382 Evolution? The Fossils Say YES!
In a democracy, it is very important that the public have a basic understanding of sci-
ence so that they can control the way that science and technology increasingly affect
our lives.
—Stephen HawkingScientific literacy may likely determine whether or not democratic society will sur-
vive into the 21st century.
—Leon M. Lederman, Nobel laureateSo what if the creationist extremists have weird beliefs? Why should we care? How does it
make any difference in our own lives? There are so many crazy religious cults in America
who believe weird things, and thanks to our Constitution, they all have a right to believe
anything they like. If we leave them alone, won’t the problem go away?
The short answer to those questions is no; we cannot just ignore creationism. Unlike
most religious extremists who are harmless and somewhat amusing (or suicidal, like the Jim
Jones cult in Guyana, or the Heaven’s Gate cult), the creationists are not planning to leave
the rest of us alone. They are fanatics on a crusade to overcome all those who oppose them.
The reasons for resisting them are very clear and straightforward.
- Creationism is a narrow sectarian religious belief and cannot be taught in public schools
without violating the Constitution.
In chapter 2, we detailed the history of creationism and showed how every single court has
found that their ideas are the religious beliefs of a specific sectarian group. No matter how
they disguise their ideas as “creation science” or “intelligent design,” the fact remains that
they cannot be allowed to push their narrow sectarian beliefs in preference to those of other
religions without violating the First Amendment of the Constitution concerning the separa-
tion of church and state.
As we saw in chapter 2, creationists have been more and more clever in disguising their
religious tracks each time they are defeated in court. Right after the 2005 Dover decision,
intelligent design (ID) creationism died, and the creationists tried even more subtle strate-
gies. During the past decade, many states have seen creationists propose (and some states
adopt) bills allowing creationism in new forms. One form is “teach the controversy,” where
the teacher gives equal time to creationism, and then “let the kids decide.” In other cases,
these laws have allowed teachers to introduce “evidence against evolution” (provided by
creationists but not mentioning creationism) to science classes. No other topic in science is so
targeted except climate change, another inconvenient truth that fundamentalists deny. Still
other approaches have been proposing “academic freedom” bills that allow teachers to say
anything, including creationism, without anyone stopping them for teaching pseudoscience
in science classes. Creationists are always creative in their strategies to sneak religion into
public school science classrooms, and they have unlimited time, energy, and resources to do
so. Most scientists don’t have the time or energy to fight them, because they must pursue
their scientific careers and focus on real research, not on fighting political battles with reli-
gious extremists.
Nick Matzke (2016) published a clever study, where he used the language and key
phrases of many different creationist policies and bills submitted to different state legisla-
tures. He inserted them into a software program that deciphers the evolutionary tree of real