In 1925 the state of Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which made it illegal to teach the theory of evolution in public schools. A group of men in Dayton, Tennessee, decided to challenge that law with the help of the ACLU, picking a high school teacher named John Scopes as their defendant.
Today we tell part one of that story.
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“He [Grant] one day, when we were walking together burst forth in high admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in silent astonishment, and as far as I can judge, without any effect on my mind. I had previously read the Zoonomia of my grandfather, in which similar views are maintained, but without producing any effect on me. Nevertheless, it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding them under a different form in my Origin of Species. At this time I admired greatly the Zoonomia; but on reading it a second time after an interval of ten or fifteen years, I was much disappointed, the proportion of speculation being so large to the facts given.” (Autobiography, p. 49) https://bertie.ccsu.edu/darwinevol/DarwinBio.html
Thought you might be interested in learning Darwin did not come about his ideals on Evolution by his personal enlightenment or his “voyage of discovery” as this personal quote from his autobiography reveals. Darwin’s concepts on Evolution was seeded by his Grandfather and his father and brought further to fruition during his studies at Edinburgh.
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