As a nerd, I often traipse the internets for writings on evolution (and yes, I read up on creationsim and intelligent design too, and yes, it's still laughable). One of my favourite stops is Pharyngula, which is always witty, snarky, and correct in its assertions. Pharyngula is great for this - it's a blog, and it's meant to be a place for like-minded people to gather, not a PR firm for the atheist/evolutionist cause.
However, in general, it's this same snark that makes the creationism/evolution battle more difficult for us evolutionists. The more arugula they can throw at us in the absence or any actual facts or evidence, the further their cause gets.
People like Richard Dawkins (often considered by people who don't know much about atheism to be our Pope or something) embody this problem. He is often so snarky, so dismissive of religion, and so passionately shouting the gospel of atheism that it does more harm than good - and can have the effect of alienating people who previously had no opinion. Don't get me wrong here - Richard Dawkins is a brilliant scientist - I'm just not sure about the role he has taken on (but not necessarily asked for) as an atheist mouthpiece. At a conference on niche construction last year, someone said it perfectly: Richard Dawkins is the Bible's way of making more Bibles.
However, Dawkins' sometimes unsavoury attitude isn't the worst of the arugula ammo. There's been a lot of talk/writing about Darwin lately, since this year is the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, as well as the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. One of the more controversial pieces among supporters of evolution is an essay in the Times by Carl Safina, Darwinism Must Die so that Evolution May Live.
It seems a lot of people have been unhappy about the sentiment of the article, including Pharyngula's writer, PZ Meyers, and Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True.
I'm not sure we should reject the 'Darwinism must die' mantra out of hand. For the most part, I agree that we should - but the most compelling reason for this is not ideological. It is what Steven Pinker points out (Coyne cites this), that intentionally trying to change words is futile at best (See my guest post on Nemo's Blog for more on this). However, there are political reasons for trying to do away with the term. And, as Pinker points out, reasons of political correctness are often the only way langauge can be intentionally changed. This isn't necessarily a matter of correctness, but bear with me.
Basically, we need to not be afraid of using the same battle strategies creationists consider as a first step. Creationism and ID (Intelligent Design) have been able to take hold (in the minds of the public) in the face of so much scientific evidence because they are willing to resort to cheap marketing tricks like trying to rename things (see: Intelligent Design).
They are organised in a way that atheists and Darwinists are not - in part because we can't believe that we have to take these people seriously. What we're missing is that while we may find the content of their mission silly, the effects of their efforts are very serious. While we're chatting away in the halls of Universities laughing at the laypeople, they may be handing this out to our children in public schools (without actually fully explaining the theory of Darwinian evolution, mind you). We are so holier than thou that we're going to lose because we refuse to even acknowledge there's a real fight.
Safina doesn't do a great job of making this point - he makes it seems like Darwinists are a 'one ideology, one man, one book' sort of group (sound familiar? Jesus maybe?), and we have to move away from the man so that we don't betray our true worship. More than that, he seems to feel the need to demean Darwin's contribution to evolution to justify doing away with the term. No, Darwin didn't have everything right. No one who knows anything is saying he did. However, he was the father of modern evolution, and though many advances have been made, there may have been nothing to advance upon if it weren't for him*.
More than anything, although Safina is a supporter of evolution, he seems to be using a different means to reach an end shared by creationists: painting Darwinian atheists as worshippers of a new rival religion, with The Origin as a holy book and Dawkins as head of the church. There is a perception of atheism and Darwinism as some variation on religiousity, when in fact it is the absence of religiousity and adherence to the scientific method.
As an atheist, it infuriates me when I am painted as some shade of religious. Not because of my disdain for organised religion (although I won't pretend I don't have any), but because it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what I am about. I don't believe in anything, I don't have faith of any sort. I collect evidence, and draw conclusions from that evidence. I'm perfectly happy to look at new evidence and change my conclusions. If you sent me an angel who whisked me away and brought me to an audience with God, I'd be like: "Alright then." I'd be shocked, but I couldn't argue. However, evidence is of no concern to faith and religion; conveniently enough, the point is to believe in the absence of any evidence.
My personal offence aside, the perception of evolution and atheism as rival religious ideologies to Christianity is a potent weapon for the ID agenda. It allows creationists to continue to imply that our ideas exist to challenge theirs, when in reality our ideas exist because there is evidence for them. Darwin never sought to challenge Christianity, in fact, he was terrified of this particular side effect, and as a result delayed publishing his ideas. But the evidence was just too great. Science is not attacking Christianity - it has no opinion on it. You don't hear about Darwinists knocking on church doors with pamphlets. However, you do hear about pamphlets finding their way into classrooms. We wouldn't dare set foot in a church - but they are on our turf, weaseling their way into our science classrooms through the courts. And they have managed, somehow, to make it seem as if it is supporters of evolution who started it all!
Atheists and supporters of evolution have to find the middle ground, and stick to it. At some point right before or after Dawkins became our Pope, we became extraordinarily intolerant (which I'm not sure we actually are, we've just been successfully portrayed as such). I have no problem if you want to go to church for 5 hours a day. I do have a problem if you want to tell my kid they should go to church for 5 hours a day. I have no problem if you want your kid to pray in school (Muslims do it 5 times a day, and are entitled to do so in public schools. Your child is more than welcome to take a brief religious break). I do have a problem if my kid is made to pray in school (and to what? Imagine how confusing...)
I have no problem if the minute your kid gets home for school, you hand them a creationism pamphlet and tell them not to believe in evolution. I do have a problem if you insist no one learn it simply because it clashes with your values, and I have even more of a problem if you insist your values be presented next to it. Let's say you magically come up with irrefutable evidence that Darwinian evolution is simply wrong - what about that fact would make the Christian creation story right? Nothing. I do not have a religious ideology, a Darwin worship if you will, that is trying to supplant your traditional values. I simply don't believe in anything blindly. Do whatever you want, just don't force my kids to do it also.
No one is trying to force anyone to 'believe' in evolution (if you look at the evidence with a clear head, no force is needed). What we are trying to do is force people to learn about evolution, because sending our kids into a global economy with no real idea of what it is is seriously detrimental (it has implications far outside of biology). I think you'd be hard pressed to find a child of atheist parents who wasn't aware of the Christian creation story given in the Bible - even without having been specifically instructed on it (in a science classroom of all places).
However, I'd bet money America is rife with children who don't have a clear idea of what evolution even is (I didn't come from a monkey! My grandfather wasn't a chimp!), even if they have had the pleasure of deliberately learning about it. Moreover, outside of some weird creationist cottage industries (a handful of Christian Universities that give degrees in creationism and theological physics, theme parks with dioramas of children playing next to dinosaurs, etc), knowledge of creationism has no real purpose outside of one's personal life - so, 'study' it on your personal time.
Darwinism may need to die for evolution to thrive in America, even though I think the term gives credit where credit is due. It's not that Darwin wasn't fantastically influential, but the term perpetuates the notion that atheists and supporters of evolution are just some disorganised version of Scientology: a fancy new religion trying to drive out Christianity (see this comment made on Pharyngula, which uses book titles containing the word Darwinism to drive this point home).
If we are to win the creation/evolution battle (and unfortunately, there is a battle), we need to take a hint from the creationists and get organised. The atheist ad campaigns have their heart in the right place - put they are still serving to preach atheism as if it is a rival religion, instead of educating others about what atheism really is, and why knowing about evolution is so important. Atheists and supporters of evolution** are a ragtag, disorganised group with a myriad of different value systems - the opposite of an organised religion. Ironically, we may need to come together and have a few meetings to make sure people actually know what we're about, and figure out how to fight the persistent image that we are looking for converts.
*Yes, Alfred Russell Wallace also had the idea in a malarial fever haze, which is what pushed Darwin's hand into publishing The Origin, when he would have rather done it post-mortem (he left specific instructions to his wife). However, it was not so much the idea of evolution that was groundbreaking (Darwin's grandfather also had this idea) - it was the detail with which Darwin identified natural selection as the mechanism, and populations as the units, with more than a little help from Malthus' Principle of Population. Wallace had the same idea - but had amassed none of the evidence, and arguably never would have done so with the skill Darwin possessed.
**Notice I do separate these two; not all supporters of evolution are atheist, but they do share the common goal with atheists of making sure the ID agenda doesn't take hold. Atheists want this because we don't think religion has a place in the classroom, supporters of evolution simply believe that its extremely important in a science curriculum that evolution be included, and that the integrity of science be maintained (atheists usually also share the latter opinion).
