James Carville once said Pennsylvania was Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in the middle—referring to the fact that it is a state bracketed by two large urban centers and containing a substantial rural, and politically conservative, region. The stories coming out of York, PA are confirming that stereotype.

York is actually a lovely town in Amish country. When we lived in Philadelphia, we made a fair number of tourist trips out to the area, and it was one of those places we'd take guests to see. It was also right on the way to Gettysburg, another destination for several trips. I liked the place...but everything I'm reading in the news right now makes the inhabitants sound dumb as stumps.

York is suffering from an outbreak of rabid creationism. It seems to have started with one deeply misinformed school board member, William Buckingham, who complained that their chosen high school textbook actually discusses evolution and doesn't discuss his preferred religious fairy tale. He's been lobbying to replace it with a book that includes creationism as a scientific alternative.

Now, really, the appropriate response at this point should have been to look at this guy like he'd sprouted two heads, maybe laugh a little bit, and move on; if he pushed further, then people ought to have questioned his qualifications to contribute to education, of all things, and the poor sap should have been quietly shut out of serious discussions. But no. The community came out in force to support the guy, and the local newspapers are full of the most amazingly ignorant letters from creationists. There is a sensible contingent, but they're outnumbered roughly 2:1 on the opinion pages.

What's genuinely tragic is that these people, who are so absolutely convinced of the bedrock rigidity of their position, have cobbled together their rationalizations from bits and pieces that are just plain wrong. It isn't that they've failed to grasp a complex scientific theory, but that they've got even the simple bits of fundamental facts and logic wrong. For instance, one error made several times is that writers, who clearly don't know anything about this subject, go running to the dictionary for help. Lesson one to creationists: the dictionary is a source for information on the ordinary uses of a word. It is not of much use at all in understanding technical terms, or getting instruction in depth.

Let us look at the definition of evolution and creationism from the World Book Dictionary. "Evolution is the theory that all living things developed from a few simple forms of life through a series of physical changes. According to evolution, the first mammal developed from a type of reptile, and ultimately all forms are traced back to a simple, perhaps single-celled, organism."
"Creationism is the doctrine that all things were created by God substantially as they are now, and did not gradually evolve or develop." The question one must ask, if evolution started with a single-celled organism, who created the single-celled organism? Your response to the question will give you the answer that we should teach creationism in public school biology classes.

My response would be that we ought to teach chemistry in public school, and that maybe there also ought to be instruction in evaluating sources of information. But actually, that was one of the less lunatic letters—they get worse.

With regard to Mike Argento’s column (June 20), evolution is not a fact. Argento’s attempt to justify his claim by stating that “gravity is a fact” misses the point. Gravity is a proven concept, evolution is not. Webster’s dictionary defines a theory as “a proposed explanation whose status is still conjecture.” Webster also states that theory is “a guess or conjecture, contemplation or speculation.” For those who would like to do some serious research on this matter, may I suggests the works of Ken Ham, founder of Answers In Genesis. Secondly, since evolution is nothing more than a theory, what would be wrong with teaching it side-by-side with creationism? The fact of the matter is that if creation is correct, then there is indeed a God, and that means that people will be held accountable for their lives to that God. This flies totally in the face of the “politically correct — you can’t tell me what to do with my life” mentality of today’s society. With a little bit of research, people would be surprised at the number of creationists who began as evolutionists. In their attempts to prove evolution (which they have not accomplished) these people became convinced that creation is the correct explanation. Lastly, may I point out that just because people choose not to believe in something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Several hundred years ago it was a fact that the earth was flat. That belief did not alter reality. The reality is that God is real. The choice to believe lies with each individual.

Here we have yet another confused individual who goes running to the dictionary and gets two definitions, both of which are wrong for the term in question. A scientific theory is not a guess or conjecture: it is an explanation that has been well-confirmed and integrates many observations and hypotheses into a useful framework. The "evolution is nothing more than a theory" canard is one of those frequently used phrases that instantly labels the person as incompetent to discuss the idea. And the idiocies just tumble out one after another: Ken Ham is an incredibly silly person, evolution is as much an observed fact as gravity, what scientists are arguing is precisely the opposite of the selfish relativism the writer claims (we're trying to say that we have the responsibility to teach the best supported ideas, rather than the local superstitions), and good grief, the flat earth fallacy? Haven't these guys ever heard of Eratosthenes? That the earth was flat was Judeo-Christian dogma, not held by the informed...the analogy does not rebound to the benefit of creationists.

But wait! There's more! The tired old creationist lies just keep coming!

Let both or all ideas be taught. Evolution is also a religion, with its own set of assumptions and world views. Didn't Hitler, Mussolini, Chairman Mao and others use Darwin's ideas and his "survival of the fittest" to conquer, enslave those peoples who they deemed "inferior." Evolution was their religion. Students would be able to discuss, compare and contrast, identify unsound arguments, form opinions, look up facts and fallacies; it would be great. What is everyone afraid of? I'm sure the "goo-to-you" and divine intelligence sides have many interesting points to back-up their points of view, or don't they? Who's running scared? Who has something to hide? How do we go from simple to complex? Where does or did all the necessary increase in information come from? Was it luck? Was it chance? Was it panspermia?

Ah, the "everything is a religion" nonsense. The common claim, admittedly supported by abuses of evolutionary theory, that evolution endorses conquest, when it does nothing of the sort, and that evolution is about putting organisms on a ladder from inferior to superior, when again, Darwin's revolution precisely opposed such a conception of life.

The idea that evolutionists are afraid of criticism is ironic. I've looked at a lot of biology textbooks, and what they all do is teach evolution and tip-toe carefully around creationism—they avoid the subject altogether. Why? Because if they said anything at all about it, it would be intensely critical, and if schoolboards erupt when books say nothing about creationism, just imagine the carnage if a textbook tried to present all the evidence that says creationism is stark raving lunacy. Creationists don't want an honest evaluation of their pet fables in the textbooks—they want uncritical acceptance.

Evolution is a theory; there is no proof. In the fossil record there is no trans-species evidence whatsoever. With the thousands of fossils we do have you would think there would be hundreds or more fossils show reptiles to bird or any other trans-species. Where are they? A famous mathematician once said the odds of a human evolving from an amoeba is equivalent to a tornado going through a junkyard and forming a fully functional 747 jet. In his later years Charles Darwin changed his mind about his own theory. Look into it. Also look into the scientific work that was done on Mount St. Helens. I do believe there should be a balance.

More cliches. Of course there are libraries and museums full of evidence; to claim that there is no evidence in the fossil record is simply to lie. The "tornado in a junkyard" baloney implies a complete ignorance of what evolution actually teaches, and no, it is not a purely random process. And trotting out the thoroughly debunked Lady Hope story...have creationists no shame? The deathbed conversion of Charles Darwin is a disgraceful lie, an embarrassing example of an evangelical Christian making up a story to promote her ministry.

In 1892, in the year of our lord, in the case of Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United Sates, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 we are a Christian nation, our laws, institutions and teachings must embody the teachings of the redeemer of mankind. Our Declaration of Independence declares us, endowed by our creator, certain inalienable rights. To not teach creationism is to deny the truth and the very foundation our laws and our country are based on. The words "separation of church and state" are not found in any of our documents and the Holy Bible was once the only text book in our schools. Maybe if our history was taught, the history of evolution would not have made it to our schools. Evolution is just a theory put forth by a handful of secular humanists, that scientific laws and hundreds and hundreds of world-renowned scientists after a century of study and experiments and millions of fossils reviewed have proven over and over again is not possible. Dozens of scientists every year are changing to believe life was created intelligent design. It's time for our schools to throw out the evolutionary garbage and get back to the Scriptures, fossils and facts.

The "United States is a Christian nation" myth is well-represented in this collection of letters. I guess when you've bought into one outright falsehood, it's easy to parade more, like that the work of biology over the last century has disproven evolution, or the silly story that scientists are converting to creationism en masse (although "dozens" isn't exactly an impressive number; more than that are succumbing to schizophrenia every year, which isn't exactly an endorsement of the truth of the existence of the government's satellite mind-control rays).

I don't want to sound like I'm doing nothing but making fun of the rubes in central Pennsylvania, but my point is that these arguments for creationism are all patently false. It's not a matter of me being prejudiced against Bible believers, or having subtle, arcane knowledge beyond the ken of mere yokels; these are trivially erroneous arguments. They are stupidly wrong. And that is a shame.

The real problem lies with a few vocal fools who are not dismissed out of hand. The article I mentioned at the beginning makes clear where the source of this crap lies.

William Buckingham, a board member and head of the curriculum committee, who brought up the issue last week, stood by his opposition to the book and the separation of church and state.

"Nearly 2,000 years ago someone died on a cross for us; shouldn't we have the courage to stand up for him?" he asked.

Board members Alan Bonsell and Noel Wenrich agreed with Buckingham, saying creationism should be taught to balance evolution.

Buckingham apologized for offending any teachers or residents of the community with his remarks but was unapologetic about his belief that the country was founded on Christianity and not other religions and that a "liberal agenda was chipping away at the rights of Christians in this country."

His remarks were echoed by his wife, Charlotte Buckingham, who said that teaching evolution was in direct opposition to God's teachings and that the people of Dover could not in good conscience allow the district to teach anything but creationism.

Ouch. Buckingham made a strategic error: mentioning Jesus outright and the religious basis of his position means that the hypocrites at the Discovery Institute won't be rushing to his aid. They like their Christianity stealthy.

Somebody should mention to him that a majority of liberals are also Christians, and that there has been no abridgment of religious freedom going on. You can also see what they really want: not "balance", but that eventually we should get rid of that science stuff altogether and teach only creationism.

They aren't all creationist dingleberries in York, though. The article continues to tell us about the rational opposition, which happens to include a minister.

A minister's view: Dover resident Warren Eshbach, a minister of the Church of the Brethren, said he was concerned that the issue was polarizing the district.

He said that he believes people might believe in both God and evolution, adding that while public schools should have values, religious beliefs should be taught at home and church. Eschbach also said he was concerned that compelling the staff to teach creationism might expose the district to legal ramifications that could impact the taxpayers.

Robert Boston, spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, has said the district will be inviting a lawsuit if it chooses a textbook that teaches creationism. Buckingham said he did not believe the members of the AU know what it means to be American.

It's part of creationism's ugly tactics to claim that evolutionists 1) can't be Christians, and 2) can't be loyal Americans. It's good to see somebody standing up to deny these phony ideas.

A York Daily Record columnist, Mike Argento, also did a nice reductio on the creationist position, titled Inherit the wind in Dover. In addition to teaching the multiple varieties of Christian creation stories, they're going to have to teach Islam, Hinduism, and some even more entertaining versions of the creation myth:

And, of course, the Dover Area schools will have to include a chapter on the Finnish Cosmic Egg belief, which involves a teal laying eggs on some woman's knee and one of the eggs falling off to create the world and all life on it.

From there, they'd have to move on to the Norse belief, which involves a man and woman emerging from the armpits of a giant to create a race of ogres that led to three gods producing the earth, human beings and everything else. The Norse myth also includes a cow whose teats gave rivers of milk. I'm sure the kids would get a kick out of that.

Which would bring students to the beliefs of the people of New Hebrides, a chain of islands in the South Pacific. Their creation belief involves a bat, a ray, a turtle and an octopus and fish that evolved from a group of deaf mutes and fools.

Cool, huh? And, you know, those stories aren't any sillier from a non-Christian perspective than the Genesis myth. I could endorse exposing students to the diversity of religious belief in public schools—nothing could be better at promoting atheism—but even so, it doesn't belong in the science classroom.