John T. Scopes: A Summer in Hell and a Career in Petroleum Geology

Abstract

The most famous person who was a petroleum geologist but you didn’t know it was John T. Scopes. Remember the “Monkey Trial” from your history books? Scopes was the defendant in the sensational 1925 trial that tested a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of human evolution in public schools.

Scopes was a 25-year-old high school coach and teacher in the Bible Belt town of Dayton who was recruited by the ACLU to test the law. In a sweltering, overflowing courtroom, he was convicted in a trial that pitted two of the legal giants of the age against each other. Clarence Darrow appeared for the defense, and three-time Presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan argued for the prosecution. Scopes was fined $100 and resigned from teaching. His conviction was later overturned on a technicality, though the law was held to be constitutional.

He attended graduate school in geology at the University of Chicago, though the PhD he sought proved elusive. Scopes did field work for two years on the shores of Lake Maracaibo for Gulf Oil’s affiliate in Venezuela. In 1933 he accepted a position as a geologist with United Gas Corporation, for whom he worked in Houston, then in Shreveport, Louisiana, until he retired in 1964. His work focused on reserves, appraisals, economics and regulatory affairs.

Scopes lived a quiet life after the trial, generally uncomfortable with his notoriety. The trial was the subject of an award-winning 1955 play, Inherit the Wind, as well as several movie and TV adaptations. The law was repealed in 1967 by the Tennessee legislature, and John Scopes died in 1970.

Scopes provides a lesson for our times. It’s our job as geoscientists to enlighten the public and bring truth to power, because the denial of science and the disdain for facts are still with us.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90323 ©2018 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Salt Lake City, Utah, May 20-23, 2018