by Daniel G. Blackburn, Thomas S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Biology at Trinity College, Hartford
In 1925, John Scopes was put on trial in Dayton, Tennessee, for mentioning the idea of evolution in a biology class that he taught at the local high school. The trial became a media circus, and gained national attention because of what it seemed to represent—a clash of science vs. fundamentalist religion, a conflict between local autonomy and national interests, and an intellectual battle between two great orators, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. John Scopes was found guilty and fined, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality— an anticlimactic outcome to the historic conflict.