monkey trials ?

Of all the channels on my cable box, my favorite is Turner Classic Movies. TCM shows old movies uncut and commercial-free, and shows widescreen films in the letterbox format. Some of my favorite older movies, the ones that are so good I can watch them over and over again, show up on TCM periodically, and now and then I'll watch one I've never seen and be surprised at how entertaining it is.

One long-time favorite that TCM returns to several times each year is "Inherit The Wind." If you haven't seen it, ITW came out in 1960 and was adapted from a play that dramatized the famous 1925 Scopes "monkey trial" in Tennessee. At issue in the actual case, and its movie version, was a law that prohibited the teaching in public schools of any scientific theory that contradicted the biblical account of creation, i.e., Darwin's theory of evolution. A high school science teacher has been arrested and is on trial for violating the statute; in real life he was defended by Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan assisted the prosecution.

I bring this up because nearly 50 years after the movie came out, and over 80 years after the real case, the same battles are being fought. Recently, the science curriculum director at TEA was forced to resign for her perceived lack of neutrality on the teaching of intelligent design. Equally amazing, several of the Republican candidates for president, including Hucklebuck, don't believe in evolution. The more things change, the more they stay the same.