WEBVTT - Monkey Business 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:23.516 Pushkin. There's a place in our world where the known 0:00:23.636 --> 0:00:30.556 things go, a corridor of the mind. I haven't been 0:00:30.596 --> 0:00:32.676 down here in a while. This is good to be 0:00:32.756 --> 0:00:36.596 back down here, where the walls are lined with shelves 0:00:36.596 --> 0:00:43.796 cluttered with proof, especially books. Huh on the Origin of 0:00:43.836 --> 0:00:48.556 Species by Charles Darwin. Oh, and right next to that 0:00:48.796 --> 0:00:53.596 The Menace of Darwinism by William Jennings Bryan more of 0:00:53.596 --> 0:00:59.556 a pamphlet. Really, here's a skeleton of a chimpanzee, its 0:00:59.596 --> 0:01:02.756 bones held together by wire like a necklace of beads. 0:01:05.516 --> 0:01:09.356 This place, this evidence room, stores the facts that matter, 0:01:09.556 --> 0:01:12.796 and matters of fact. It's all that stands between a 0:01:12.836 --> 0:01:18.436 reasonable doubt in the chaos of ignorance. It lies in 0:01:18.516 --> 0:01:21.396 a time between now and then. The sign on the 0:01:21.436 --> 0:01:29.276 door reads the last archive step across the threshold to 0:01:29.356 --> 0:01:33.956 the little town of Dayton, Tennessee, population a hair under 0:01:33.996 --> 0:01:37.676 two thousand in the year nineteen hundred and twenty five. 0:01:38.716 --> 0:01:49.876 There's an old guy playing the banjo. All the folklan 0:01:50.036 --> 0:01:55.476 Piana be bror, grateful house can be, and they know 0:01:55.836 --> 0:02:03.596 the Bible be dif water if rod is the start 0:02:03.636 --> 0:02:06.396 of what came to be known as the Monkey Trial. 0:02:08.356 --> 0:02:10.836 It's one of the most famous trials in American history. 0:02:12.476 --> 0:02:16.196 The defendant, John T. Scoops, a high school teacher, charged 0:02:16.196 --> 0:02:19.916 with the crime a misdemeanor of teaching the theory of evolution. 0:02:20.956 --> 0:02:23.156 A lot of people think the arguments in this trial 0:02:23.516 --> 0:02:28.076 marked a triumph of reason over superstition. Some of those people, okay, 0:02:28.116 --> 0:02:30.876 I confess, for a long time, I was one of them. 0:02:31.036 --> 0:02:33.276 Some of those people only really knew about this trial 0:02:33.636 --> 0:02:36.396 from a movie made about it in nineteen sixty called 0:02:36.716 --> 0:02:41.236 Inherit the Wind. It starred Spencer Tracy as the heroic 0:02:41.276 --> 0:02:45.796 lawyer for the defense fanaticism. An ignorance is forever busy 0:02:46.396 --> 0:02:52.476 and needs feeding, And soon, your honor, we'll be marching 0:02:52.636 --> 0:02:59.036 backward through the lawyer sages about sixteenth century, when bigots 0:02:59.036 --> 0:03:02.876 burned a man who dat being enlightenment an intelligence to 0:03:02.956 --> 0:03:08.556 the human mind. Inherit the Wind began as a play 0:03:08.796 --> 0:03:12.476 written in nineteen fifty five. The playwrights weren't really interested 0:03:12.476 --> 0:03:15.076 in the nineteen twenties. They were interested in the nineteen 0:03:15.076 --> 0:03:19.876 fifties and the political persecution of their day. McCarthyism. Me, 0:03:20.116 --> 0:03:23.276 I'm a historian, I'm interested in now the twenty twenties 0:03:23.556 --> 0:03:26.356 and the dilemmas of our day. So when I look 0:03:26.396 --> 0:03:28.436 at the nineteen twenties, it looks to me as if 0:03:28.436 --> 0:03:31.276 what was on trial was skepticism itself and the role 0:03:31.316 --> 0:03:34.396 of doubt and a democracy. We're going to do our 0:03:34.436 --> 0:03:37.476 own re enactment. I don't know, call it disinherit the wind. 0:03:41.636 --> 0:03:44.156 One thing before we get started that you really need 0:03:44.196 --> 0:03:48.316 to know. The Scopes Trial, the Monkey trial. It was 0:03:48.316 --> 0:03:54.956 a show trial. A platform had been built for movie 0:03:54.956 --> 0:03:59.596 cameras and seeding for hundreds of spectators. Two hundred reporters 0:03:59.636 --> 0:04:02.796 were there too. Telegraph wires had been laid across the 0:04:02.836 --> 0:04:10.556 floor for speedy reporting. Hl Linklin, the themed newspaperman from 0:04:10.556 --> 0:04:13.596 the Baltimore Sun, who was there too, writing with his 0:04:13.756 --> 0:04:18.836 celebrated wit, the two parties are the farther marked poles 0:04:18.876 --> 0:04:22.316 of difference and leaning out into space, and one of 0:04:22.316 --> 0:04:25.236 them is right at all and the other is wrong Altogether. 0:04:27.236 --> 0:04:30.076 Microphones and speakers had been installed so that all the 0:04:30.076 --> 0:04:34.876 people assembled outside could hear the goings on. Also this trial, 0:04:35.236 --> 0:04:37.356 not for nothing was it called the Trial of the century. 0:04:37.636 --> 0:04:40.636 Who was the very first American trial ever broadcast live 0:04:40.636 --> 0:04:43.436 on the radio. Who was a miracle of modern science. 0:04:44.116 --> 0:04:47.116 We're like moon men here, one of the radio announcers said, 0:04:47.476 --> 0:04:51.676 we're the radio guys from outer space. Back in nineteen 0:04:51.756 --> 0:04:55.236 twenty five, the power of radio transmitters wasn't yet regulated, 0:04:55.436 --> 0:04:58.036 and the station broadcasting the Scoop's trial had a signal 0:04:58.156 --> 0:05:01.316 so strong it could be heard by half the country. 0:05:01.316 --> 0:05:05.676 This is WGN Chicago, the radio broadcast of the Chicago 0:05:05.756 --> 0:05:18.636 Tribune WGN, World's greatest newspaper. I'm Jill Lapour. Welcome to 0:05:18.676 --> 0:05:22.596 the second season of The Last Archive, the World's Greatest 0:05:22.596 --> 0:05:26.556 podcast w GP. Where the show about how we know 0:05:26.636 --> 0:05:29.236 what we know and why it seems lately as if 0:05:29.276 --> 0:05:32.996 we don't know anything at all, and geez, maybe we 0:05:33.076 --> 0:05:38.636 never did. Last season was about truth and who killed it? Oh, 0:05:38.676 --> 0:05:42.316 who done it? We lined up the usual suspects, Facebook, 0:05:42.396 --> 0:05:46.796 Donald Trump, postmodernism. In the end, I argued that this 0:05:46.876 --> 0:05:50.196 case was like murder on the Orient Express. Everyone really 0:05:50.236 --> 0:05:53.996 had a hand in the killing. This season, we've got 0:05:53.996 --> 0:05:56.116 a new case. I'm going to go back over the 0:05:56.156 --> 0:05:59.836 same decades, the last hundred years and trace the instability 0:05:59.836 --> 0:06:03.476 of knowledge. Not so much who killed truth, but what 0:06:03.756 --> 0:06:08.236 fed doubt. This season is about a kind of questioning 0:06:08.396 --> 0:06:11.596 that began with skepticism and ended up a century later 0:06:11.996 --> 0:06:16.596 with people finding it hard to believe anything. How did 0:06:16.636 --> 0:06:20.796 that happen? In this season of the last Archive, we 0:06:20.876 --> 0:06:25.516 watch a shadow grow and grow, the long, dark shadow 0:06:26.436 --> 0:06:33.116 of doubt, the until Dayton came a man with his 0:06:33.436 --> 0:06:37.956 new ideas, old brand and heat that we came from 0:06:38.116 --> 0:06:44.756 monkeys long ago. What if he king help me? Leading 0:06:45.156 --> 0:06:50.116 with the gold found only grief? Harley would not let 0:06:50.116 --> 0:06:57.756 their all really done go. Salesman and quacks and all 0:06:57.836 --> 0:07:00.556 kinds of people who were just curious came from all 0:07:00.596 --> 0:07:03.516 over the country to Dayton, setting up shop for the trial, 0:07:04.396 --> 0:07:08.956 lining the streets. Some preached, some performed with trained monkeys. 0:07:09.716 --> 0:07:13.476 The New York Times filed this report. Whatever the deep 0:07:13.556 --> 0:07:16.796 significance of the trial, if it has any, there is 0:07:16.836 --> 0:07:19.236 no doubt that it has attracted some of the world's 0:07:19.476 --> 0:07:24.356 champion freaks. Three days before the trial, William Jennings Bryant, 0:07:24.396 --> 0:07:28.756 attorney for the prosecution, arrived by train. A crowd of 0:07:28.796 --> 0:07:34.876 thousands greeted him at the station. Waving to the throngs, 0:07:34.996 --> 0:07:38.516 Brian doffed his hat a pith helmet to protect his 0:07:38.556 --> 0:07:40.996 bald head from the sun. He looked as if he 0:07:40.996 --> 0:07:47.076 were on safari. Clarence Darrow, attorney for the defense, arrived 0:07:47.156 --> 0:07:51.116 two days later. John Scopes, the defendant, met Darrow at 0:07:51.116 --> 0:07:54.276 the train station, but hardly anyone else was there except 0:07:54.316 --> 0:07:57.796 a few reporters and photographers. Very little of this was 0:07:57.836 --> 0:08:01.116 about Scopes, or even about the teaching of evolution, at 0:08:01.156 --> 0:08:04.316 least in one high school classroom in Tennessee. The trial 0:08:04.636 --> 0:08:09.116 was a test case engineered by the ACLU. States around 0:08:09.356 --> 0:08:12.516 the country had been discouraging the teaching of evolution. The 0:08:12.596 --> 0:08:16.276 Tennessee legislature had been the first to ban it. The 0:08:16.356 --> 0:08:20.156 ACLU wanted to expose how that band violated freedom of speech. 0:08:20.516 --> 0:08:23.756 Scopes himself was all but a bystander. He never took 0:08:23.796 --> 0:08:27.076 the stand in our reenactment. I'll hardly have reason to 0:08:27.116 --> 0:08:30.516 mention him again. The trial was set to open on 0:08:30.596 --> 0:08:36.116 a Friday, nine am. Sharp farmers and overalls from the 0:08:36.196 --> 0:08:41.956 hillside farms. Silent, gaunt men. They occupied every seat and 0:08:42.076 --> 0:08:44.556 stood in the aisles and around the walls of the room. 0:08:46.396 --> 0:08:49.836 By eight forty five, every seat in the courtroom was filled. 0:08:50.396 --> 0:08:53.876 At home all over the country, Americans switched on their radios. 0:08:55.796 --> 0:08:58.556 That's something to hold in your mind this season of doubt. 0:08:59.276 --> 0:09:01.956 Learning about the world in our own houses instead of 0:09:02.036 --> 0:09:06.156 going out into it to see things for ourselves. Elephant 0:09:06.196 --> 0:09:08.476 in the room here. We made this season of the 0:09:08.556 --> 0:09:13.956 Last Dark on lockdown during a pandemic year, stuck at 0:09:13.996 --> 0:09:16.356 home for people who weren't health workers or teachers or 0:09:16.396 --> 0:09:19.476 other essential workers. Most of what a lot of us 0:09:19.636 --> 0:09:22.356 learned about the world this year we learned from inside 0:09:22.396 --> 0:09:27.596 our homes, online on the internet. All this isolation and 0:09:27.716 --> 0:09:31.276 remoteness got me really interested in the work of mediation, 0:09:31.836 --> 0:09:37.076 a world mediated by technology. Mediation that's what media does, 0:09:37.116 --> 0:09:40.236 That's what the word means. And learning about the world 0:09:40.276 --> 0:09:42.676 that way remotely turned out to be a big part 0:09:42.716 --> 0:09:45.316 of how I came to understand the history of doubt. 0:09:46.756 --> 0:09:48.996 We know what it's like now to check Twitter on 0:09:49.036 --> 0:09:52.156 your phone, to see the world so far away but 0:09:52.316 --> 0:09:54.756 feel that it's so close. Who was it like in 0:09:54.836 --> 0:09:57.436 nineteen twenty five to turn on the radio in your 0:09:57.516 --> 0:10:03.636 kitchen and hear a trial beaming in from Dayton, Tennessee. 0:10:05.356 --> 0:10:08.116 Gentleman and mister Attorney General, I am now calling for 0:10:08.196 --> 0:10:13.876 trial the State at Tennessee versus John Thomas Scopes. Scopes 0:10:13.916 --> 0:10:17.196 had been charged with violating a law that stipulated, well, 0:10:17.476 --> 0:10:20.236 just listen to it. Be it enacted by the General 0:10:20.236 --> 0:10:22.676 Assembly of the State of Tennessee that it shall be 0:10:22.756 --> 0:10:26.196 unlawful for any teacher to teach any theory that denies 0:10:26.236 --> 0:10:28.956 the story of the divine creation of man as taught 0:10:28.996 --> 0:10:31.836 in the Bible, and to teach him stare that man 0:10:31.876 --> 0:10:37.996 has descended from a lower order of animals. So hold on. 0:10:38.316 --> 0:10:41.756 This is tricky. Under the terms of Tennessee law, the 0:10:41.836 --> 0:10:44.716 prosecution didn't have to prove that Scopes had taught evolution. 0:10:45.156 --> 0:10:48.156 Scopes never denied that he had. The prosecution had to 0:10:48.156 --> 0:10:52.236 prove that the theory of evolution contradicts the Bible. Evolution 0:10:52.316 --> 0:10:54.636 is not truth, Brian planned to say on behalf of 0:10:54.676 --> 0:10:57.836 the prosecution. It is merely a hypothesis. It's millions of 0:10:57.876 --> 0:11:02.076 guesses strung together. But the Bible Brian believed was true, 0:11:02.476 --> 0:11:06.756 not just parables, literally true. Somehow this claim would have 0:11:06.796 --> 0:11:12.156 to be evaluated by a jury. One way to think 0:11:12.196 --> 0:11:15.196 about the modern era is that it dethroned God as 0:11:15.236 --> 0:11:18.836 the arbiter of truth and erected a new God. Reason 0:11:19.876 --> 0:11:23.796 the fact replaced the mystery that anyway is what the 0:11:23.796 --> 0:11:27.356 scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment tried to do, but always 0:11:27.356 --> 0:11:31.516 with a struggle, a struggle that never ended. Galileo said 0:11:31.516 --> 0:11:33.396 the earth revolved around the Sun and not the other 0:11:33.396 --> 0:11:36.316 way around, and the Catholic Church accused him of heresy, 0:11:36.676 --> 0:11:38.916 who was tried and convicted and spent the rest of 0:11:38.956 --> 0:11:42.876 his life under house arrest for doubting the truth of religion. 0:11:43.556 --> 0:11:45.716 To a lot of people, the Scope's trial was a 0:11:45.796 --> 0:11:50.316 kind of retrial of Galileo, except they thought, surely this 0:11:50.396 --> 0:11:53.716 time the reasonable person would not be sentenced and enlightenment 0:11:53.796 --> 0:11:57.276 would prevail. That's a lot of pressure to put on 0:11:57.316 --> 0:12:02.076 a misdemeanor case in a little town in Tennessee. Names 0:12:02.076 --> 0:12:04.836 were drawn from a hat. Both the prosecution and the 0:12:04.876 --> 0:12:07.556 defense could object to any three jurors without cause, but 0:12:07.716 --> 0:12:12.676 no more. When I listened to this part of the trial, 0:12:13.156 --> 0:12:18.036 I imagine Americans at home listening, wondering to themselves, would 0:12:18.036 --> 0:12:20.236 I be qualified to sit on that jury? Could I 0:12:20.396 --> 0:12:24.716 decide this case fairly? Picture Americans who teach Sunday school 0:12:24.876 --> 0:12:27.236 or said the prayers every night, or Americans who didn't 0:12:27.236 --> 0:12:30.796 believe in any God, who are atheists or agnostics, whatever 0:12:30.876 --> 0:12:34.396 anyone's views on religion. In a democracy, everyone's supposed to 0:12:34.436 --> 0:12:36.676 be able to set all that aside to sit on 0:12:36.716 --> 0:12:39.036 a jury, abide by the rules of evidence, an issue 0:12:39.076 --> 0:12:43.076 a verdict, decide what's true and what's not true. But 0:12:43.156 --> 0:12:46.116 that depends on the jury and Clarence Darrow, attorney for 0:12:46.196 --> 0:12:49.556 the defense, happened to be an expert on jury selection. 0:12:51.116 --> 0:12:57.596 The more a lawyer knows of life, human nature, psychology, 0:12:57.676 --> 0:13:01.356 and the reactions of the human emotions, the better he 0:13:01.476 --> 0:13:04.316 is equipped for the subtle selection of his so called 0:13:04.396 --> 0:13:10.596 twelve men, good and true. Darrow a strategy for picking 0:13:10.636 --> 0:13:15.316 the perfect jury. If a Presbyterian enters the jury box 0:13:15.396 --> 0:13:19.596 and carefully rolls up his umbrella and calmly and critically 0:13:19.636 --> 0:13:24.676 sits down, let him go, he is as called as 0:13:24.676 --> 0:13:28.756 the grave. Darrow was the most famous trial lawyer in 0:13:28.796 --> 0:13:31.396 the country from the big city of Chicago. Attorney for 0:13:31.436 --> 0:13:34.436 the damned, he was called the hero to the poor, 0:13:34.436 --> 0:13:38.276 the oppressed, the beleaguered, and the falsely accused. He'd played 0:13:38.276 --> 0:13:41.476 a role in some two thousand trials. In more than 0:13:41.516 --> 0:13:45.316 a third, he'd been paid nothing. As far as picking 0:13:45.316 --> 0:13:48.716 a jury goes, the trick, Darrow always said was to 0:13:48.756 --> 0:13:51.476 only seat a man so likely to identify with your 0:13:51.476 --> 0:13:56.596 client that really he is trying himself. In Dayton, the 0:13:56.636 --> 0:13:58.756 court brought in a jury pool of one hundred men, 0:13:59.196 --> 0:14:02.196 white men. None of these men had much in common 0:14:02.236 --> 0:14:05.476 with a high school biology teacher. They were mainly farmers. 0:14:05.836 --> 0:14:08.796 Some couldn't read. The first man stood up to be 0:14:08.836 --> 0:14:12.836 question hl Menkin, the slick city reporter from Baltimore, picked 0:14:12.916 --> 0:14:16.916 up his pen and licked it with spit. Listen carefully 0:14:16.956 --> 0:14:19.396 and you can hear the first volley in a culture 0:14:19.396 --> 0:14:23.396 war that is still reverberating today. And it'll be no 0:14:23.476 --> 0:14:26.036 them more possible in this Christian valley to get a jury. 0:14:26.076 --> 0:14:28.796 I'm prejudiced to gain scopes, and we'll be possible in 0:14:28.836 --> 0:14:31.236 wall Street to get a jury. I'm prejudiced against Bolshek. 0:14:33.356 --> 0:14:35.876 Darrow did his best to pull together a fair jury. 0:14:36.356 --> 0:14:39.636 By late afternoon, twelve men had been seated. They were sworn, 0:14:40.076 --> 0:14:46.276 and then court adjourned until Monday morning. Overhead airplanes, little 0:14:46.316 --> 0:14:49.716 prop planes flew north to deliver footage of the proceedings 0:14:49.716 --> 0:14:55.236 to cinemas to be shown as newsreels over the weekend. Sunday, though, 0:14:55.436 --> 0:14:58.316 was hardly a day of rest. The judge went to church. 0:14:58.516 --> 0:15:01.996 He and his wife sat in the front pew incredibly 0:15:02.316 --> 0:15:06.596 and do you and me scandalously. William Jennings Bryan, attorney 0:15:06.636 --> 0:15:11.156 for the prosecution, delivered the sermon, and he preached about 0:15:11.156 --> 0:15:15.276 the case. The attorneys for the defense charged that our 0:15:15.356 --> 0:15:21.356 objection to expert testimony is an attempt to evade the issue. 0:15:24.676 --> 0:15:29.916 William Jennings Bryan, Nebraska born a populist known as the 0:15:29.956 --> 0:15:33.556 Great Commoner. He wasn't much of a lawyer, he hadn't 0:15:33.596 --> 0:15:37.156 practiced law for more than thirty years at this point. Instead, 0:15:37.476 --> 0:15:40.636 he joined the prosecution's team because he was a celebrity. 0:15:41.556 --> 0:15:45.156 Bryan was a politician, a long time presidential contender, a 0:15:45.276 --> 0:15:50.156 Democrat opposed to conservative Republican economic policy. He was also 0:15:50.476 --> 0:15:55.036 a fire and brimstone lay preacher, known as mister Fundamentalist. 0:15:55.756 --> 0:15:58.876 He'd led a national campaign against the teaching of evolution. 0:15:59.436 --> 0:16:03.116 He once told a political cartoonist, you should represent me 0:16:03.356 --> 0:16:07.316 as using a double barreled shotgun, fixing one barrel at 0:16:07.316 --> 0:16:10.196 the elephant as he tries to enter the treasury, and 0:16:10.356 --> 0:16:15.076 another at Darwinism the monkey as he tries to enter 0:16:15.196 --> 0:16:22.756 the school room. Brian opposed to Republicanism and to Darwinism. 0:16:25.036 --> 0:16:30.596 Monday morning, the Scopes trial resumed in that courtroom in Tennessee. 0:16:30.796 --> 0:16:34.196 Just about everyone sided with Brian. They were pro bible 0:16:34.516 --> 0:16:38.836 and anti evolution. The racic issues of the case indeed, 0:16:38.916 --> 0:16:41.996 seemed to be a very little disgust at Dayton. What 0:16:42.156 --> 0:16:45.876 interest to everyone is its mere strategy by what device? 0:16:45.916 --> 0:16:48.996 Precisely well Brian Trimmell Clarence Darrow. For no one here 0:16:49.076 --> 0:16:51.916 seems to doubt that Brian railway, that is, if about 0:16:51.956 --> 0:16:56.036 goes to a fashion. But remember, the audience for this 0:16:56.076 --> 0:16:58.916 trial wasn't only that courtroom in Dayton. It was also 0:16:59.036 --> 0:17:02.516 the millions of Americans tuning it at home. To that 0:17:02.796 --> 0:17:06.316 national audience. Darrow was making a point about the place 0:17:06.356 --> 0:17:10.596 of science in the American mind. Early on he delivered 0:17:10.596 --> 0:17:14.076 a speech that kept everyone listening in glued to their radios. 0:17:16.396 --> 0:17:20.356 Here we find today as brazen and as bold an 0:17:20.356 --> 0:17:22.996 attempt to destroy learning as was ever made in the 0:17:22.996 --> 0:17:27.276 Middle Ages. And the only difference is we have not 0:17:27.396 --> 0:17:30.716 provided that they shall be burned at the stake. But 0:17:30.836 --> 0:17:35.316 there is time for that, Your honor Darrow knew he 0:17:35.356 --> 0:17:38.476 had two audiences, the whole country and that jury of 0:17:38.516 --> 0:17:42.156 twelve men. He walked a tight rope, mostly though he 0:17:42.196 --> 0:17:46.036 appealed to the nation, the State of Tennessee, under an 0:17:46.036 --> 0:17:49.716 honest and fair interpretation of the Constitution, has no more 0:17:49.796 --> 0:17:52.476 right to teach the Bible as the divine book than 0:17:52.556 --> 0:17:56.116 that the Quran is one the book of Mormons, or 0:17:56.116 --> 0:17:59.996 the Book of Confucius, or the Buddha, or the Essays 0:17:59.996 --> 0:18:03.036 of Emerson, or any one of the ten thousand books 0:18:03.036 --> 0:18:06.756 to which human souls have gone for consolation and aid 0:18:06.836 --> 0:18:14.396 in their troubles. Tennessee's constitution specifically protected religious freedom in 0:18:14.556 --> 0:18:18.876 language that borrowed very heavily from Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom, 0:18:19.356 --> 0:18:23.636 which had been written by Thomas Jefferson. Whereas Almighty God 0:18:23.796 --> 0:18:27.916 hath created the mind free, no man shall be compelled 0:18:27.956 --> 0:18:34.436 to frequent or support any religious worship place or ministry whatsoever. 0:18:35.596 --> 0:18:38.916 So when Darrow said Tennessee couldn't require anyone to teach 0:18:38.956 --> 0:18:42.876 the Bible as a divine book, he had constitutional cause. Obviously, 0:18:42.956 --> 0:18:45.636 the Tennessee legislature disagreed with them, or else they wouldn't 0:18:45.676 --> 0:18:48.476 have passed that evolution law. So Darrow had to go 0:18:48.516 --> 0:18:51.436 a lot further. And here he was talking to the jury. 0:18:53.276 --> 0:18:57.796 What is the Bible. Well, it is a book primarily 0:18:57.836 --> 0:19:01.516 of religion and morals. It is not a book of science, 0:19:02.636 --> 0:19:05.556 never was and was never meant to be. It is 0:19:05.596 --> 0:19:09.436 not a textbook or a text on chemistry. Is not 0:19:09.516 --> 0:19:13.876 a work on evolution that was a mystery, is not 0:19:13.956 --> 0:19:17.676 a work on astronomy. The man who looked out at 0:19:17.676 --> 0:19:20.476 the universe and studied the heavens had no thought but 0:19:20.596 --> 0:19:24.556 that the Earth was the center of the universe. But 0:19:24.716 --> 0:19:28.476 we know better than that. They thought the Sun went 0:19:28.516 --> 0:19:30.996 around the Earth and gave us light and gave us night. 0:19:32.436 --> 0:19:35.076 He's orating like a prophet straight out of the King 0:19:35.156 --> 0:19:41.476 James Bible. We know better. I doubt if there is 0:19:41.476 --> 0:19:45.036 a person in Tennessee who does not know better. They 0:19:45.156 --> 0:19:48.596 told us the best they knew. But man finds out 0:19:48.596 --> 0:19:52.156 what he can and yearns to know more and supplements 0:19:52.196 --> 0:19:56.436 his knowledge with hope and faith. Darrow talked about what 0:19:56.516 --> 0:19:58.796 was actually in the Bible, the story of Adam and Eve, 0:19:59.156 --> 0:20:02.036 and how much people disagreed about what the Bible even said. 0:20:02.476 --> 0:20:05.916 Different religions, different sects, there were so many just in Dayton. 0:20:06.676 --> 0:20:09.796 Then finally he got to scopes his crime, which he 0:20:09.916 --> 0:20:13.476 said was no crime at all. He taught the doctrine 0:20:13.476 --> 0:20:16.676 of evolution, which is taught by every believed by every 0:20:16.676 --> 0:20:22.396 scientific man on earth. You could hear over the radio 0:20:22.476 --> 0:20:24.876 the sound of people trying to fan themselves like so 0:20:24.956 --> 0:20:28.516 many bird wings flapping. Inside the courtroom, the temperature had 0:20:28.596 --> 0:20:32.436 risen to one hundred degrees fahrenheit. People's pants and skirts 0:20:32.476 --> 0:20:35.836 stuck to their seats, but they were glued there anyway. 0:20:36.396 --> 0:20:40.716 By Darrell's speech, he was two hours into it. Your 0:20:40.756 --> 0:20:43.476 Honor knows the fires that have been lighted in America 0:20:43.556 --> 0:20:47.476 to kindle religious bigotry and hate. You know that there 0:20:47.556 --> 0:20:51.276 is no suspicion which possesses the minds of men like 0:20:51.396 --> 0:20:56.596 bigotry and ignorance and hatred. Here's the part, the big 0:20:56.636 --> 0:20:59.356 part where Darrows is the lines that Spencer Tracy would 0:20:59.436 --> 0:21:02.756 later re enact and inherit the wind. The movie script, 0:21:02.756 --> 0:21:06.596 at least here is straight from the trial transcript. And okay, 0:21:07.036 --> 0:21:11.956 it is a great speech, Your Honor. It is the 0:21:12.076 --> 0:21:16.436 setting of man against man and creed against creed, until 0:21:16.436 --> 0:21:20.996 with flying banners and beating drums, we are marching backward 0:21:21.036 --> 0:21:25.116 to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century, when bigots 0:21:25.156 --> 0:21:27.796 lighted faggots to burn the men who dared to bring 0:21:27.796 --> 0:21:31.516 any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. 0:21:34.516 --> 0:21:37.596 I'm all in. I suspect you're all in. Maybe the 0:21:37.636 --> 0:21:39.716 people listening to the radio in the big cities we're 0:21:39.716 --> 0:21:45.436 all into. But the audience in Dayton was not caught 0:21:45.516 --> 0:21:51.636 his adjourn until nine tomorrow morning. Darrow's speech rose like 0:21:51.676 --> 0:21:55.996 a wind and ended like a flourish abulance. The very 0:21:56.076 --> 0:21:59.956 judge on a bench began to look uneasy, the Morons 0:21:59.996 --> 0:22:06.076 and the audience when it was over. Simply hisstor Mancin 0:22:06.196 --> 0:22:09.556 was a mean bastard. He hated that crowd into to see. 0:22:09.916 --> 0:22:12.996 He thought they were all idiots. He was just one voice. 0:22:12.996 --> 0:22:17.516 Though that day, telegraph operators wired more than two hundred 0:22:17.516 --> 0:22:21.956 thousand words from Dayton, setting a record. During the whole 0:22:21.956 --> 0:22:27.076 time of Darrel's delivery, the old Mountebank Ryan sat tackle 0:22:27.156 --> 0:22:30.636 it's a done move. There is, of course no reason 0:22:30.676 --> 0:22:33.716 why it should have shaken him. He has hill that 0:22:33.996 --> 0:22:36.516 is locked up in his pen, and he knows it. 0:22:38.876 --> 0:22:41.796 If you get your history only from hl Mankin, then 0:22:41.876 --> 0:22:45.716 Clarence Darrow was brilliant, and William Jennings Bryan was a bigot. 0:22:46.636 --> 0:22:49.756 Mankin comes through loud and clear, but it can be 0:22:49.756 --> 0:22:53.116 hard to hear everyone else. That's why we're here in 0:22:53.156 --> 0:22:56.636 the last archive to turn up the volume on the 0:22:56.756 --> 0:23:09.436 quieter voices. People have to believe something before they out it. 0:23:10.156 --> 0:23:13.076 Believe in gods or one God, or Karma, or the 0:23:13.156 --> 0:23:17.956 Torah or the Koran or the Bible. People believe, then 0:23:17.996 --> 0:23:21.356 some people began to doubt belief and out are partners 0:23:21.556 --> 0:23:26.676 engaged in an endless ancient dance. Skepticism itself was an 0:23:26.676 --> 0:23:30.996 intellectual movement in ancient Greece. Every time a doubter is 0:23:31.036 --> 0:23:34.436 on trial, that trial has as its precedent one that 0:23:34.476 --> 0:23:37.636 took place more than two thousand years ago in Athens. 0:23:39.036 --> 0:23:42.556 Socrates is a doer of evil and corruptor of the youth. 0:23:42.796 --> 0:23:45.196 And he does not believe in the gods of the state, 0:23:45.556 --> 0:23:51.116 and he believes in other new divinities of his own. Socrates, 0:23:51.156 --> 0:23:54.636 a philosopher, a teacher, had stood accused of doubt because 0:23:54.636 --> 0:23:58.076 he had asked questions about the gods. He waged his 0:23:58.116 --> 0:24:02.956 own defense, and if convicted by the jury hundreds of Athenians, 0:24:02.996 --> 0:24:07.196 he faced death. I should like to know in what 0:24:07.396 --> 0:24:10.356 I am affirmed to corrupt the young. I do not 0:24:10.556 --> 0:24:13.796 as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach others 0:24:13.796 --> 0:24:17.196 to acknowledge some god, but they are not the same 0:24:17.316 --> 0:24:21.076 gods which the city recognizes. Or do you mean to 0:24:21.116 --> 0:24:23.996 say that I am a teacher of atheism? I mean 0:24:24.076 --> 0:24:28.516 that you are a complete atheist. Socrates argued that the 0:24:28.556 --> 0:24:33.556 prosecutor made a common error. He'd mistaken belief for knowledge. 0:24:33.996 --> 0:24:36.996 To believe is to know little. To doubt, though, is 0:24:37.036 --> 0:24:39.836 to know even less, except to have one very important 0:24:39.836 --> 0:24:43.956 bit of knowledge, knowledge that you don't know much. By 0:24:43.996 --> 0:24:47.436 way of illustration, Socrates told the court the story about 0:24:47.436 --> 0:24:51.956 meeting a man with a reputation for wisdom. When I 0:24:51.996 --> 0:24:54.516 began to talk with him, I could not help thinking 0:24:54.596 --> 0:24:57.236 that he was not really wise, although he was thought 0:24:57.276 --> 0:25:02.076 wise by many, and wiser still by himself. So I 0:25:02.156 --> 0:25:05.956 left them, saying to myself as I went away, well, 0:25:07.036 --> 0:25:10.076 although I do not suppose that either of knows anything 0:25:10.076 --> 0:25:13.596 really beautiful or good, I am better off than he, 0:25:14.716 --> 0:25:18.396 for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I 0:25:18.556 --> 0:25:25.116 neither know nor think that I know. This, Socrates insisted, 0:25:25.436 --> 0:25:27.956 was what the charges against him really came down to. 0:25:28.636 --> 0:25:30.836 It's not that he didn't believe in the divinity of 0:25:30.876 --> 0:25:34.036 the sun or the moon. It's that he had demonstrated 0:25:34.076 --> 0:25:37.276 that people who are believed to be wise were ignorant, 0:25:37.556 --> 0:25:41.236 and they hated him for it. The jury found Socrates 0:25:41.316 --> 0:25:45.236 guilty of impiety and corrupting the young, and condemned him 0:25:45.396 --> 0:25:49.916 to death. In response, he imagined an afterlife in which 0:25:49.956 --> 0:25:54.476 he could further his inquiries by asking questions of the dead. 0:25:55.036 --> 0:25:58.196 I shall be able to continue my search into true 0:25:58.236 --> 0:26:01.316 and false knowledge. For in that world they do not 0:26:01.436 --> 0:26:07.276 put a man to death for this. To doubt, to 0:26:07.356 --> 0:26:10.876 really doubt, is to admit what you don't know. In 0:26:10.916 --> 0:26:13.636 the case of Socrates, it's to admit it so holy 0:26:13.676 --> 0:26:16.476 and so honestly that you're willing to die for it. 0:26:18.476 --> 0:26:22.916 Centuries later, in progressive era America, Socrates had become something 0:26:22.956 --> 0:26:26.276 of a cult hero, a symbol of the defensive free inquiry. 0:26:26.996 --> 0:26:29.956 Even Time magazine compared the Scopes trial to the trial 0:26:29.956 --> 0:26:34.076 of Socrates. But in Dayton, Tennessee in nineteen twenty five, 0:26:34.596 --> 0:26:37.556 Clarence Darrow didn't say things like I neither know nor 0:26:37.636 --> 0:26:40.636 think that I know. He knew what he knew, and 0:26:40.796 --> 0:26:43.556 he sought to defend his client the ordinary way by 0:26:43.596 --> 0:26:46.796 casting doubt about the case made by the prosecution, led 0:26:46.796 --> 0:26:51.396 by William Jennings. Bryan Darrow often did this by mocking Brian, 0:26:51.916 --> 0:26:55.196 So did HL Lincoln, who called Brian an old buzzard. 0:26:56.436 --> 0:26:58.676 It is a tragedy indeed, to begin life as a 0:26:58.716 --> 0:27:03.076 hero and ended as before well, that no one laughing 0:27:03.116 --> 0:27:06.556 at him underestimate the magic clip eyes in his black 0:27:06.716 --> 0:27:11.676 malignant eye is fraid stell eloquent woice. He can shake 0:27:11.756 --> 0:27:14.316 him and find him his pardon, Ramises has now the 0:27:14.396 --> 0:27:17.036 round of on us can shaken and fine mouth, and 0:27:17.236 --> 0:27:22.996 as desperate lager toward of the charge. On Thursday, the 0:27:23.116 --> 0:27:25.556 fifth day of the trial, Brian spoke at length for 0:27:25.676 --> 0:27:28.356 the first time, in order to object to the defense's 0:27:28.396 --> 0:27:32.356 motion to bring in expert witnesses, scientists who could argue 0:27:32.396 --> 0:27:37.076 for the scientific consensus about the theory of evolution. It is, 0:27:37.516 --> 0:27:40.436