Overall, a good though overlong story showcasing how difficult it can be to teach human origins to students whose faith interferes with their learning. My only criticism is the author not understanding or taking time to explain why evolution is a theory--more complex than a scientific law but still testable empirically. There are and continue to be enhancements and debate about evolutionary theory--not as opposed to intelligent design or even too-rapid transformations in the fossil record--but real, scientific issues that are being explored in the best medical schools and institutions of science and technology, including my own. If the New York Times is going to do a feature on the difficulty of teaching science to a faith-based ... More »

Author Amy Harmon fails to point out the falsehoods and flaws in David Campbell's teaching. E.g. the Mickey Mouse analogy better fits a creation/designer scenario than evolution; his moth-picking activity perpetuates a long-discredited fraud (the peppered moth evolution story - in which birds were filmed pecking dead moths off trees they had been glued to); and his comments about fossils are wrong (see "Karl Kruszelnicki: still missing the missing links"). The author assumes the evolutionary story is true and the creation story false, neglecting to point out that both are worldviews based on axioms (unprovable assumptions), and neglecting to challenge the dogmas of the evolutionary view. However, Harmon does succeed in ... More »

This article gives a perspective on teaching that may enlighten those who don't understand the scope, cause, or form of resistance to evolution and scientific thought. It is primarily an anecdotal account, but it manages to avoid the condescension that often appears in this type of story.