A few months ago I reported on “banana evangelists” Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort and their project to distribute a new version of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species”, including an added 50-page creationist-minded introduction that, in their own words, “reveals the dangerous fruit of evolution, Hitler’s undeniable connections to the theory, Darwin’s racism, and his disdain for women.”

But now there is a new development. It turns out that they plagiarized parts of the introduction directly from a biography of Charles Darwin (here is a side-by-side comparison). And the author of that biography, University of Tennessee professor Stan Guffey, is considering legal action.

It is ironic that many religious conservatives believe that morality cannot exist without religion. And yet, these ardent evangelists, while trying to defend religious doctrine against science, can’t remember the eighth commandment against stealing.