Date: 28 September 2014
Location: Pat & Carol
This meeting was originally scheduled to be held at Gary & Peggy’s, but, because of Gary’s serious fall, we had to move it to another host. Thanks very much to Pat and Carol for agreeing to have us at their place. We always enjoy meeting there, where Carol usually prepares her famous chili, and this meeting was no exception. Of course, we are all still concerned about Gary and are hoping for his speedy recovery.
It was a fairly small group at the meeting, and only a few of us had actually read the book. This is unfortunate, since it is one of the best non-fiction works we have read in a long time. Perhaps reading the Clarence Darrow book and traveling to Dayton for their festival had saturated us with the Scopes trial.
Nevertheless, we did discuss this Pulitzer Prize winning book a little, recalling that the author was one of the speakers at the Dayton festival. By now, I think that most of us were familiar with the basic facts of the trial, but Larson added so much more detail. He discussed the uneasy relationship between the ACLU and Clarence Darrow, and he explained that William Jennings Bryan’s key argument was based on the idea of “majoritarianism”; i.e., that the majority did not want evolution taught in Tennessee high schools and therefore it should not be taught. Throughout the book, Larson treated both sides of the issue with respect and even-handedness, and his writing style was clear, concise and very readable.
The book’s Afterword, written in 2006, addresses the various Evolution-related debates that continue to face us more than 80 years after the famous trial. In many locales there are continuing attempts to inject Creationism and/or Intelligent Design into the school curriculum, and, as Larson declares in his closing remarks, these issues are not going away anytime soon.
— Bob