In Part 3 of Religion in the Courts: Galileo, Scopes and Dover, Judge Stephen J. Sfekas turns from Galileo to the origins of the Scopes case. The episode begins with Genesis and the creation of mankind, then traces the rise of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, the publication of On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, and the broader social ideas that came to be associated with Darwinism — from social Darwinism and eugenics to scientific racism, imperialism, and materialism.

But this is also the story of William Jennings Bryan. Remembered today largely through Inherit the Wind, Bryan was far more complicated than the caricature of a simple anti-science crusader. A progressive, a pacifist, a champion of labor and women’s suffrage, and a deeply religious public figure, Bryan came to oppose the teaching of Darwinian evolution larg ...