Saturday, November 21, 2015

Books read in 2015: No. 32 -- Inherit the Wind

by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee

Started: Nov. 20
Finished: Nov. 21

Notes: I'm not much one for reading plays, but from time to time I do like to expand my horizons. So, here I turn to this McCarthy-era play concerning the 1925 Scopes Trial.

Mini review: The writing style is definitely dated, but the story is as relevant as ever. Hard to believe we're still arguing about this stuff after all these years. I'm not sure the pro-Darwin argument here is as strong today as it was when written, but it still makes sense.

2 comments:

1LLoyd said...

I remember this book. I found out later it took the original story and slanted it very much until it was prose sermon for its point of view. Entertaining, but not the examination it hinted it was. But then, entertainment should be first.

Charles Gramlich said...

I'm not sure you could say there's a pro "Darwin" argument today among scientists in the field. The modern theory of evolution is called the Modern Synthesis, which combines Darwin's concept of Natural selection and sexual selection with genetics and with many more recent discoveries of other evolutionary principles, such as genetic drift. the Modern Synthesis is far more strongly supported by evidence today than it was, say, fifty years ago. So there's definitely a pro "modern synthesis" argument among scientists, and no real evidence to the contrary against it. Still plenty of questions about details, of course.