Inherit the Wind

May 5, 1925. A warrant is issued for the arrest of John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, for teaching evolution—in violation of state law—to a high school biology class in Dayton, TN.

The result: God goes and trial and fails to appear to defend "His" creation. In lieu of God, William Jennings Bryan shows up to defend God and gets hammered for being a complete idiot—which I suppose is a penalty for not using the gift with which his creator had endowed him.

Lawrence, J. and Lee, R.E. (1955). Inherit the Wind. Bantam:New York (pp. 83-84).

Drummond: . . . Gentlemen, progress has never been a bargain. You've got to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man behind a counter who says, "All right, you can have a telephone; but you'll have to give up privacy, the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote; but at a price; you lose right to retreat behind a powder-puff or a petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air; but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline!" . . . Darwin moved us forward to a hilltop, where we could look back and see the way from which we came. But for this view, this insight, this knowledge, we must abandon our faith in the pleasant poetry of Genesis.

Brady: We must not abandon faith!

Drummond: Then why did God plague us with the power to think? Mr. Brady, why do you deny the one faculty which lifts man above all other creatures on the earth: the power of his brain to reason. What other merit have we? The elephant is larger, the horse is stronger and swifter, the butterfly more beautiful, the mosquito more prolific, even the simple sponge is more durable! . . . Or does a sponge think?

Brady: I don't know. I'm a man, not a sponge.

Drummon: Do you think a sponge thinks?

Brady: If the Lord wishes a sponge to think, it thinks.

Drummond: Does a man have the same privileges that a sponge does?

Brady: Of course.

Drummond: This man wishes to be accorded the same privilege as a sponge! He wishes to think!

And I, too, wish to think.