The Very Wonderful Watch and Adam's Needful Navel

381 In a cosmos where change is the sole mode of being, and stasis impossible, it’s common knowledge that creationists nevertheless read the Bible to say that God created each plant and animal species fully formed and immutable. Less commonly understood is why choosing this fixity over evolutionary flow should impel them to demonize Darwin. Disagree, yes. But slander and defame? What’s more, two centuries after Darwin’s birth, creationism still has plenty of believers and plenty of surveys prove it. Then, too, there’s the queer logic of creationism’s foundational fear: “If enough minds go Darwinian, belief in God and morality will cease to exist.” That’s at least two fallacies in the one mirage, and in dissing Darwin, “atheistic” is the favorite fundamentalist scare word. Never mind that anyone claiming evolution to be atheistic is morally obliged to know better, since evidence to the contrary abounds. Too, implicit in creationism’s habit of branding Darwinism as atheistic is the corollary assumption that unbelievers are ipso facto amoral. But the myth of equating atheism with amorality is disproven by every reasonable adult’s social experience. In any case, my interest in the paradoxical aspect of creationism and its hasty makeover as intelligent design extends well beyond its proponents ’ fusion of religious zeal with deceit. As it happens, why and how we humans manage to believe the unbelievable has always fascinated me. Yes, the why is virtually self-evident. We believe because we want to, case closed. It’s the how that intrigues me, all the more because I myself was once a creationist. The Very Wonderful Watch and Adam’s Needful Navel Reg Saner nonfiction 382 Ecotone: reimagining place Never mind that you could never be taken in by young-earth snake oil. Those who bad-mouth “devilution” don’t target brainy types who read literary magazines. Just the opposite. Smearing both The Origin of Species and, by implication, those of us who admire its author calls for hearers so ill-informed on Darwin that they literally couldn’t tell you his first name; moreover, ones knowing even less about how science actually works. Above all, such persons should be clueless as to the rigor a scientific hypothesis undergoes before it earns the right to be called a theory. Even then, the endless testing continues, whereas the average joe takes “theory” to mean a notion or hunch. That misconception confers illusory strength on creationism’s pet put-down: “Evolution’s just a theory.” In physics, the ultimate nature of gravity remains theoretical, but that fact doesn’t raise any hackles. Never mind, too, that an initiative called the Clergy Letter Project has rebuked anti-Darwinians with a manifesto signed by more than eleven thousand Christian clergy. In it they call evolution “a foundational scientific truth . . . upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests.” Their letter goes on to deplore creationism’s willful foisting of “scientific ignorance” onto our children. To further their cause, many of these signatories have even introduced a church event called “Evolution Sunday,” aimed at better informing the faithful on the scientific consensus. You’d think that might put the kibosh on creationists and you’d be right . . . if their target audience knew beans about biology. Despite the foregoing, damning evolution as a child of the Great Satan is neither the aim of creationism nor that of its second coming as intelligent design, aka ID. It’s only a means, a useful bogeyman tactic meant to sneak ID’s brand of evangelical Christianity into our public schools and begin the moral regeneration of America. “But,” you may say, “if godliness is the goal, what of those Christian sects having no quarrel with Darwin or evolution? Why not make it a come-all-ye by inviting Catholicism, Methodism, Episcopalianism, and similar others into the schools?” Good question. In effect, the sectarian certitude of ID militants gives a clear answer: “It must be our God, Made by a god? You’d think any kid would be tickled to hear it. Not me. 383 reg saner not theirs.” Catholicism’s very acceptance of evolution, for example, proves its devotees unfit for bringing Jesus to young...