Scopes Trial

The American Civil Liberty Union's manipulated test case on evolution and creation--the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial--ended in 1925 on this day in Dayton, Tennessee. William Jennings Bryan won a conviction against teacher John T. Scopes who had violated the state law against teaching Charles Darwin's "Theory of Evolution" as scientific fact rather than as speculative theory. Though the loss in the celebrated trial was a temporary legal setback for the fledling ACLU, it was cunningly translated into a media victory which ultimately paved the way for the unquestioned hegemony of evolutionary presuppositions.