Defining Moments of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” written by Anne Janette Johnson is a wonderfully useful guide about the events of, and those that lead up to, the trial of John Scopes. Anne Johnson’s other works include Business leaders: Warren Buffet, which follows the life of Warren Buffet from a beginning businessman to a rich investor, and Great Women in Sports, cataloging the careers and difficulties of women in a variety of different sports. Anne Johnson covers the trial in a very, well done and almost completely objective manner; however, there are some slight misunderstandings in word use on her part. The slight misusing of terminology is only a minor grievance, which leaves the vast misunderstandings of the quoted arguments that are presented in this book to be the main source of criticism.
I will first display the misuse of certain terminology by Johnson herself. The first page of the prologue begins with a quote from Mark Twain; the quote is about whether the stars where made or “just happened”. Johnson goes on to say that humans are curious and that we…show more content… Especially the prayers of the Fundamental pastors that we clearly biased against evolution, praying prayers such as that the people should remain “loyal to God”. In that predicament “loyal to God” meant that God Himself was against evolution. The judge overtly siding with the religious prosecution combining with the fact that the judge made it clearly known that he “was a man of God” blatantly shows that the judge was allowing religion to influence the trial, which is in violation of the no establishment clause of the constitution. Upon mentioning that, the law itself, the Butler Act, prohibits the teaching of any theory that goes against the Bible, which is also a clear violation of the no establishment
