The Power of Reason

The Scopes Trial of 1925 was a tatemic science versus religion encounter. It became mythologized as a dramatic courtroom, and it lends itself to a film. William Jennings Bryan took to defending biblical literalism over and against what was obviously the scientific consensus at the time. And because the way that it was resolved was a fundamental public humiliation for Darrow and the fundamentalists, it became almost like a wound for them throughout the 20th century.