Winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s 2004 Science Journalism Award
Carl Zimmer is the author of several popular science books and writes frequently for the New York Times, as well as for magazines including The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Science, Newsweek, Popular Science, and Discover, where he is a contributing editor. Carl's books include Soul Made Flesh,,
Parasite Rex and Evolution: The Triumph of An Idea. His latest book is Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins. Please send newsworthy items or feedback to blog-at-carlzimmer.com.
"...among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters, heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad."
--Moby Dick
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The stickers are absurd in that it presumes an incorrect meaning and status of the word "theory".
This is the real problem to me. I would hope that anybody reading a well-informed book about such subjects would revise their notion on "theory", if they had held the more popular notion that "theory" merely suggests an explanation of phenomenon and in no way means scientific "fact"
If there is to be a sticker let it explain what "theory" itself means. People need education, not beliefs thrust on to them.
Mr. Sylva is correct. Some of my Cobb County neighbors don't know because they don't want to know. You can take it to the bank that the Bible literalists look at this as a temporary setback and you haven't heard the last from them, yet. Their attitude is, "a loud argument beats the facts any time!"
Permalink to CommentI don't have as much of a problem with the stickers as scientifically incorrect textbooks. Any kid with more than a room temperature IQ will see the sticker message as bogus. An textbook based on quackery like ID or incorrect science is much more difficult to deal with...
Permalink to CommentI disagree that intelligent people will always see through such things. When everyone around you is utterly convinced of something, it is *extremely* difficult to have contradictory beliefs--and worse yet, beliefs that those around you think make you immoral. I have a friend here at Stanford who is above average even for a student here, who was a Creationist until quite recently. It is very important that we take such pressures in education seriously, even if it seems like no one could possibly believe them.
(Sorry about the invalid email address, I hate spambots)
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Soul Made Flesh
Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea (2001)
Parasite Rex (2000)
At the Water's Edge (1998)
