I think a blog-opinion piece can nonetheless be a good example of journalism and this one, I believe, qualifies. It offers its fact-based hypothesis and then backs it up with varied, multiple, credible/verifiable sources, including facts about/quotes from the opposing side. On a personal note, as a former biology/zoology major, I find this issue extremely important for the future of the American education system, not to mention our society. It is appalling how religious grandiosity and brainless propaganda has been allowed to dictate our national "thought"-processes. Along with the global-warming nay-sayers, those who deny the veracity of evolution should be loudly, publicly refuted until the message finally gets through -- ... More »

News flash: it's damnably silly that so many Americans believe that Biblical accounts of creation have to be evaluated on the same modern criteria of truth as scientific accounts. But this article fails to address WHY biblical literalists have set themselves so intensively against science. Isn't it better to try to bridge this gap than just to curse it?

Science is under attack. That seems factual to me, regardless of where one's opinions lie in the "debate" over evolution vs intelligent design. This article does a good job of showing the standing of the US in the world on this matter.

This is an opinion piece--an equivalent of an op-ed--and it need not conform to the requirements for good journalism, for which I am grateful. As a biologist, college teacher of biology, and journalist, I do not understand why, in a story about science, our standard publications, such as The New York Times, are required to show "both sides" of the evolution story. There is only one side and that side is the science. This opinion piece makes it clear that there is science and there is nonscience, and Americans tend to err on the side of nonscience when it comes to evolution. And the author and I pretty much agree that it's a shame. Don't get me wrong. There are lots of controversies among scientists on fine points of evolution. ... More »

I have never understood why some people try to force everyone to choose between God and Evolution. Why would anyone believe that God could not have created the Earth- AND when finished, set His planned evolution into motion? Surely no one believes that the oxygen level today is the same as it was at Creation? Or that the animals, plants, trees of today are the same as at the Beginning?? Mr. Holland put into words what I have always believed all thinking, reasoning people who are serious about trying to understand, would come to believe. I think Science is the way God allows us to get a glimse of Him, His Ways; a way of getting a peek thru the 'dark glass'. After all, Humans have evolved to discover Science and how to use it to ... More »

Well written from an unkhown source to this reviewer.