I note that today marks the eightieth anniversary of the arrest of John Scopes, which put into motion the Scopes Monkey Trial.

When I first learned about the trial, it was presented as an historical parable from back when the forces of ignorance held sway over reason and science. Of course, even then there were a few stalwarts who claimed that the theory of evolution denied their religion in some way that the theory of gravity or the theory of propagation of radio waves did not. But it was generally recognized, at least in my small-l liberal arts secular education, that science and reason were such obvious social goods that no one could consider legislating against them.

Now ignorant is the new black. Evolution is losing the popularity content it didn’t think it had to fight. Alfred Kinsey is just a character in some movie, because sex research isn’t all that important. (To paraphrase an old joke, “No sex please, we’re American.”) And of course, it doesn’t matter what Saddam could have done to us, it matters what we think he could have done. Who needs facts, when you have perfectly good public opinion polling?

We’re with you, John. Much more than we expected to be.