Creationism Trial & Lawrence's Inherit the Wind

So it looks like when Californians aren't fending for their lives across some dystopian civil war hellscape, they're trying to push American science back into the 19th century.  Hmmm...I think I'll take the hellscape, thanks.

From Monday's Guardian article “Creationist stakes $10,000 on contest between Bible and evolution:’

A California creationist is offering a $10,000 challenge to anyone who can prove in front of a judge that science contradicts the literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Dr Joseph Mastropaolo, who says he has set up the contest, the Literal Genesis Trial, in the hope of improving the quality of arguments between creationists and evolutionists, has pledged to put $10,000 of his own money into an escrow account before the debate. His competitor would be expected to do the same. The winner would take the $20,000 balance. The argument would not be made in a formal court, but under an alternative dispute resolution model known as a minitrial. Mastropaolo said he would present the argument in favor of a literal interpretation of the creation story once he had found a willing scientist to argue that a non-literal interpretation of Genesis is more scientific.

This reminds me of something...oh yeah, it reminds me of a similar trial which largely settled this issue *ninety* years ago. Therefore I highly recommend that Dr. Mastropaolo, and anyone else looking for a good read, try Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee’s play Inherit the Wind:

One of the most moving and meaningful plays in American theatre--based on the famed Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, in which a Tennessee teacher was tried for teaching evolution… The accused was a slight, frightened man who had deliberately broken the law. His trial was a Roman circus, the chief gladiators being the two great legal giants of the century. Locked in mortal combat, they bellowed and roared imprecations and abuse.

Heliocentrists, you're next!