Orland Evangelical Free Church | Creationism And New York Times Readers

In a recent election, Kansas voters tossed out the school board majority that introduced intelligent design (ID) into the state’s science curriculum. Tuesday, the Times published commentary on the election by Lawrence M. Krauss, professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University. The essay, “How to Make Sure Children Are Scientifically Illiterate”, immediately became #5 on the Times’s most e-mailed list and remained there Wednesday.

This piece is a useful artifact not just because the NYT readership reacted to it. Krauss knew his audience, and crafted his piece to address a fear that the principles of the Enlightenment are waning.

The defeat of ID promoters was savored by many as a blow for science. But Krauss warns that “any celebration should be muted.” He notes creationists lost the school board majority in 2000 but soon regained it by changing their tactics. He writes this piece to refocus his audience on what he sees as the larger issue.

“[M]ore worrisome than a political movement against science is plain old ignorance. The people determining the curriculum of our children in many states remain scientifically illiterate.”

For Krauss’s constituency, ignorance and illiteracy are not mere problems. They are evils.

When people are ignorant, their behavior is governed by prejudice. Bigotry determines how they interact with people from other groups. Ignorance of other cultures is the primary cause of hatred and war.

People are jailed in ignorance by illiteracy. Krauss’s use of the term refers not to an inability to read, but an inability to handle complexities. Being able to navigate a discipline like physics – knowing what issues are under discussion, what values are at stake in those issues, and how questions should be resolved – is essential to gaining knowledge. Illiterate people aren’t able to participate in the complex discussions that dispel ignorance.

Krauss and his constituency believe education is the way to become good. It is a core Enlightenment principle.

So in his piece Krauss has a simple task. If he shows the ignorance and illiteracy of ID promoters he will refocus his audience on the larger issue he thinks is at stake in school board elections: the forces of superstition that threaten the Enlightenment’s advancement of knowledge.

Krauss quotes Steve Abrams, one of the ID promoters on the school board, as saying the world was created by God 6,500 years ago. Krauss comments that “a key concern” should be “how someone whose religious views require a denial of essentially all modern scientific knowledge can be chairman of a state school board.”

He reiterates his point with more force: “To maintain a belief in a 6,000-year-old earth requires a denial of essentially all the results of modern physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and geology. It is to imply that airplanes and automobiles work by divine magic, rather than by empirically testable laws.”

Krauss doesn’t bother proving these assertions. He doesn’t have to. His audience already accepts that believing a 6,000-year-old earth is superstition. For them it is but one superstition tearing down rationalism all over the country. They fear their core principles will disappear into darkness.

Krauss’s assertions are mere partisan shorthand – the stuff of bigotry. And written lamely, at that. He will never be convinced his positions are wrong.

But think about one of his readers – a person who treasures knowledge. This person might possibly be open to the Bible on some issues. What issues might those be? Is she wrong to value literacy? Is she wrong to insist on openness to other points of view? She isn’t likely to be demagogic like Krauss, even though she liked his article.

One thing is certain: she won’t be the least interested in evangelical populism. To get her attention, we’ll have to show how Biblical principles produce goodness where Enlightenment principles fail.