Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

“‘Evolution is not truth; it is merely a hypothesis—it is millions of guesses strung together.’”

This was a central belief for William Jennings Bryan and part of the closing argument he prepared. Bryan believed in the general concept of evolution. However, he did not believe that it should be taught as truth, particularly Darwin’s mechanism of evolution through survival of the fittest.

“‘Bigotry seeks to make opinions and beliefs mandatory.’”

While this press quote is describing Bryan, this was a common view regarding fundamentalism and the beliefs of the antievolution crusaders, as it sought to impose the Christian version of creation upon public school students. This could also be ascribed to majoritarianism, which held that the decisions of the majority could be imposed on a population at large.

“‘Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes into asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibility of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race.’”

From Hunter’s Civic Biology textbook, this quote describes legislation based on the quasi-science of eugenics. It was first proposed by Francis Galton as a method to accelerate the evolution of favorable traits in humans. Bryan denounced these policies and pointed to eugenics as an example of the savagery of evolution and natural selection.