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Helping Out Darwin's Cause With a Little Pointed Humor
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Jan 01, 2006 11:48am |
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| Category | Commentary |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Tuesday, December 27, 2005 05:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: December 27, 2005
The regular armies of science have long marshaled heavy intellectual weapons in their battle to keep creationism and its cousin, intelligent design, out of the nation's public schools. Among their big guns are philosophers of science, and even DNA.
When they take these weapons into the nation's courtrooms, they win - again and again. Their victory in Dover, Pa., last week was only the latest of a string going at least as far back as 1987 when the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard that creationism was a religious view, not science.
But as many of the nation's science teachers know only too well, repeated declarations from the bench do not necessarily trump community pressure in a country where, surveys show, only a minority accepts Darwinian evolution.
So now guerrilla forces are joining the fray, with an unorthodox weapon: laughter.
On Web sites, with games and in silly songs, they advance the idea that creationism and its doctrinal relative, intelligent design, are not just misguided - they are laughably misguided.
"The scientific community just isn't touching John Q. Public," said Donald U. Wise, an emeritus professor of geology at the University of Massachusetts. "We just have to find a way of breaking through. The only way we will do that is with humor." |
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