The odd thing about the Kansas fuss — and the whole creationist movement in the States, is how new it is. People always assume that when the Origin was published — just around the corner from here — the streets ran with blood, city blocks burst into fire, churches collapsed and hundreds hanged themselves in despair.

Of course, that wasn't true at all. There was some earnest debate among intelligent people and by the end of the 19th century most religious people, both here and in the States had managed to come to terms with Darwin. They had two approaches each of which was in its own way sensible. One was to say that the Genesis story was a metaphor and every day represented millions of years old. The other came from Wallace; that the six days were real — but they were the days in which God put into humankind, uniquely, a sort of post-biological soul, which didn't need genes and didn't leave fossils. Most religious people are happy to accept that and the Pope himself has recently come up with a very similar claim. Not until the 60s did hard-line creationism come back to life, and mainly in the States. Why that should be isn't clear to me at all. It has a political agenda in that most creationists are on the right, and wish to believe that there is a conspiracy by the left against them. If people of liberal persuasion believe in evolution then evolution must be wrong. But of course science, any science, isn't like that; it doesn't matter who believes in it, what matters is if it's true or not. And I have to say, evolution is true, no mind what millions might think. But why it is there's been a sudden outburst of antirational mania I don't understand. Maybe only an American can understand it.