Evolving views: A new look at the Scopes Trial

Emory professor of psychology Harold Gouzoules, left, and his son Alexander Gouzoules, an Emory alum who is a legal scholar.

A combination of inherited genes and life experiences led Alexander Gouzoules (a legal scholar) and his father, Harold Gouzoules (an evolutionary biologist), to co-author a book about the 1925 Scopes trial. 

“The Hundred Years’ Trial: Law, Evolution, and the Long Shadow of Scopes v. Tennessee” blends their expertise. Johns Hopkins University Press published the book, marking the centenary of the fierce, public legal battle over the right to teach evolution in a Tennessee high school. 

“We had the ideal meshing of interests to take on the topic in a new way,” says Harold Gouzoules, an Emory professor of psychology who studies the evolution of primate social behavior. “I took on the science and Alex covered the legal ramifications of the trial.”

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