990 THE STRUCTURE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
as science in an attempt to subvert First Amendment guarantees against the
establishment of religion in public institutions.)
Creationists continue to distort punctuated equilibrium, but we continue to win
by exposing them in fair forums. For example, in 1997, Rep. Russell Capps of the
North Carolina General Assembly used a "standard" misquotation from one of my
essays about punctuated equilibrium in arguing before the legislature for a law that
would ban the teaching of evolution as a fact (although teachers could still present the
subject as a hypothesis). I suspect that Capps simply lifted the quote from Duane
Gish's Evolution: The Fossils Say No! (I do love that title!) and never read my essay,
because his version used exactly the same deletions as Gish's. Rep. Bob Hensley, an
opponent of the bill, asked for my aid, and I wrote a letter, which he read to the
assembly, detailing this dishonest treatment of my writing. I stated, in part (letter of
April 4, 1997):
[My] article is not an attack on evolution at all, but an attempt to explain how
evolution, properly interpreted, yields the results that we actually see in the
fossil record. The first part of the quotation is accurate, but about rates of
change, not whether or not evolution occurs. The second part of the quotation
after the three dots—"it was never seen in the rocks"—seems then to deny that
evolution occurs. But if you read my full text and look for the material left
out, it is obvious that my word "it" refers to gradualism as a style of
evolutionary change, and not to evolution itself. If one reads the rest of the
essay, the intent is abundantly clear. For example, I state on page 182: "The
modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the
operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the
fossil record. It is gradualism that we must reject, not Darwinism."... Thus
you can see that my essay actually says exactly the opposite of the false
quotation cited by your colleague. This is so typical of the intellectual level of
most creationist literature. Do we really want our students to be taught by this
form of dishonest argument?The counterattack succeeded. Rep. Hensley wrote to me on April 21, 1997: "Because
of your efforts, the Bill has now been withdrawn from consideration in the House
Education Committee." Shabby and dishonest argument can win a fragile and
transient advantage, but so long as we fight back, we will win. God (who, as a self-
respecting deity, must honor and embrace empirical truth) really is on our side.
Punctuated equilibrium in journalism and textbooks
All scientists have read egregiously bad, hyped and distorted press commentaries
about the more subtle and nuanced work of their field. I too get annoyed at such
stories, but I have also learned to appreciate that most journalists take their job
seriously, follow the ethics of the field, and tend to turn out good stories, on balance.
When hype occurs, the fault lies just as often with scientists who simplify and over
promote their work, as with reporters who