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Scopes Trial: Teaching Evolution In The 1920's

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Scopes Trial In the 1920’s everyone thought that teaching evolution was forbidden and that it was against the church. Evolution was a tricking topic to discuss especially in the 1920 because a lot of people thought that when someone said evolution it was automatically connected to the bible. Evolution can be very controversial because many people especially in the 1920’s had very different views on evolution and what is was. In the 1920’s many people thought evolution was something you would not teach. Most people thought it was related to the bible and did not want it taught to their children. A lot of people thought evolution was only related to the bible and did not think how evolution is related to how we evolved from a monkey into a …show more content…

If we had to have any laws against evolution the state should regulate teaching evolution because the state is able to regulate teaching evolution better in their state and would be able to understand what their state needs more. In the 1920”s in Tennessee where the Scopes Trial happened there was a new law called the Butler Act. The new Tennessee law, known as the Butler Act, stated that these idea could not be taught in public schools (1A Pg,10). Like stated before evolution was a hard subject to discuss because you never knew who be offended or who would think that you are an awful person and against their religion because you just brought up evolution in scientific terms. Teaching evolution in the 1920’s was a very rough subject to teach because if you tried to teach evolution a student may try to ask like how we got here and tried to relate it to the bible then another student may get offended because it may offend their religion or how they view evolution. The Scopes Trial represented a significant setback for anti evolution forces (5B). Many teachers in the 1920’s wanted to be able to teach evolution in relation to scientific terms but they were not able to. Teachers wanted to be able to teach students something …show more content…

So Many teachers wanted to teach students what they should and want to know. Many teachers badly wanted to teach evolution so their students could be better. In Tennessee a bill sponsored by John Washington Butler was enacted in february 1925.Declaring it unlawful for a teacher in any school supported by state funds (3C). Many teachers wanted to be able to teach their students evolution so they could know how a monkey over time transformed into a man. Teachers all over the nation wanted to be able to teach evolution but had fear of getting arrested. Fearful that if the Tennessee law went unchallenged then soon other states would pass similar bills. The american Civil Liberties Union immediately announced it would defend any teacher charged with violating the Butler Act (3D). Many teachers who wanted to teach evolution and could not had to change how they taught everything because since they couldn't teach evolution the were scared if they taught a certain thing they feared they could be put to jail because the broke a law or offend someone's religion. The prosecution opened its case by asking the court to take judicial notice of the book of Genesis as it appears in King James version

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