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Originally Posted by silent_jay
ace, I can't be bothered to humour you and answer any of your questions,
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Silly me, of course you can not answer my questions - I must remember my questions are always rhetorical and I heard they often lead to headaches, so please be careful.
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I'll be sure to check this thread for the laughs.
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Now I am just piling on- you guys get me all worked up and then run away, what teases you are - but thinking of some other show trials, what about the Scopes Monkey Trial?
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The Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was an American legal case in 1925 in which high school biology teacher John Scopes was accused of violating the state's Butler Act which made it unlawful to teach evolution.[1]
Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality and he was never brought back to trial. The trial drew intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to the small town of Dayton, to cover the big-name lawyers representing each side. William Jennings Bryan, three time presidential candidate for the Democrats, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, spoke for Scopes. The trial saw modernists, who said religion was consistent with evolution, against fundamentalists who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible trumped all human knowledge. The trial was thus both a religious or theological contest, and a trial on the veracity of modern science regarding the creation-evolution controversy. The teaching of science and evolution expanded, as fundamentalist efforts to use state laws to reverse the trend had failed in the court of public opinion.[2]
State Rep. John W. Butler, head of the World's Christian Fundamentals Association, lobbied state legislatures to pass anti-evolution laws, succeeding in Tennessee when the Butler Act was passed.[3] In response, the American Civil Liberties Union financed a test case where John Scopes, a Tennessee high school teacher, intentionally violated the Act. Scopes was charged on May 5, 1925 with teaching evolution from a chapter in a textbook that showed ideas developed from Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species. The two sides brought in the biggest names in the nation, William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense, and was followed on radio transmissions throughout America.[4] Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, but on appeal the Tennessee Supreme Court set aside the guilty verdict due to a legal technicality.[5]
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Scopes Trial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The point of this trial was to obtain a guilty verdict (everyone knew the defendant, including the defendant was guilty) to challenge an unconstitutional law for the purpose of.....sending a message! What would you call that trial, if not a "show trial"?