By Jim Nichols

There is a specific question that I have been asked for most of my adult life. Knowing that I was trained academically as a scientist (and a biologist at that) and that I was also a Christian, questioners have probed me as to whether that creates conflicts of understanding and practice for me. “How can you be both a serious scientist and a serious Christian?” “Do you trust science or trust God?”

For the United States, the seed of that question was sown one hundred years ago in Dayton, Tennessee. Thousands if not millions of words have been written about those events in July 1925 and the spinoffs from that controversial trial appear daily in 2025. Why do some religious groups promote persistent skepticism toward science? Broach the topics of vaccines, climate change, sex education, or pandemic responses and listen to the sound. One might propose that it goes back to high school biology instructor John Scopes and his teaching about evolutionary theory. It led to what has come to be known as the Scopes Monkey Trial.

In 1925 Tennessee’s Butler Act prohibited teaching that humans descended from a “lower order” of animals or denied a literal interpretation of creation in Genesis. Darwin in the mid-1800s had initiated the idea of evolution, but numerous others had developed other aspects of it. Many of the public did not understand the theory scientifically, but they were certainly aware of it.

Originally envisioned as a test about the constitutionality of the law, some in Dayton initiated a court case. At that time mass media was in its infancy and radio was a new medium. City leaders in Dayton saw an opportunity to put the city on the map and recruited William Jennings Bryan, a three-time Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State, and Clarence Darrow, a prominent defense attorney; these two were to present the evidence for and against the evolution law. Scopes was the defendant.

A pivotal event occurred when Darrow for the defense called Bryan, himself, to the stand as an expert on the Bible. Historians report that Bryan faced humiliation as he was unable to respond to puzzling questions from Darrow. Because the trial had already garnered so much publicity, this embarrassment of the religious aspects was portrayed as an intellectual defeat for those attacking evolution. Historians identify that the derision of “yokels” and “morons” who believed the Bible rather than science was the spark for the subsequent decades of conflict.

One could suggest that this century-old episode in Tennessee drew lines between “scientific” and “religious” perspectives that remain today. The specific topics of dispute may have morphed, but the sense is the same. 

I find this quite distressing and suggest that people in both camps are working from an incomplete understanding of the other.

Science offers substantial benefits to humanity. It supports creative and curious thinking and ingenious inventions and techniques. People outside of science do not recognize how self-correcting science is. Every scientific idea or proposal is subject to peer review, multiple checking, and open publishing. There is extraordinarily little “secret” science. If someone publishes the results of experiments, one can be sure that the experiment will be duplicated by others to assess its validity. Decisions are based on data and reason. Are those decisions always 100 percent correct? No. Is there some pride involved? Yes.

People of faith do not discount data and results, but they have a worldview that evaluates their behavior and decisions on different bases. How does my response fit with my understanding of God? How will my responses expand love, concern, and care to those dependent on me and to humanity in general? Decisions are based on emotion and faith. Are those decisions always 100 percent correct? No. Is there some pride involved? Yes.

For some in the “science camp” there is serious misunderstanding of what is driving those in the “faith camp.” These latter folks, of course, may have serious misunderstanding of what is driving the other camp. This leads to mutual distrust and antagonism.

We must not let the world be driven by pride and those seeking power. It is too complicated to be directed by a desire to humiliate others.

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain