Hanna Rosin, author of "God's Harvard," has written a four-page article about the young earth creationist movement for the New York Times. Her tone is of course skeptical, or even beyond skeptical to sweetly tolerant, and she gives creationists plenty of room to defend themselves while at the same time portraying them as conflicted and schizophrenic. I won't blame her, but at the same time doesn't it imply that our theories aren't as valid as those of secularist scientists, whose "conflictedness" is the very wax that moves science forward? If scientists were in agreement on everything 50 years ago, where would we be today?

The history of science is littered with ideas that got thrown out--and the fact that the YEC and ID movements are growing, not fading, is evidence of their merit and the growing problems of neo-Darwinism and uniformitarian thinking.

Of course, even if new evidence came to light virtually proving creationism, many would continue to disbelieve, simply because they've accepted the Bible to be false a priori. Secular geologists might one day be convinced to believe in a global flood, for example, but it's unlikely they'd believe in Noah without a change of heart. . . 

Paul Davies also has a piece in the Times, an Op-Ed called "Taking Science on Faith," in which he explains scientists need as much faith as the devout:

And just as Christians claim that the world depends utterly on God for its existence, while the converse is not the case, so physicists declare a similar asymmetry: the universe is governed by eternal laws (or meta-laws), but the laws are completely impervious to what happens in the universe.

. . . .

[T]he laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.

Finally, Robin Finn writes about what might turn into another Dover-style trial in New York. One Robert Harrison has been teaching a night class on creation science at a Northpoint school district adult learning center. The New York Civil Liberties Union is threatening the school district with litigation. A law firm representing the district says the class falls under free speech protection.