Adam Rutherford makes an observation regarding evolution dissenters:

The world would be a better place if everyone saw evolution as a fact, but it’s not going to happen. Some people think Shakespeare is boring. Many more think Coldplay are good.

Creationism is attractive because it’s easy: it requires no thought and blind obedience. Thus, it has no value. But it is easy. My guess is that most of the people who don’t think evolution is true don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about evolution at all.

Why should you? Evolution matters. It matters intellectually because it is the sole satisfactory explanation for life on earth. It matters because it inextricably links humankind to every creature on the planet. It matters because its principles underlie modern medicine. It should matter to anyone who ever held a plastic Apatosaurus and thought “that is awesome”. I can’t write this often enough, because it’s perfect: nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. That’s why 2009 is so important. Darwin’s bicentennial is the ideal opportunity to get people smart about evolution.

The title of the Theos report is “Rescuing Darwin”, from both “aggressive” atheists and creationists. They claim that the specific reason for this national stupidity is because of a negative association between evolution and atheism.

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Theos also say that it is possible to be a Christian and accept evolution as fact. Empirically, of course this is true: there are outstanding scientists who are religious. If one takes a deist view, that there is a non-interventionist supreme absentee landlord who set up universal rules, and let them play out forever, then evolution is perfectly cromulent to Christianity. God hasn’t actually done anything for 13bn years. I’ve got no real beef with this, though it seems pointless, a metaphysical mumbling excuse for why there is something rather than nothing.

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