5: Owning the Microphone (Inherit the Wind)

We're probably all familiar with the famous Scopes Trial, but most people know the "story" from the play Inherit the Wind, which was made into a movie in 1930. Unfortunately, that movie broadcasted a stereotype of Christians and Evolutionists that is not always accurate. Whenever anyone speaks out either for Creationism or Evolutionism, but especially Creationism, their words are placed in the context of Inherit the Wind. Whether you know it or not, you're playing a character in the play, and the casting has already been done. But which part do you play? The idiot, or the intelligent one?

Briefly, let's go over the story of the play. It centers around a handsome young teacher of science named Bert Cates. He's a charming and wonderful man and teacher, but he's jailed for violating the Tennessee state law by teaching Evolution. Bert is also in love with the wonderful Rachel Brown, the daughter of an influential town minister, Reverend Jeremiah Brown.

Sorry about all the names, here's a little chart to help you with them:

Defense/Evolutionists:
1. Bert Cates
2. Henry Drummond

Prosecution/Christians:
1. Matthew Brady
2. Reverend Brown

Reverend Brown is, in the words of Phillip Johnson, "a vicious bigot with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, whose practice of Christian ministry seems to be limited to cursing people like Bert and threatening them with damnation."

Rachel is a slightly spineless girl who loves Bert, but urges him to stop teaching Evolution to avoid making trouble for himself in the small Tennessee town full of religious prejudices.

Bert's trial because a media field day when a lawyer named Matthew Brady offers to be the prosecutor. Brady, a former presidential candidate, is a huge antievolutionist. He gets a hero's welcome from the town, as a clever and sarcastic journalist named Hornbeck comes into the picture. He gets lots of opportunities to exercise his lovely sarcasm as the ignorant townspeople do weird things such as break into singing "Give Me That Old-Time Religion".

Prosecution lawyer Brady makes phony-sounding speeches and eats all the time like a glutton, showing himself to be an arrogant old fool. He also gets poor Rachel to divulge Bert's secrets, planning to use her as a prosecution witness against Bert, whom she is now engaged to.

It is soon announced that the famous Henry Drummond is coming to be Bert's defense attorney. Drummond is the typical viewer favorite, the fearless advocate fighting for justice despite the hopeless odds.

From the moment the trial begins, the townspeople show their ignorance and hate for anything unreligious through loud comments from the audience, which defense lawyer Drummond counters with witticism. Brady tries to score points for himself, but his efforts backfire every time.

The rolls of the play/movie couldn't be clearer: all virtue, humor, and intillegence are on the side of Bert and Drummond, and all malice and foolishness are on the side of Brady and Reverend Brown.

Despite the fact that the defense is intelligent and virtuous, their legal position is pretty impossible. Bert admits teaching Evolution, which is illegal in the town. Brady proves the point of Bert's guiltiness further by unnecessarily calling poor Rachel to the stand, and having her admit all of Bert's thoughts that he so kindly shared with her. Bert then shows his character to be even more impeccable by forbidding Drummond to upset Rachel with cross ex.

After some interesting back-and-forth efforts from both parties, Drummond always being the intelligent and descent one, Brady decides to take the witness stand himself, sure that he can stand up under Drummond's cross ex and defeat the unbeliever.

Drummond skillfully takes advantage of Brady's arrogance. He lulls him into a clever false sense of security with some easy and irrelevant questions, then stuns him by pointing out that the biblical patriarchs did their "begetting" by sexual intercourse.

Apparently, Brady had never considered that embarrassing but undeniable fact, and he blurts out that the Bible calls sex "original sin". The point being is that Christians are party poopers and sticks who want to abolish sex. (Very not true by the way...lol :P)

Drummond shows his genius further throughout the cross ex, and eventually has Brady so confused and nonsensical that even his supports mock him. The moral victory goes to Drummond and Bert, the defense.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the legal side of the trial, so the jury still finds Bert guilty. Bert also refuses bribes to keep quiet about Evolution, instead vowing to continue to speak up for truth and freedom.

Brady tries to redeem himself with a final speech, but is so upset by his own incoherent rant that he has a stroke and dies on the spot.

Rachel tells Bert that she will start thinking for herself, which implies that she will believe with Bert in Evolution instead of following her father's way of thinking.

The two lovers decide to leave the prejudiced little town and get married.

As the play ends, Drummond stands alone in the courtroom, reflecting on the day. He picks up a copy of Darwin's Origin of Species and a copy of the Bible. He balances them in his hands, one book in each hand, as if he were a scale. Finally, he half smiles, shrugs, and puts the two books together in his briefcase.

Symbolically speaking, this tells us that the Bible and Darwin and balance each other--that is if we allow Drummond to do the balancing. This is roughly how people claim to be both Evolutionists and Creationists.

And that's how the play Inherit the Wind goes.

However, the actual Scopes Trial was very different.

The real trial was not a serious criminal offense, but a symbolic confrontation engineered to put the down of Dayton, TN on the map. No joke. That's what it was.

The Tennessee legislature funded a new science education program, and to assure people that science wouldn't be used to discredit religion, a clause was added to the bill forbidding the teaching of Evolution. They also predicted that the law would not be enforced.

The American Civil Liberties Union wanted to test this, though, so they set up the Scopes Trial.

That's basically all it was. There was never any danger of the defendant going to jail, nothing like that.

Honestly, though, the actual trial barely matters compared with the impact the play had.

Inherit the Wind likes to portray life a lot like the story of Cinderella. Once upon a time, there were a bunch of mean Christians who just liked to oppress people and prevent people from thinking, a lot like the stepmothers and stepsisters in Cinderella. Freedom from this comes through Darwin/the Fairy Godmother. Now that the people/Cinderella are free, they are not going to give the Christians/stepmother any more opportunities to enslave them/her.

Here's the story told another way, directly from Phillip Johnson:

"That memory has stayed with me, and shows that there may be more than one way to interpret the play. Let me retell the story with just a tad of artistic license.

"A brilliant young teacher develops a following because he has exciting ideas that open up a new way of life. His friends and students love him, but the ruling elders of his community hate the very thought of him. These elders are themselves cruel hypocrites who pile up burdens on the people and do not lift a finger to help them. The elders rule the peopel by fear and are themselves ruled by fear. They substitute dogmas and empty rituals for the true teaching they once knew, which commands truth and love as its frist principles.

"The elders want to destroy the teacher who threatens their control over the people, but his behavior and character are so exemplary that they can find no fault to justify condemning him. They plan to trap him by convincing one of his closest friends to betray him. Eventually they are able to arrange a rigged legal proceeding and get a guilty verdict. Their victory is empty, however. The teacher wins even when he apparently loses, and he sums up his teaching in these words: 'You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.' "

That sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it? No one is saying that Bert Cates is Jesus, but it does give you something to think about. The seemingly antibiblical play achieves its moral effect by borrowing themes from the Bible.

Inherit the Wind is truer than its authors knew. There is nothing really wrong with the story, either. It's just risky when you have to cast the rolls.

Here's where Owning the Microphone comes in. In the play, as the jury comes in to give the verdict, a character called "Radio Man" is introduced. He talks into his little microphone which broadcasts onto the radio. Radio Man relates everything that happens in the courtroom for the world to listen to. There is only one microphone, and the one wielding it controls what the people hear and therefore believe.

This is why the actual Scopes trial hardly matters; the writers of Inherit the Wind owned the mic.

Today, when creation-evolution conflicts arise, whoever is holding the media microphone casts the roles of hero and villain. What this has meant for a while now is that the Darwinists--who currently hold the legal and political power--appear before the microphone as Bert and Drummond, while the defenders of creation are cast the role of Brady the pompous fool and Brown the despicable bigot.

You see, no matter what actually happens in real life, the story will be told by whoever holds the microphone. It's pretty much impossible because of this to get newspapers to admit that there *ARE* scientific problems with Darwinian Evolution that are independent of what anyone thinks about the Bible. Even if the interviewer really "gets it" during an interview, 90% of the time by the time the article gets checked over by the editors, it comes out with the same formula as always: Christians are trying to substitute Genesis for the science textbook.

That's honestly not the case, however, but until someone a little less biased gets a hold of the microphone, that's how the story will be portrayed. It's kind of an uphill battle because the mic-holding Darwinists can portray their opponents are religious dogmatics regardless of what the opponent is actually saying.

If people try to object to teaching philosophical doctrine as scientific fact, the mic-holders say that they are attempting to stop students from learning.

If people try to tell the other side of the story and bring out evidence that textbooks ignore, the mic-holders accuse them of trying to insert religion into science curriculum, therefore violating the Constitution.

The Rule of the Microphone: "Heads we win, tails you lose."

It's really hard to make any scientific, moral, or political progress playing by those standards and rules, but there is a way to do it.

Step One: Learn to Detect Crap.

Beginning August 15, I'm going to show you how. Using logic, let's turn up our "Baloney Detectors".