“Evolution Mama” is a sassy song dating back many decades, probably best played on a banjo, maybe with a kazoo in the background. “Evolution mama,” it goes, “don’t you make a monkey out of me.” That certainly captures the sentiments of religious groups and like-minded politicians who believe Charles Darwin was talking through his hat and there is no way that humans are descended from lower animals.

Darwinism has long been under siege in parts of the United States, even if its critics have practiced their own form of evolution, adapting their arguments to accommodate altered legal circumstances. This installment of Retro Report shows the enduring strength of the forces that embrace the biblical account of Creation or reasonable facsimiles of it. For some of them, the rejection of broad scientific consensus extends to issues like climate change and stem-cell research.

If anything, science skeptics, like the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, may feel emboldened in the era of President Trump, who shares their doubts on some matters and has acted on them. Last month, for instance, Mr. Trump nominated a coal lobbyist as deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. To be his senior White House adviser on environmental policy, he chose a Texas official who has described global warming as “exaggerated nonsense.”

Retro Report, a series of video documentaries examining major news stories of the past and their continuing relevance, looks at the granddaddy of anti-evolution cases: the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial, held in 1925 in the buckle of the Bible Belt. John T. Scopes, a high school substitute teacher, was charged in Dayton, Tenn., with violating a state law that prohibited the teaching of human evolution in state-funded schools. The trial was epic, with two titans going against each other: William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. For all the courtroom fireworks, the outcome was never in doubt. Mr. Scopes was swiftly found guilty and fined $100 (equivalent to about $1,400 today).