Last months’ Scientific American had an article on the teaching of evolution in US schools. Highly variable, and in places – actually, in some unlikely places – appalling. I have no idea what Canada is like. I suspect, unhappily, that it may be akin to the liberal states, prepared to sacrifice science to social and cultural inclusiveness. (You can tell I’m in the 37% who are of the opinion that creationism does not deserve any mention in a science class, can’t you … which by the way may be a minority but is not a small number.)

Last line: “Many who are indifferent to conservative theology give creationism some support, perhaps because, as mathematician Norman Levitt of Rutgers University suggests, the subject of evolution provokes anxiety about the nature of human existence, an anxiety that antievolutionists use to promote creationist ideas.” Note that whose anxiety is never said. Evolution is quite clear about the nature of human existance. People just don’t care for its interpretation. It doesn’t just knock God off his plinth, it knocks man off his pedestal. It raises questions. People who wish to control – others beliefs or freedoms, or the natural world – are threatened by questions.