Devil in Dover: An Insider's Story of Dogma V. Darwin in Small-Town America Book

Orangutans split off from the common ancestor to all of today's great apes about 12 million years ago. Gorillas diverged about 4 million years after that. Then, about 4 million years ago, our evolving primate progenitor split again, one line producing today's chimpanzees and bonobos. The other evolved to become human beings, a species with the unprecedented ability to think deeply and use reason and mathematics and science and logic. With the notable exception of "intelligent design" proponents.

If you are not alarmed at religious fundamentalist crackpots possessed of the approximate level of scientific knowledge typically seen in, say, a tuna casserole, and their attempts to foist upon unsuspecting schoolchildren a steaming pile of balderdash based on a literal acceptance of the mythology of Neolithic goat-herders, then you probably are one of the fundamentalist crackpots. That seems unlikely, though, as you have made it this far in to this review, undissuaded by vocabulary above a 4th grade level.

What is so truly disturbing about Lauri Lebo's brilliant account of the aforementioned fundies' attempts to veto science with their specific faith is not the ignorance of the creationists, which is too obvious to retain much shock value. If you believe that the millions of species of plant and animal with whom we now share this world are each directly descended from ancestors that, just a few thousand years ago, somehow managed to fit into a boat that measured 300 cubits long, then what, I have to wonder, with some pity and amazement, is it like to be as bad at math as you are? Also, do you know what a cubit is? I broke my cubit-stick, but I think it's about 18 inches.

No, what's truly astonishing, is their sheer brazen dishonesty and utter absence of any lingering shred of integrity. Because what the fundies did was lie, on stacks of bibles, in court, shamelessly perjuring themselves while jeopardizing the livelihoods and careers of others, to promote their own lunatic agenda.

It's a fascinating account of one of the most important intellectual crises civilization has ever faced. Science itself is under a massive attack. Climate change, evolution, and basic, elementary principles of economics are all being systematically denied by people who "don't believe" science that they don't come remotely close to understanding, because it conflicts with their faith.

People have the right to believe whatever they want to believe. They can believe that the Garden of Eden actually existed, that Noah's ark was real, that people in the distant past who claimed to have been designated as messengers from a Supreme Being were not simply lying charlatans. They can believe that the Earth is not 4.5 billion years old. But it's not science. It's the opposite of science. It's specifically denying science because it conflicts with the superstitions of ancient goat herders, who weren't any better at math or logical, scientific analysis than their modern day counterparts thousands of years later in the creationist movement but, apparently, not even a little bit worse.

If people want to teach their children that nearly all the world's scientists and, in fact, the vast majority of people who can do math, are all involved in a massive conspiracy to deceive them, perhaps at the behest of some malevolent, horned boogie-man, then that is their prerogative. But they can do that at home, not in a science classroom. And if they are teaching them that there is even a whiff of a controversy within the scientific community regarding evolution, rather than an overwhelming, virtually unanimous consensus, then what they are teaching their children is a naked, shameless lie.

Lebo's sobering tale is given a humanizing dimension by details of conflicts with her beloved father, who was, alas, firmly on the side of faith and not science. I can relate. There are fundamentalist crackpots in my own family, and I've met many others, most of them very nice people upon whom I would never wish any harm. It saddens me to see their capacity for critical thought brutally butchered by oppressive faith. None of them is remotely qualified to teach biology, because the sum total of their "knowledge" of where human beings came from is based entirely on the creation myths of ancient illiterate nomads.

I don't expect to ever have any kids, so my particular evolutionary line, having come millions of years from my great-great (etc.) grandpappy, that Miocene Epoch primate mentioned above, has finally, after all this time, come to an end. But maybe you've squeezed out a descendent or two, and maybe you'd like them to grow up in a world in which we continue to evolve, as we have, for millions of years, and not devolve, reverting to less intelligent, less knowledgeable creatures than we once were. If so then you ought to be prepared to stand up for science, reason, rationality, and against ignorance, absurdity, and blind acceptance of scripture even when it conflicts with vast mountains of scientific data. If not, then flying spaghetti monster help us all.