Former NCSE Executive Director Eugenie C. Scott, left, and Adam Laats.
NCSE's founding executive director Eugenie C. Scott and Adam Laats, a recipient of NCSE's Friend of Darwin award, discussed the Scopes trial in "The Scopes 'Monkey' Trial Isn't Done Shaping America," published by Baptist News Global (August 6, 2025).
"During the time of Scopes, the people who supported Scopes didn't know much about evolution," Scott commented. "But what science/evolution became for either camp was a symbol of the identity group they favored — either religious fundamentalism or secularists, neither of whom knew much about the science involved." She added that the same is true today: "If you look at climate change, vaccines, GMOs, or other science-related controversies, people who line up on one side or the other often don't know much about it."
Laats, a historian of education at Binghamton University, suggested that there are lessons to be learned from the Scopes trial about how to defuse future conflicts over the teaching of evolution, telling Baptist News Global, "Americans in general have this huge middle ground about what it means to say we want our schools and institutions to teach our kids the best science. We all want that. The differences are about which is the best science, and we have more middle ground than we tend to think."
Scott and Laats, as well as Edward B. "Ted" Davis of Messiah University, will be giving talks in NCSE's new webinar series "The Scopes 'Monkey' Trial: Past, Present, and Future" in August 2025. For further details and to register, visit NCSE's website.
