The Anti-Evolution League at the Scopes Trial. Photo by Mike Licht. CC BY 2.0.
As Darwin Day (February 12, 2024) nears, it's fitting that NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch's review of The Trial of the Century is now published in the February/March 2024 issue of Free Inquiry.
Branch states that the book, a chronicle of the famous trial in which teacher John T. Scopes stood accused of teaching evolution in contravention of a Tennessee state law that forbade it, "is written in a clear, lively, and readable journalistic style throughout, and the trial itself is presented well." However, he goes on to critique the book's failure to address "events before and after the Scopes trial." No wonder his review is titled "Scopes for Dopes.”
Branch notes that the primary author, Greg Jarrett, is a long-time Fox News commentator. Branch goes on to describe it as "incongruous but welcome" that Jarrett declares, "With new discoveries, it is now impossible to see evolution as anything besides a bedrock scientific principle."
