Did Fundamentalists Lose at the Scopes Trial?

Did fundamentalists win
the trial but lose in the
court of public opinion?

 

Editor Note: Today marks 100 years since the end of the Scopes Trial, when John T. Scopes was pronounced guilty of violating the Butler Act, which outlawed the teaching of human evolution, and was fined $100 (which was promptly paid by H.L. Mencken). Scopes served no jail time or other penalty, and went on to other jobs. He said he could not remember ever having taught evolution at the school. In popular lore, Christian fundamentalists won the case but lost popularity in the public sphere. Now, the tables have turned with a vengeance. Science teachers face recriminations for teaching creation or intelligent design in school, or even doubts about the adequacy of Darwinian evolution to account for all of biology.

 

How to Spot a Fundamentalist (Hint: Look in the Mirror)

by John Wise, PhD

Confessions of a (former) Darwin Defender[1]

I had resolved not to write about the 100-year anniversary of the Scopes Trial. It’s been covered ad nauseam, after all. But if I’m honest, there may be a deeper – more psychologically revealing – reason I initially steered clear: just two years ago, I would have been nodding in agreement with this very article in The Conversation (July 15, 2025) I’m now preparing to poke fun at:

“Why many Americans still think Darwin was wrong, yet the British don’t.”

This article’s tone is one of beneficent condescension. Its assumptions are predictably smug. But its blind spots? Pure comedic gold. I strongly suggest you read it.

As it turns out, my own recent psychological self-diagnosis makes a fine foil for dissecting this article’s rather myopic attempt to pathologize Darwin-doubt. Once upon a time, I might have written this article myself.

Reprise: Britain vs. America, Science vs. Superstition

First, notice the tired Hegelian binaries: Britain vs. America, Science vs. Superstition, Reason vs. Religion. These are the well-worn tropes of a worldview that paints all of history as a progressive evolution from primitive, backward belief to enlightened scientific knowledge. In this simplified narrative, there are those who stand with Progress, and those who get in its way.

You can guess which side America is placed on.

…while Americans remain deeply divided about whether humans evolved from earlier species, across the Atlantic British people had largely settled this question decades before the Scopes trial.

The article cites Pew Research Center data from 2020: 64% of Americans accept that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” while 73% of Britons are “fine” with the idea that they share a common ancestor with chimpanzees.

The implication is clear: the British have “evolved” in their thinking, and Americans are still dragging their theological, philosophical and cultural knuckles. We are Neanderthal cavemen. (Not such bad company, truth be told.)

The Irony of Enlightenment

But here’s where the real irony sets in. What’s the difference between those who accept evolution and those who reject it?

That question is the real subject of the article.

Here’s where things get psychologically fascinating. Research into misinformation and cognitive biases suggests that fundamentalism operates on a principle known as motivated reasoning…

Ah … motivated reasoning, that great psychological sin of seeing what you want to see, what you expect to see: this scalpel is a favorite precision instrument to make opponents bleed.

But surgeons too should fall under this knife.

Here is where I find this article most unwittingly comical. Not because it’s wrong to say that fundamentalists are prone to confirmation bias – they are – but because the authors are blind to the fact that in describing fundamentalists, they are describing themselves. They want us to believe (and they’ve lied themselves into believing) that evolutionary thinking is immune to “suspect” motivations like emotion, identity, and social belonging.

My experience in academia? The enforced orthodoxy, social identity and emotional vulnerability of scientists and academics is far more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced in church.

And … I don’t find such motivations suspect at all when we are aware of them. I embrace mine. I see God everywhere because I expect to see Him, and I want to see Him. Does that make my vision false?

Only if He’s not there.[2]

Truth, you see, matters, and I love it, so why shouldn’t I be moved by it, identify with it, and seek belonging in a community of like-minded Truth-seekers? Isn’t this very human impulse precisely what scientists and others do?

The real sin, as Socrates might say, is not in having presuppositions – it’s in failing to recognize them as presuppositions. Even as an atheist studying philosophy, I had to admit that Christians held the upper hand here: they acknowledge their faith as faith, instead of retreating into a false certainty, hiding their creed behind the deceptive mask of “settled science.”

Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorems taught us that no system of thought can stand without unprovable axioms.

Everyone has a faith-based starting point.

Circular Reasoning by any Other Name …

“A 2019 study of 900 participants found that belief in fake news headlines was associated with delusionality, dogmatism, religious fundamentalism, and reduced analytic thinking.”

Say it with me, class: correlation is not causation.[3]

Let’s walk through their logic:
Fundamentalists reject Darwin.
Fundamentalists tend to score low on analytic thinking.
Therefore, rejecting Darwin must be the result of poor analytic thinking.
(Simple, tidy, and convincing if you ignore the rule above)

But hang on … what if they’ve reversed the arrow of causation? What if it’s not weak logic (like theirs) that causes people to reject Darwinism, but evidence-based critical thinking that causes them to see its flaws – and then, in turn, to reconsider the Bible’s truth claims?

That’s not hypothetical. That’s my story. And it’s the story of many in the Creation movement.

Now let’s go one step further:
Of course fundamentalists reject evolution. They believe the Bible is true, and the Bible plainly contradicts evolutionary theory. That conclusion doesn’t require labyrinthine “analytical thinking,” and it’s not psychological pathology. It’s basic logical consistency.

A = A.

Here’s the real sleight of hand: they’ve defined “fundamentalism” as both cause and symptom of evolution denial, making their “argument” little more than a tautology. Who’s weak on their logic?

The real question isn’t why fundamentalists reject Darwin, that’s easy enough to determine for anyone who really cares to know the answer, but whether they are right to do so, and this is a scientific, not a psychological question. The way to answer it would be to engage in a respectful scientific dialogue, comparing the explanatory efficacy of competing theories in light of the data.

The relevant psychological question is why evolutionary apologists consistently miss (or actively deny) in themselves what they are so quick to point out in others.

And as for ‘delusionality, dogmatism, and reduced analytic thinking’: does anyone remember the COVID crisis? Who blindly followed the narrative, the slogans, the ever-shifting “science,” and maliciously denigrated and canceled anyone who dared ask hard questions of the experts?

How many of those 73% of Britons who “believe in evolution” have done independent research into genetics, fossils, probability theory, or the origin of life? How many were ever taught the gaping explanatory holes in the theory? How many know that origin-of-life research – the foundation upon which evolutionary biology must stand – is in a state of chronic, embarrassing failure?

Why does anyone who believes in evolution do so?

In a word … authority.

Let’s not confuse compliance with scientific enlightenment.

That 73% of Britons (or for that matter the 64% of Americans) who “believe” in evolution?

The vast majority are not reasoned converts who thought their way through the maze. Instead, they’re products of a society that chose compromise over conflict, consensus over conviction. If anything, it’s the American instinct to question and not genuflect before “experts” that keeps reason, evidence and scientific skepticism alive.

In this grand transatlantic tale of evolution and belief, it’s not that the British thought their way to Darwin. They (and we) were simply taught not to question him.

“Accept The Science!”

By all means, tell us again who the fundamentalists are.

Footnotes

[1] In the grand tradition of Augustine.

[2] Socrates explains this to his old friend Crito on the day before his execution. Reason is tasked with determining the truth, but after it is ascertained all our motivational faculties are properly mobilized in its pursuit. Likewise, once I came again to believe in God (Hebrews 11:6), I have only become more convinced by the evidence my whole conscious experience provides of His presence, goodness, justice and mercy, and of the Truth of His word.

[3] This is a fundamental rule in psychological investigation (and in all science).

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John Wise received his PhD in philosophy from the University of CA, Irvine in 2004. His dissertation was titled Sartre’s Phenomenological Ontology and the German Idealist Tradition. His area of specialization is 19th to early 20th century continental philosophy.

He tells the story of his 25-year odyssey from atheism to Christianity in the book, Through the Looking Glass: The Imploding of an Atheist Professor’s Worldview (available on Amazon). Since his return to Christ, his research interests include developing a Christian (YEC) philosophy of science and the integration of all human knowledge with God’s word.

He has taught philosophy for the University of CA, Irvine, East Stroudsburg University of PA, Grand Canyon University, American Intercontinental University, and Ashford University. He currently teaches online for the University of Arizona, Global Campus, and is a member of the Heterodox Academy. He and his wife Jenny are known online as The Christian Atheist with a podcast of that name, in addition to a YouTube channel: John and Jenny Wise.