I never yet found any conservative lawyer who, at the beginning, wanted to undertake a case which might reflect discredit on him. When it turns out d… - Edward J. Larson

Already, the three main tactics for attacking the antievolution measure had emerged: the defense of individual freedom, an appeal to scientific authority, and a mocking ridicule of fundamentalists and biblical literalism; later, they became the three prongs of the Scopes defense.

What is the purpose of this examination?"
Darrow answered honestly. "We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States," he declared, "and that is all.

Stanford university president David Starr Jordan, an eminent evolutionarily biologist who later volunteered to aid in the legal defense of John Scopes, spoke for many academics when he dismissed traditional Protestant revivalism as “simply a form of drunkenness no more worthy of respect than the drunkenness that lies in the gutter!”