Key points

The Scopes trial raised the issue of the legal status of the scientific consensus concerning evolution.

Some scientific discoveries are presumed in legal proceedings, while others are not.

Common sense seems insufficient for adjudicating legal issues involving cutting-edge science and technology.

This year is the centennial of one of the most celebrated trials in American history. In Dayton, Tennessee, a local schoolteacher, John Scopes, volunteered to be the defendant. He was prosecuted for violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which prohibited teaching the theory of evolution in public schools. In their engaging new book, The Hundred Years’ Trial: Law, Evolution, and the Long Shadow of Scopes vs. Tennessee , Alexander Gouzoules and Harold Gouzoules recount the subsequent shi

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