Two days ago, 1000's of kids were helped by their science teachers to catch sight of Venus passing as a little black dot across the face of the sun. They were enthralled & put in awe of our capacity to figure out that this would happen exactly when it did (their teachers told them about brilliant Kepler and his calculations; & if it was cloudy where those kids were, as it was where I happened to be, the teachers likely consoled them, "hey-- same thing happened to poor Kepler!").

We should expect about 46% of them to grow up learning to answer "yes" if Gallup calls and asks them whether they think "God created the world on such & such a date."

But if they have retained a sense of curiosity about how the world works that continues to be satisfied -- in a way that continues to exhilarate them! -- when they get to participate in knowing what is known as a result of science, should we care? I don't think so.

But if they learn too that in fact they shouldn't turn to science to give them that feeling -- or if they just become people who no longer can feel that -- because they live in a society in which they are held in contempt by the 54% who have learned to say "of course not! I believe in evolution!" -- even though the latter group of citizens would in fact score no better, and would more than likely fail, a quiz on natural selection, random mutation, and genetic variation -- that would be very very sad.