's a real judgment and John Scopes would have to abide by whatever that real judgment is like his you know his citizenry is in Jeopardy in this real way. But the trial is staged. In terms of it was pushed like um John Scopes was like pretty sure he taught evolution. Um, but but big names. 04:41.65 kinkella And big people wanted this trial to go ahead. So like the Acl you american civil liberties union right? Um, got in basically got in touch with John Scopes and were like hey. Ah, if you indeed say that you did this. Will defend you they had 1 of the most famous defense lawyers of all time Clarence Darrow like said he would defend him on the side of the prosecution sky William Jennings Brian ah was going to do it. William Jennings Brian was a. Former presidential candidate. You know, known for sort of being this conservative right-wing kind of person and on top of all of that the um little Tennessee town was going to get like a big boost. Of like tourism. Basically right. And this little town is Dayton Tennessee so Dayton Tennessee basically gets this big trial to come in and this is crazy. You guys. This is really a major moment just in terms of how we in american culture. 06:03.16 kinkella Learn about famous cases. It's the first case to ever be broadcast over the radio right? This is 1925 this is before television and all that kind of good stuff. So it's a it's a media madhouse right? It's it's just this massive story that while again, the the. Trial is real. It's like trumped up and made way huger than it otherwise would have been. You have these all star lawyers. Really they're they're litigating. They're really litigating culture right? They're litigating the. Not only the law in terms of can you teach evolution or not they're sort of litigating that higher sort of pro or anti-religious stance pro or antifirst amendment right? You can see how this would be um, boosted way up beyond kind of the. Reality of the case. So the case starts and they go through the whole thing Hl menkin who I'm guessing most you've not necessarily heard that name kind of ah a famous um a famous essayist and writer. 07:17.76 kinkella But he he was one of the many in the media who covered the case. Um he was very much pro. Ah John scopes right? He's pro the defense and so he wrote things that were very pro defense and were very anti prosecution. So kind of on the provolu side and his being such kind of maybe an acerbic or creative. Um writer just his writing could really turn public sentiment you know over time and. As as the trial progressed and I think it it went on like a week or so week and a half that that kind of length right? This isn't something that dragged up for months and months. Um I think increasingly the um. 08:15.14 kinkella Tennessee town and all the people who were kind of pro. The butler act looked increasingly kind of foolish and backwards right? So by the end of the trial. What happens is and I think I I think a lot of people don't even realize this necessarily. John Scopes was found guilty he was found guilty of teaching evolution right? So his fine though since there was no precedent. It was just like this new law to sort of be like yes we're very pro bible but they're like. I don't know what do you do once you litigate this javascriptpes ends up having to pay a hundred bucks that was the judge's judgment right? hundred bucks John scopes and I think in today's money that's like man I maybe eighteen hundred bucks that's isn't that amazing. Right? A hundred bucks in 1925 is ah is around $1800 of buying power today which I don't want to pay eighteen hundred bucks but if I'm part of a huge litigation like that. Even if it's kind of for show. Um. I'm still It's weird. You know, like if I was John Scopes I would still be feel kind of weird I'm like man I'm on trial. Um John Scopes of course did this largely because he believed in the teaching of evolution and he he wanted to get this in front of the eyes of America kind of as well. 09:49.48 kinkella But still I don't know I'd be worried so so he had to end up paying a hundred bucks and of course the in terms of losing his case the conservative right? saw that as as a win because they did win but they didn't win. In terms of public opinion. So really quickly. They're I would say public opinion overall was very pro John Scopes and anti the butler act and the aspects of Tennessee that put that. in in the first place. Another interesting wrinkle to this is um William Jennings Brian right? The the lawyer for the prosecution um several time presidential candidate. He died five days after the the trial was over so he had. Kind of become the figurehead of of this movement a little bit. He dies right? after so they kind of lose their their head. They kind of lose their their leader a little bit and that only hurts their their situation. So ultimately with the scopes monkey trial. You get? um, kind of a an opening for really the rest of the twentieth century in terms of being able to teach evolution you know science that side of things kind of keeping the first amendment standing. 11:26.11 kinkella Um, and not have any real inroads against that until much much later so it really does set precedent for at least the next fifty years if not really the rest of the twentieth century so it is important in terms of. Again, how the general public kind of allows us they let it go right for a long time. So even if somebody is very orthodox religion. They still kind of know oh well. But according to the state. You know, according to federal law. You just. Teach evolution. So very important when we come back? What does this mean in terms of the modern movement of creationism.