Darwin Days and Nights

The crowd was enthusiastic and large -- over 600 -- at my Monkey Girl Evolution vs. Intelligent Design talk at Washington State University. The questions were spirited and almost all good -- and, most encouragingly, there was a great deal of commonsense puzzlement expressed by students, who wondered just why some Americans -- nearly half, according to various polls -- felt science contradicts their faith.

“I think it’s very much possible that you can believe in evolution and still have your own religious beliefs,” bioengineering student Shantel Martinez told the Daily Evergreen afterward. “And it shouldn’t be so hard for our world, our country, to not have issues about it.”

One idea in particular seemed to resonate with the gathering: that the promoters of putting the supernatural theory of Intelligent Design into high school science classes were, in effect, trying to role back the Enlightenment and reject the scientific method. Most of those present seemed to think that was not a very good idea.

My presentation was part of a weeklong observance of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. The folks at WSU pulled out all the stops and put on a very interesting series of presentations. The big finish was a showing of 1966's One Million Years B.C., starring a scientifically inaccurate pairing of cavemen, dinosaurs, and Raquel Welch -- chosen by the WSU organizers because, they say, the film's lack of scientific authenticity is on par with the critics of evolution depicted in Monkey Girl.