Monkey Business: True Story of the Scopes Trial [Hardcover]

John Perry (Author), Marvin Olasky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2005

The Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee was a watershed moment in the history of this country. The ramifications of those proceedings are still being felt today. However, it is not necessarily the arguments from the courtroom floor that are reverberating in the halls of America today. The way the entire event was conducted and perceived by the rest of the nation set the tone for how creationists and evolutionists have been viewed by society ever since. Marvin Olasky and John Perry tell the true story in Monkey Business. Most people have a misunderstanding of what happened based on slanted newspaper reporting accounts of H. L. Menken, who made fun of creationists. As a result, the case for creationism has been crippled in the eyes of society. But this account of what happened is far from accurate. Monkey Business will offer the facts of the story and an apologetic for divine creation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Perry has coauthored books with John MacArthur, Richard Land, Mike Huckabee, among others and written historical books about Charles Colson, the Scopes Monkey Trials, and more. He is a two-time Gold Medallion Award finalist and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Marvin Olasky is professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and editor-in-chief of World, AmericaÕs fourth most-read newsweekly. He is also a syndicated columnist and a senior fellow of the Wilberforce Forum and the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Fortune, National Review, and many other leading publications. Olasky is the author of fourteen books, including The Religions Next Door and Monkey Business, and a graduate of Yale University (B.A.) and the University of Michigan (M.A., Ph.D.).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: B&H Books (May 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805431578
• ISBN-13: 978-0805431575
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #612,790 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Debunking Debunkers: A Solid History of the Scopes Trial., October 16, 2005

By 

Fritz R. Ward "dayhiker" (Crestline, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Monkey Business: True Story of the Scopes Trial (Hardcover)

Many years ago as a young undergraduate in college, I read a collection of H.L. Mencken's articles. Included as a matter of course were his dispatches the 1925 Scopes trial in Tennessee. Like many readers before and since, I revelled in Mencken's portrait of the intellectual giant Clarence Darrow, and chuckled appropriately at his elitist view of Dayton residents as ignorant backcountry yokels and hicks. I also, like many readers before and since, I mistook his reporting for historical fact. It was not. Mencken, the great debunker, had his own agenda and was rather careless in his reporting of the substance of the trial. Unfortunately, his views have subsequently become the dominant interpretation among historians and journalists alike. 'Monkey Business: The True Story of the Scopes Trial' re-examines the Scopes trial and the events which led up to it. It also provides a broad discussion of the issues at stake then and now.

The bulk of the book is devoted to refuting a number of myths that continue to flourish about the trial. Scopes was not a science teacher and in all likelyhood had never taught evolution in the classroom. Indeed, the whole trial resulted from an effort on the part of some citizens in Dayton to bring national publicity to their town in the hopes of revitalizing the local economy. The ACLU, which "defended" Scopes, was in fact simply looking for a test case on the question of teaching evolution, largely because the organization had lost its main rationale for existence (defending opponents of the draft in World War I) and needed publicity to continue. The "trial" for its part, was largely conducted out of sight from the jury, and the townspeople of Dayton were quite hospitable towards both Bryan and Darrow. In the end, Scopes was found guilty, fined $100, and his case was overturned on a technicality, much to the frustration of the defense, which had hoped to have the question heard before the Supreme Court. Alternately amusing and lively, the historical recreation of the trial is the heart of this book and alone makes it worth the purchase price.

The authors, however, are no more free of bias than Mencken was. They hope their reappraisal of the trial will also rescue Christians, especially Creationists, from the charges that they were (and are) ignorant fearful haters of the truth. Toward this end, they note that the triumph of Darwinism as scientific orthodoxy following Sputnik and the release of the film "Inherit the Wind" led philosophers such as Julian Huxley and Richard Dawkins to proclaim an end to religion and the triumph of materialism. Such ideas have consequences and the authors blame the fall of moral standards and the rise of ideas like pornography as a form of free speech upon such views. They also favorably review the work of Intelligent Design theorists like William Dembski and Michael Behe. Some readers will be disappointed with this partisanship, or at least claim that it goes to far. Intelligent Design, whatever its merits, was not at issue in 1925. But other issues were, and it is here the book makes its strongest points.

Scientists often like to portray themselves as objective observers of data unlike their academic colleages in "soft" disciplines like history. Their commitment to the scientific method, they believe, somehow insulates them from the passions and biases of other areas of study, particularly fields such as philosophy and theology. And they are simply wrong. As the authors demonstrate, Darwin and his followers did not propose evolution in opposition to religion. Instead, they argued for it as a result of particular religious understanding. Christians in Victorian England believed God would not have created imperfection. Rather than simply suggest they did not fully understand God's purpose, as previous generations had, they sought to divorce creation from God. Darwinism was successful precisely because it appeared at a time when this religious view was prevalent. Indeed, Darwin's work was guided by this view of God. Even today, as the authors note, many biologists such as Stephen Gould argue that a "sensible" God would not produce or create the arrangements found among various living organisms. It's not clear what criteria Gould has for a sensible God, but whatever they are, such criteria are clearly theological and not scientific.

In the final analysis then, the real benefit to this book is to point out that science is not free from religious values and opinions. No matter how well established Darwinian Evolution may be in the scientific community, its representatives are being dishonest when they claim that it is scientific and therefore in opposition to Intelligent Design which they mistakenly (or perhaps deliberately) equate with religious fundamentalism. Both are grounded in theology and no amount of name calling or lawsuits will change that. The days when Mencken could summarily dismiss all those who disagreed with him are over.

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Can't be the same trial., March 19, 2009

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A. Caplan "Eagles may soar high, but weasels ... (Central Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Monkey Business: True Story of the Scopes Trial (Hardcover)

I've read the trial transcript. This book is for people who cannot be bothered to do so. The obvious bias colors the entire book and leads the reader astray.

21 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Shoot Yourself in the Foot 101, February 16, 2006

By 

Eric "ericzteal" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monkey Business: True Story of the Scopes Trial (Hardcover)

The first problem with this book is that it isn't quite what it seems to be.
The second problem is that the authors start out making a valid point - but end up shooting themselves in the collective foot.

The book isn't what it seems to be because it has a very strong subtext, which actually becomes the main text for more than 80 of the 326 pages (plus notes, bibliography and index).

Olasky and Perry start out with a reasonably interesting, readable but hardly inspiring account of the events surrounding the Scopes "monkey" trial of 1925. It covers the facts fairly competently, but adds very little of any consequence to the material which makes up the far more interesting and comprehensive account of the trial to be found in "Summer for the Gods" by Edward Larson.

But then, having presented this as a piece of genuine scholarship, the authors mutilate their collective foot by sliding off into the subtext: The Scopes Trial has been grieviously misrepresented in the plays and film versions of "Inherit the Wind"; and on page 181 we come to what seems to be the primary motivation for writing the book - a critique of evolutionism as a religion and the comparative value of the concept of intelligent design.

Hold it!
Where did that come from in an account of the events of 1925?

The front cover of the book says this is "The true story of the Scopes Trial". There's nothing about this being a defence of intelligent design except for the rather ambiguous final sentence of the back cover blurb:

"[the authors] show that advocates of creationism and intelligent design have nothing to be ashamed of."

How about the fact that this book is a real "pig in a poke"? In my personal opinion someone ought to feel some regret about that for a start.

My recommendation to anyone interested in the Scopes Trial would be to give this book a miss. There's plenty of information on the web about the myths surrounding the Scopes Trial. And as far as books are concerned, in my opinion you'd be a whole lot better off with Larson's "Summer for the Gods" where you'll get what you've paid for.