The 1925 Scopes Trial and the Butler Act

Many are familiar with the 1925 Tennessee Scopes Trial as a turning-point in the Fundamentalism-Modernism controversy wherein the former took a proverbial "back seat" to the latter. Less known is the motivation behind the passing and legal defense of the Butler Act which promoted humankind as a special creation of God. This legislation safeguarded the ideal of a generic humanity from the attacks of eugenics proponents who relied on Darwinism to spread the notion that certain humans were sub-standard.