Genetic researchers amass evidence backing Darwin.

Byline: Sue Goetinck Ambrose

Seventy-five years ago, high school teacher John Scopes had just been convicted for teaching that man evolved from a lower form of life. He was fined $100.

Scopes moved from Tennessee to Chicago to study geology. Defense attorney Clarence Darrow prepared to appeal the conviction and would move on to another high-profile defense, in a Detroit murder case. Prosecutor William Jennings Bryan, just five days after the famous evolution trial ended, lay down for a nap and never woke up.

And scientists, already convinced that the case for evolution was sound, continued gathering data. The decades since have turned up new evidence for evolution under countless rocks, in the physical forms of animals and plants, and in the chemical stuff that humans themselves are made of.

"If anybody thought the jury was still out ... (after the trial), boy, the evidence has become so overwhelming," said geneticist Eric Lander.

Outside scientific circles, the jury is in fact out.

Last year the Kansas Board of Education voted to remove certain questions about evolution from standardized state tests. A 1999 Texas Pollfound that 64 percent of Texans think the biblical account of creation should be taught in…