Wikipedia:Peer review/Scopes trial/archive1

Scopes trial


The infamous clash between evolution and creationism, science and religion, and traditionalism and modernism, that played out on a searing July in rural Tennessee between a Christian fundamentalist and three-time Presidential nominee and arguably the most famous criminal defense lawyer of the 20th century. Arguably one of the most famous and controversial court cases of all time, as well as one of the most notorious publicity stunts, the Scopes trial is often cited as a defining symbol of the broad social changes and conflicts that occurred in the 1920s. This case also is of particular relevance and interest to me, as I happened to grow up about 30 minutes from where it took place. This article needs a lot of work, but my goal is to promote it to a featured article so that it can appear as today's featured article on the 100th anniversary of the verdict. Any help would be greatly appreciated, especially from anyone who has experience with articles of this subject.

Thanks, Bneu2013 (talk) 00:43, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I am going to make some suggestions for this article. I am not from the United States and am not familiar with this specific case but did study 1920s America at school and went through a phase of being interested in debates around secularism years ago. Feel free to criticise if any of my comments are silly.
 * I think some context for the trial might be useful. Perhaps expand the "origins" section into a "background" section with discussion of the relationship between religion and politics in early 20th century America.
 * The distinction between the first two sections seems to be quite are arbitrary. I think, with some tweaks to wording, the second paragraph of origins and first paragraph of "Dayton, Tennessee" should probably be more or less swapped round.
 * I think you need to look at the structure of the article more generally. The heading "Dayton, Tennessee" is to vague. The heading "Adam and Eve" should be changed to something broader (i.e book of genesis). I think the sections "courthouse", "popular culture" and all the subsections of "aftermath" should be put into a legacy section. "Humor" and "publicity" should become subsections under a heading called something like "media reaction".
 * There are three "citations needed" notes at various points in the article, a number of other sentences and paragraphs appear to be lacking citations.
 * Check through the article to ensure that all text is neutral and clear.

Hope these are helpful, Llewee (talk) 22:49, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * - sorry for the delayed response. I do agree that the current structure is problematic, and I think your suggestions will work. I also agree that the article is lacking information on the background and origins. I haven't really thought about it in depth yet, but the basic idea I had was to start with the publication of On the Original of the Species in 1859, and the controversy that ensued amongst some religious groups. I also think we need to better describe the gradual adoption of the science of evolution in school curriculums. I was also thinking of a few things about evolution's influence on Social Darwinism, which was apparently Bryan's biggest criticism of its teaching. We also need to better explain why this happened in Dayton, Tennessee, out of all places. Personally, I've never at all liked the "Dayton, Tennessee" and "Adam and Eve" headings, and plan to merge this content into different sections. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:08, 6 February 2024 (UTC)