<p>A few years ago, I was browsing through a dusty bookshop when a slim book with a strange title caught my attention. It was Inherit the Wind, a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee. I recalled the title because I had seen snippets of the movie version, headlined by Spencer Tracy, a long time ago. Inherit the Wind is about a school teacher prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution in 1920s Tennessee. Why was the play so popular in the 1950s when it was first performed? Because its underlying text was against McCarthyism, against the very idea of forcing a certain idea of society on others.</p><p>I liked reading the script, and the one line that has stayed with me is the local town resident, when asked for his opinion on the trial, saying that he did not have any opinions, since it was bad for business. That’s a great line because it shows that a repressive society can create conditions such that its residents start conforming to the orthodoxy to serve their self-interest. I had all but forgotten about the play until I came to know that the year 2025 is the centenary of the real-life trial that inspired the play.</p><p>Exactly a hundred years ago, a curious trial pursuant to an extraordinary law took place from July 10 to 21 in Tennessee. Responding to its deeply conservative population, the State of Tennessee enacted a legislation that made it unlawful to ‘teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.’ In other words, the statute banned the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. A high school science and math teacher, John Scopes, was prosecuted by the State for teaching evolution.</p>.US Supreme Court inclined to uphold Tennessee law on Transgender care.<p>The Scopes Trial brought a media circus to the town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. This was law as spectacle, with superstar lawyers on both sides. On the prosecution side was Charles Bryan, a staunch Presbyterian and a former Secretary of State, and on the defence side was Clarence Darrow, a celebrated trial lawyer. The involvement of these two famed orators meant that the trial was never going to be a quiet affair. The funny thing was that the legal issue at hand was a simple one: did Scopes teach evolution? Once that was addressed, there was not much more to the matter than fining Scopes, which is what the trial court did. On appeal, on a legal technicality, even the fine was forgiven. It was all the bombast around the trial that made the difference.</p>.<p>The trial was a hundred years ago. It’s in the past, but as William Faulkner said, the past is never dead, it’s not even past. There’s a reason why Inherit the Wind was not really about the Scopes trial; it was responding to the issues of the day. Today, we are unlikely to be subject to a legislation that bans outright a scientific idea. I don’t think the Indian Parliament will ban the teaching of evolution anytime soon. But in India, we see the heavy hand of the State anytime someone expresses an unpopular opinion. Academics and comedians find themselves arrested for their views. A legislation is not the only way to silence people.</p>.<p>I see one discordant note with the hullabaloo around the centenary of the Scopes trial. The trial, despite its conclusion, is seen as the unmitigated triumph of science over faith. Evolution over intelligent design is one thing, but the Scopes trial might lead to the view that science is the only metric of right and wrong. That appears to me to be going too far. Faith has an important role in one’s decision-making, and to make fun of faith as some kind of mumbo jumbo is to devalue something that plays a special role in our lives, not just spiritually but as a means of making decisions of right and wrong.</p>.<p>For most of us, morality, whether we derive its origins in the divine or ourselves, is the best guide to our conduct. We are mistaken if we allow faith to come in the way of scientific evidence, like in the case of the measures against the teaching of evolution, but in asking the basic questions of human worth, dignity, and conduct, if we don’t act on what we most fervently believe in, what else can we do?</p>.<p><em>Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.</em></p>
<p>A few years ago, I was browsing through a dusty bookshop when a slim book with a strange title caught my attention. It was Inherit the Wind, a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee. I recalled the title because I had seen snippets of the movie version, headlined by Spencer Tracy, a long time ago. Inherit the Wind is about a school teacher prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution in 1920s Tennessee. Why was the play so popular in the 1950s when it was first performed? Because its underlying text was against McCarthyism, against the very idea of forcing a certain idea of society on others.</p><p>I liked reading the script, and the one line that has stayed with me is the local town resident, when asked for his opinion on the trial, saying that he did not have any opinions, since it was bad for business. That’s a great line because it shows that a repressive society can create conditions such that its residents start conforming to the orthodoxy to serve their self-interest. I had all but forgotten about the play until I came to know that the year 2025 is the centenary of the real-life trial that inspired the play.</p><p>Exactly a hundred years ago, a curious trial pursuant to an extraordinary law took place from July 10 to 21 in Tennessee. Responding to its deeply conservative population, the State of Tennessee enacted a legislation that made it unlawful to ‘teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.’ In other words, the statute banned the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. A high school science and math teacher, John Scopes, was prosecuted by the State for teaching evolution.</p>.US Supreme Court inclined to uphold Tennessee law on Transgender care.<p>The Scopes Trial brought a media circus to the town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. This was law as spectacle, with superstar lawyers on both sides. On the prosecution side was Charles Bryan, a staunch Presbyterian and a former Secretary of State, and on the defence side was Clarence Darrow, a celebrated trial lawyer. The involvement of these two famed orators meant that the trial was never going to be a quiet affair. The funny thing was that the legal issue at hand was a simple one: did Scopes teach evolution? Once that was addressed, there was not much more to the matter than fining Scopes, which is what the trial court did. On appeal, on a legal technicality, even the fine was forgiven. It was all the bombast around the trial that made the difference.</p>.<p>The trial was a hundred years ago. It’s in the past, but as William Faulkner said, the past is never dead, it’s not even past. There’s a reason why Inherit the Wind was not really about the Scopes trial; it was responding to the issues of the day. Today, we are unlikely to be subject to a legislation that bans outright a scientific idea. I don’t think the Indian Parliament will ban the teaching of evolution anytime soon. But in India, we see the heavy hand of the State anytime someone expresses an unpopular opinion. Academics and comedians find themselves arrested for their views. A legislation is not the only way to silence people.</p>.<p>I see one discordant note with the hullabaloo around the centenary of the Scopes trial. The trial, despite its conclusion, is seen as the unmitigated triumph of science over faith. Evolution over intelligent design is one thing, but the Scopes trial might lead to the view that science is the only metric of right and wrong. That appears to me to be going too far. Faith has an important role in one’s decision-making, and to make fun of faith as some kind of mumbo jumbo is to devalue something that plays a special role in our lives, not just spiritually but as a means of making decisions of right and wrong.</p>.<p>For most of us, morality, whether we derive its origins in the divine or ourselves, is the best guide to our conduct. We are mistaken if we allow faith to come in the way of scientific evidence, like in the case of the measures against the teaching of evolution, but in asking the basic questions of human worth, dignity, and conduct, if we don’t act on what we most fervently believe in, what else can we do?</p>.<p><em>Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.</em></p>
