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¶ … Socratic Method of Questioning in "Inherit the Wind."
It is a truism, repeated in many crime shows as well as by many lawyers, that a good lawyer never asks a question unless he or she knows the answer to the question, much like the famous Greek teacher and philosopher Socrates. The method of Socratic questioning is thus one in which the lawyer or the instructor professes ignorance of the topic under discussion in order to elicit an engaged dialogue with students or witnesses, with a directed answer or rhetorical destination in mind. The questioning person feigns ignorance about a given subject in order to elicit another person's fullest possible knowledge of the topic under scrutiny -- or lack of knowledge, in the case of the play "Inherit the Wind."
In the play "Inherit the Wind," the defense attorney Drummond seems to engage in an apparently risky tactic. Drummond calls the prosecuting attorney Brady as an expert witness on the Bible, in Drummond's attempt to defend a teacher who taught the theory of Darwinian evolution to his high school biology class. But really, the defense lawyer knows that the...
He is thus secretly confident that he will be able to pick many holes in Brady's testimony, as well as engage in great courtroom showmanship, by calling the opposing counsel to the bar as a defense witness.
The defense attorney Drummond asks the prosecutor if Brady has studied and memorized as much of the Bible regarding the origins of humanity and Original Sin, as he has the Origin of Species. Of course the answer is 'no,' that Brady's knowledge is unbalanced and the judge reminds the defense attorney that Brady is called as a witness upon the Bible along, not on Darwin. Drummond's implication, however, is that Brady should not be able to "whoop up this holy war" against an opposing argument he has never explored to the same extent Brady has explored the Biblical story of creation in Genesis. Drummond follows up to this charge of Brady's ignorance by pointing to scientific incongruities in the Bible which first do not relate to evolution,…
Works Cited
Lawrence, Jerome and Robert E. Lee. "Inherit the Wind." 1955.
"What is Socratic Questioning?" Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College. 2003. http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/socratic/second.html [1 June 2005]
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