Castles offer a romantic, often gothic allure. If they’re not haunted, I like to say, they ought to be! And not only are they supposedly inhabited by specters, but they are usually the focus of other legends as well.

I have explored and written about many castles and keeps—including Burg Frankenstein and Plassenburg castle in Germany (Nickell 2003a; 2003b), the Kremlin fortress in Moscow (Nickell 2002), the Old Melbourne Gaol in Australia (Nickell 2001), and others. Here are some additional ones I have investigated over the years and report on here for the first time.

Blarney Castle

The well-known term blarney refers to the gift of eloquence, attributed especially to the Irish. It is variously defined as cajoling, flattering talk; smooth, deceitful speech; or even nonsense. Legendarily, kissing the Blarney Stone is supposed to endow one with the powers of eloquence and persuasion.

Reportedly, Queen Elizabeth I (1533—1603) coined the term blarney during the lengthy, tiresome negotiations concerning control of the fortress. The titular owner, Cormac McCarthy, Earl of Blarney, dutifully following the protocols of sixteenth-century diplomatic prose, wrote grandiose letters that praised the queen, without, however, relinquishing the land. Her regal feathers ruffled, Elizabeth was said to have huffed, “This is all blarney—he never says what he means!” (O’Dwyer 2000, 222).

The stone is located in the castle at Blarney, in County Cork, Ireland. Built in 1446, it is among the largest Irish tower castles. A spiral stone stairway leads up to three levels. (Originally, the first tier consisted of the kitchen and armory, the next the dining hall, and the third the chapel.) A smaller stair leads to the battlements and the Blarney Stone.

The stone is actually one of the great lintels in the parapet, and is reached by dangling upside down in the gap between the parapet and the wall (as shown in a photo in Constable and Farrington 2004, 94). Even though there are parallel iron bars at the bottom of the small shaft that would potentially keep one from plummeting to one’s death, and a pair of vertical iron rails to hold onto, and even with a firm grip from the “Keeper of the Stone,” the experience can be somewhat frightening. This is especially the case for one with acrophobia (fear of heights); as for me, I don’t even like being this tall! I survived the experience in 1971, but instead of getting “the gift of gab” I was left speechless! (Of course, since I am of Irish ancestry, that was very brief.)

One legend about the castle is intriguing, and may stem from the fact that a limestone cave and dank dungeons are located near the castle (O’Dwyer 2000, 223; Nickell 1971). In 1651, after Oliver Cromwell’s forces had conquered castle after castle—Limerick, for example, falling to siege tactics—Blarney claimed a sort of “moral victory” over the rebels. Allegedly, the castle’s entire garrison secretly escaped through a tunnel beneath the massive tower—at least “according to Irish folklore” (Constable and Farrington 2004, 118).

The similarity of the word blarney to the American baloney (or boloney), meaning “nonsense,” cannot go unnoted—especially since the latter is a popular skeptics’ epithet. (For example, Carl Sagan, in his 1995 The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, included a chapter titled, “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.”) Attempts to explain baloney as deriving from bologna sausage (e.g., Barnhart 1988, 73) are unconvincing. Some sources note that that connection is conjectural or frankly admit that the etymology is unknown (Webster’s 1986, 34), while others offer different theories—for instance, that it may come from the Spanish pelone, meaning “balls” (Hendrickson 1997, 87).

I have long suspected baloney might actually be a corruption of blarney itself. Frequently foreign or other unfamiliar expressions are corrupted to a familiar one. For example, “Pennsylvania Dutch” is a corruption of Pennsylvania Deutch (i.e., German immigrants).

I finally discovered one scholarly source that acknowledged baloney was “possibly influenced” by blarney (Lighter 1994, 82). In any case, a fine distinction between the two words was expressed by Fulton John Sheen in 1938: “Baloney is flattery so thick it cannot be true, and blarney is flattery so thin we like it” (Bartlett 1955, 973).

Rock of Cashel

Another Irish castle represents an impressive sight: in county Tipperary, atop a gigantic limestone outcropping that rises abruptly to a height of 358 feet, stands a stone fortress wall enclosing the ruins of great medieval structures, including the Irish-Romanesque Cormac’s Chapel (consecrated 1134), a thirteenth-century gothic cathedral, and a ninety-foot round tower. The latter, built shortly after 1101, remains the oldest part of “one of the most interesting assemblages of ruins in Ireland” (Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed. [1910], s.v. “Cashel”). It is known as the Rock of Cashel but is also called St. Patrick’s Rock.

Legends about the castle range from the fanciful to the historical. The former is typified by a tale claiming that the rock was hurled by the Devil when he spied a church being built at Cashel. Fortunately the evil one had bad aim, and the Christians were undaunted (O’Dwyer 2000, 179).

On much more likely grounds, it appears that St. Patrick—the Briton who legendarily endured danger and hardship to convert Ireland to Christianity—did baptize King Aenghus of Munster at Cashel about a.d. 450, thus establishing Cashel as a bishopric.

Patrick himself is largely a legendary figure. While pious tales have him single-handedly Christianizing Ireland, the fact is that “this work took many more years than these legends allow” (Jones 1994, 189).

The most famous legends of St. Patrick have him using the shamrock to explain the doctrine of the Trinity and expelling snakes from the isle; hence these became his emblems (Jones 1994, 189). However, although snakes are indeed absent from Ireland, that fact is not due to saintly magic since there were never any snakes to expel. Instead, their absence results from the same factors that have also excluded other reptiles (except the newt) as well as such common English mammals as the mole, the weasel, and two varieties of mice. The absences are due to climactic conditions and Ireland’s having become separated by the Irish Sea from the other British Isles before they were separated from Europe (Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th ed., Macropedia, s.v. “Ireland”).

Not surprisingly, some say St. Patrick’s Rock is haunted. I saw no ghosts when I visited many years ago, but I can understand how folk have fancied “sper’ts av kings an’ bishops that rest on Cashel” (McAnally 1888, 49). I wrote at the time in my journal (Nickell 1971) that “the wind added ‘atmosphere,’ and with the cold grey sky, the cold grey stone, and the old graves, made an eerie place of ‘The Rock.’”

Heidelberg Castle

Perched atop a ridge overlooking Heidelberg, the Schloss (castle) is the centerpiece of the scenic views of the city. Its grandiose ruins of striking red sandstone are well preserved and represent “one of Germany’s finest examples of a Gothic-Renaissance fortress” (Schulte-Peevers 2002, 543).

During the second World Skeptics Congress held in the picturesque city, July 23—26, 1998 (see Frazier 1998), I found time to visit the castle, accompanied by fellow skeptic and former U.S. Air Force Major James McGaha.

Legends there abound. For example, one swirls about the castle terrace, where one can see a supposed “footprint” in the stone. This is purported to have been caused by a knight having leapt from a third-story window when a prince made an early return to his wife’s bedroom (Schulte-Peevers 2002, 543).

Of course such an “explanation” of the alleged imprint is ridiculous on the face of it, since it would have taken a superhuman leap to have so impressed stone. Indeed, the common “footprint-in-the-stone” story element—or motif, as folklorists say—is typically attributed to the supernatural (see Nickell 2003a).

Still another legend at Schloss Heidelberg is obviously recounted not for its factual value but for its punchline. The tale focuses on the Grosses Fass (“great cask”), an enormous wine vat standing two stories tall in the cellar. Once the largest functioning wine vat in the world, it was reputedly made from 130 oak trees and has a capacity of some 50,000 gallons.

According to the legend, in the eighteenth century the vat’s guardian was a dwarf named Perkeo, a court jester with a tremendous thirst for wine. Some say he could consume the contents of the Great Cask in a single draught (“Perkeo” 2005), while a more reasonable source states that he only attempted to empty it by drinking eighteen bottles daily for fifty years. One day, however, Perkeo substituted a glass of water—by accident, say most raconteurs—and died instantly! (Inowlocki 1999, 70—71; Knight 2002, 303).

The anecdote may have grown from a proverbial kernel of truth. Apparently, under the rule of the elector Carl Phillip, a Tyrolean dwarf, did serve as the court jester—a role that clever dwarfs often filled (Nickell 2005, 107). Perkeo was supposedly a nickname deriving from his response, when offered wine, “Perche no?” (“Why not?”). An antique statue of Perkeo today stands next to the Great Cask (Knight 2002, 303; “Perkeo” 2005).

Castillo de San Marcos

The seventeenth-century Spanish-built Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida, is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. Constructed of coquina, a soft limestone formed by cemented seashells, it was begun in response to a raid in 1668 by English pirates. Construction started in 1672 and was completed after twenty-three years. It guarded Florida until that territory was ceded to England in 1763, and it imprisoned Americans during the Revolutionary War (Brownstone and Franck 1989, 8). It was returned to Spain in 1783, then purchased by the United States in 1819. Today it is a National Monument, operated by the National Park Service.

Of the many legends of the Castillo, none is more gruesome, more spine-tingling, more often repeated—and less substantiated—than that of the ghostly lovers in the fort’s dungeon. As it is summarized in The National Directory of Haunted Places (Hauck 1996, 125).

An eerie glow accompanied by the faint odor of a woman’s perfume is sometimes detected near a wall in the dungeon of this 1672 Spanish fort. The wall was the ghastly tomb of Señora Dolores Marti and Captain Manuel Abela. Señora Dolores was the wife of Colonel Garcia Marti, assigned to the Spanish garrison in 1784. When Colonel Marti found out his wife was having an affair with Abela, he chained them to a wall in the dungeon and mortared a new wall of coquina stone in front of them.

In the next century an engineer noticed that a section of wall sounded hollow when tapped. “He chipped away the mortar, and the lantern he held illuminated two skeletons” (Moore 1998, 43). At least, this “supposedly” happened, according to another raconteur who stated more specifically that “There before him hung two skeletons, chained to the wall” (Lapham 1997, 147). That writer—along with his illustrator—seems not to know that bones are not wired together like the articulated skeletons in science classes, and instead of hanging as a unit they would have fallen apart, landing in a heap on the floor.

In fact, the legend represents an interesting example of how facts are embellished over time by those intent on fostering mystery.

First of all, there is no “dungeon” in the Castillo (despite its having been used as a prison on various occasions [Brownstone and Franck 1989, 8]). The area in question was actually a small room that was part of the powder magazine; it proved too humid for storing gunpowder and was sealed off. It was rediscovered, not in 1833, 1838, or 1938 as variously given (Hauck 1996, 125—126; Cain 1997, 22) but in 1832 “When a cannon fell through from the gundeck” (National n.d.; Harris 2004).

Reportedly “bones” were found among the debris in the room, but whether they were human appears far from certain. Concedes one source: “Many rumors and stories developed about the bones. Tour guides shortly after the turn of the century concocted all kinds of fascinating tales involving the ‘dungeon room.’” Indeed, “Some stories were quite fantastic” (Cain 1997, 22), including, of course, the fable of the governor sealing his wife and her lover in that chamber. Although one source acknowledges that “history does not record the event” (Lapham 1997, 146), another, while agreeing, nevertheless offers the hope that “perhaps some visitors may still experience an eerie feeling when visiting the small room in the northeast corner” (Cain 1997, 22).

In 2004, when I visited the Castillo (for the third time) I was impressed with the professionalism of the staff. One told me, “There aren’t any ghosts,” explaining that he had slept there all night on occasion and experienced nothing. He said that places with genuine history did not need to use ghosts for tourist promotion—unlike those that “don’t have anything else” (Cipriani 2004). The Castillo de San Marcos certainly has plenty of real history.

References

• Barnhart, Robert K., ed. 1988. Chambers Dictionary of Etymology. Edinburgh, U.K.: Chambers.
• Bartlett, John. 1955. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 13th ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
• Brownstone, David M., and Irene M. Franck. 1989. Historic Places of Early America. New York: Atheneum.
• Cain, Suzy. 1997. A Ghostly Experience: Tales of St. Augustine. St. Augustine, Florida: Tour Saint Augustine, Inc.
• Cipriani, John. 2004. Interview with author, March 23.
• Constable, Nick, and Karen Farrington. 2004. Ireland. New York: Barnes & Noble Books.
• Frazier, Kendrick. 1998. Science and reason, foibles and fallacies, and doomsdays Skeptical Inquirer 22(6), November/December: 5—8.
• Harris, Bruce. 2004. Castillo bookstore manager; interview by Joe Nickell, March 23.
• Hauck, Dennis William. 1996. Haunted Places: The National Directory. New York: Penquin Books.
• Hendrickson, Robert. 1997. Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins. New York: Facts on File.
• Inowlocki, Tania, ed. 1999. Fodor’s upCLOSE Germany. New York: Fodor’s Travel Publications.
• Jones, Alison. 1994. The Wordsworth Dictionary of Saints. Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
• Knight, Christina, ed. 2002. Fodor’s Germany 2002. New York: Fodor’s Travel Publications.
• Lapham, Dave. 1997. Ghosts of St. Augustine. Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press.
• Lighter, J.E., ed. 1994. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. New York: Random House.
• McAnally, D.R. 1888. Irish Wonders; reprinted New York: Gramercy Books, 1996.
• Moore, Joyce Elson. 1998. Haunt Hunter’s Guide to Florida. Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press.
• National Park Service. N.d. Self-Guided Map, Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. Copy obtained March 23, 2004.
• Nickell, Joe. 1971. Personal travel journal, January 6—8.
• —. 2001. Mysterious Australia. Skeptical Inquirer 25(2), March/April: 15—18.
• —. 2002. Moscow mysteries. Skeptical Inquirer 26(4), July/August: 17—20, 24.
• —. 2003a. Germany: Monsters, myths and mysteries. Skeptical Inquirer 27(2), July/ August: 24—28.
• —. 2003b. Legend of the White Lady. Skeptical Briefs, March, 10—11.
• —. 2004a. The Mystery Chronicles. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky.
• —. 2004b. Rorschach icons. Skeptical Inquirer 28(6), November/December: 15—17.
• —. 2005. Secrets of the Sideshows. Lexington, Ky. University Press of Kentucky.
• O’Dwyer, Deirdre, ed. 2000. Let’s Go Ireland. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Perkeo. 2005. Available online here; accessed July 28.
• Sagan, Carl. 1995. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York: Random House.
• Schulte-Peevers, Andrea, et al. 2002. Germany, 3rd ed. Melbourne, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications.
• Webster’s New Encyclopedia of Dictionaries. 1986. Baltimore: Ottenheimer Publishers.

The 2005 Harris Poll #52, summarized on pages 56—58, is in general agreement with other polls taken over the years: Many or most American adults believe that the universe (or at least Earth’s biosphere) was created by fiat of the God of the Old Testament in pretty much the form we see it today. In particular, they believe that humans are not related to anthropoid apes, let alone other forms of life. Not surprisingly, a fairly strong correlation between these beliefs and the respondent’s education, religious and political affiliation, and geographic location is superimposed on this general consensus. But few respondents hold that evolution should not be taught in public schools, even if they do not believe in its validity. How does one understand these apparently contradictory attitudes?

In interpreting such polls, one must be careful about their underlying meaning. What does it mean to “believe” in evolution or creationism (or, for that matter, both at once)? Scientific thinking of any kind plays a very small role in the daily lives of most Americans. Since their beliefs on scientific matters have little or no bearing on anything they do, they feel free to “believe” whatever is convenient and comfortable. Because many persons have come to believe that creationist notions are consistent with other social, political, and religious views they hold, they will respond with creationist opinions when asked by a pollster.

Unlike scientists, the general public does not understand that belief takes no part in scientific thinking. It is always the preponderance of evidence that takes precedence over personal feelings, no matter how strong they may be. (As T. H. Huxley put it, “The great tragedy of Science [is] the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”) And scientists are well aware of how extraordinarily preponderant the evidence is in favor of evolution, including human evolution. What is more, the scientist whose work is in the life sciences finds the tools that evolutionary fact and theory provide absolutely indispensable to making any real contribution.

Unfortunately, most Americans have little or no idea of the mass of evidence that substantiates evolution. Thus, when an eloquent proponent of creationism who possesses apparent scientific credentials tells them that evolution is false, or inadequate, or blindly accepted dogma, they do not recognize him as a crank or a pseudoscientist or a religious polemicist.

Many scientists, philosophers, and theologians have written extensively about all the forms of creationism, from young-earthism to Intelligent Design Creationism. They have demolished the scientific pretensions of the creationists, demonstrated clearly their sectarian religious agendas, and exposed their ultimately political aims. But these exposés are not widely known to the general public. Not knowing that a creationist has contributed nothing to the science he claims to represent, they can give his statements equal weight with those of working scientists who actually contribute to the progress of the life sciences.

Even those persons who “believe in” evolution generally do so on flimsy grounds. Not long ago, a man whose contact with science was typical of the general public was doing some work for me. He assured me that he “believed in evolution.” Knowing something about my work, he may have been trying to please me. But I cannot put much weight on his views in the matter.

Of course, most Americans have studied at least some science at the elementary-school and high-school levels. Most high-school students, indeed, have taken some sort of biology course. Have they learned nothing at all? My own experience in teaching university-level physics casts some light on this question. Students in the introductory level course soon find that much of what they must learn is counterintuitive. Very early, they are exposed to Newton’s first law of motion, which asserts that a body on which no force is acting maintains the speed and direction of its motion indefinitely. But this conflicts with the experience they had that very morning while driving their cars to campus. To keep the car going at a constant speed, they had to keep a foot on the gas pedal, thus supplying force to the wheels. And when they wanted to slow down, they removed the foot and thus the force.

In the “real world,” that is, objects on which no force is acting soon come to rest; force is required to keep them moving. The contradiction of Newton’s first law is evident. Of course, the better students come to understand that the coasting car is not an example of an object on which no force is acting, and they reconcile the two experiences in a consistent manner. Certainly, all students who want to become physicists must do so. But an awful lot of students who solve enough homework problems to pass the course come to believe that the real world and the “physics-class world” operate according to different laws. It is their obligation, of course, to learn enough about the “physics-class world” to pass the course (and maybe to become computer engineers or physicians or X-ray technicians.) But they feel no need to reconcile that world with the one in which they drive their cars and generally live their lives. And many of them never do so.

I am sure that biology teachers can tell similar stories. One can see why citizens who don’t “believe” in evolution are nevertheless quite happy to have it taught in schools. After all, the biology class is the realm of the biology teacher and the “biology-class world,” and most citizens are perfectly happy to let that world have whatever laws it may have. They want their children to get good grades and do not think the results will have much bearing on their “real” lives.

Committed creationists, of course, dissent sharply from this view. They believe exposure to evolutionary ideas can lead a young person to all sorts of immoral views and acts, which they list in frightening detail. But such zealots are a small minority. Most Americans don’t think that a little evolution will pervert their children. Still, they have no objection to having a little creationism taught in class as well. After all, it will keep the evangelical preachers happy and won’t make much difference in their children’s education. And it’s only “fair” to give everyone his due.

Does this mean I am complacent about the results of the poll? By no means! I am deeply concerned about the extent of scientific illiteracy in the American public. I am certain that many small improvements in the process of education can improve matters somewhat. But I am not convinced that we can expect a radical change in the scientific literacy of the American populace any time soon. What is perhaps more important, and more useful, is to convince the public that creationism is religion masquerading as science, and that teaching religion as science is unhealthy for religion, for science, and for education in general.

In his momentous conclusions, Darwin does not breathe a single word to assert that humans are descended from monkeys, although he proposes a still wrongly misconstrued idea of common descent. Darwin’s immense and provocative contribution to biology was about natural selection and not about how new species come to be. Natural selection is only one of several mechanisms by which evolution takes place. Individual organisms do not evolve; populations do.

How new species arise was not worked out until well into the twentieth century, primarily by geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900—1975) and biologist Ernst Mayr (1904—2005). It is Dobzhansky who famously said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” By that time, the theory of evolution was firmly established through one confirming discovery after another, in every single biological discipline from anthropology, through molecular biology and paleontology (filling in the “missing” intermediate forms of life, for example), to zoology.

There is always a wealth of creative arguments among scientists about technical details to be resolved, but the basic framework of evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology. It is as solidly based as the heliocentric theory of our planetary universe, because there exists no meaningful falsifiable evidence to contradict it. If the theory of evolution turns out to be wrong, a very unlikely proposition, it could only be replaced by another and better scientific theory—not by spurious special pleadings for which no scientific evidence exists.

Opposition is not limited to biological evolution. There are still people at the Flat Earth Society, for example, who seriously insist on religious grounds that the world is flat and that Earth is the center of the universe.

Misunderstanding of biological evolution is widespread. Evolution, for example, is not synonymous with progress. Populations can and do retrogress. Evolution has nothing directly to do with the issue of the origins of life. That is an altogether different subject. Human beings did not “descend” from apes, but the two creatures do share a common ancestor. In the simplest terms, evolution is about changes taking place in populations of living organisms as a function of time and environment.

It is difficult to understand why this subject, authoritatively studied for over 150 years, elicits so much mindless controversy. The mainly religious hostility to the theory of evolution is as fierce today as was the opposition to Copernicus and Galileo’s heliocentric theory (that the sun and not Earth is at the center of our planetary system) centuries ago. The Roman Catholic Church finally accepted the heliocentric theory late in the last century, some 350 tortuous years after it was promulgated.

The attempt to inculcate “creation science” in Louisiana public schools was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court as religious dogma rather than science, in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard in 1986. So now, the creationists have brazenly come back with a renewed stab at teaching “creation science” under the guise of Intelligent Design as part of the science curriculum. The idea of Intelligent Design is that living organisms in general and human beings in particular are so complex that they could not possibly have emerged by way of a purposeless, clueless, mechanical route. But this is exactly what actually has been happening in real life, and the mechanisms for this astonishing process are already understood in extraordinary detail. Science is certainly one of the most ethical of all human endeavors, as it emerges from a profound respect for the marvelous world that scientists are continuously discovering anew.

Has it got any features? Does it have any limbs?
Is it made of dark matter or two-dimensional films?
Among all the world’s gods, is it major or minor?
This amorphous, intangible Intelligent Designer!

Does it live on a planet, a star, or a comet?
Inside a black hole or far, far away from it?
Can it ride on a light beam or something diviner?
This incongruous, elusive Intelligent Designer!

Would a galactic ensemble fit most of it in,
Or is it as small as the head of a pin,
Or perhaps in between, like a grand ocean liner?
This mysterious, pretentious Intelligent Designer!

Does it get a big charge out of making malaria,
Cholera, AIDS, or a cook who’s a carrier
Of typhoid or worms who love to live in your spine or
Your belly? this heartless Intelligent Designer!

Did the brain carcinoma (what’s more unbenigner?)
Come out of the shop of the Intelligent Designer?
Does the tse-tse fly sing a clear thankful hosanna
To the ID every time it makes someone a goner?

Does it have any purpose except to confuse
Bible myths of creation with what scientists use
To learn how designs in nature are made?
This Intelligent Designer — a pointless charade!

Public opinion polls tell us that we are losing the battle to explain the nature of evolution and the central role that evolutionary concepts play in modern science. Tens of millions of Americans scoff at evolution and try to protect their children from what they consider to be a pernicious concept.

Given the overwhelming scientific support for evolution, we must be doing something wrong in discussing this issue with the public. There are several ways in which scientists and educators might enhance their effectiveness in this debate. The problems relate to framing the issues, or rather, allowing the opponents of evolution to frame them. Framing involves the selective use of language or context totrigger responses, either support or opposition. We see it in the often deceptive titles of legislation, such as a “clear skies act” or “forest renewal act” or, on the other side, a “death tax.” “Pro-choice” or “pro-life” advocates are always careful to frame their position with the proper emotion-charged terms. (The subject is artfully described in George Lakoff’s book Don’t Think of an Elephant.)

As a prime example, we doom our communications efforts with many nonscientists by defending the “theory of evolution.” Theory is quite simply the wrong word. Polls indicate that three quarters of Americans agreed that “evolution is commonly referred to as the theory of evolution because it has not yet been proven scientifically.” Those who advocate adding “only a theory” disclaimers in textbooks know that to call evolution a is sufficient to undermine its acceptance.

Channeling the discussion into a debate over the “theory of evolution” is an example of framing. Since the great majority of Americans understand the word theory to imply uncertainty and vagueness, the name itself predisposes the answer. It is as if a criminal defendant were described by the judge and other court officials as “the murderer.” Not many juries would want to let a known murderer free, no matter how the evidence was presented. The one who frames the debate often wins.

Yet many proponents of evolution seem content to argue about the “theory of evolution” and its educational role. As scientists, they were taught that a scientific theory is a systematic set of principles that has been shown to fit the facts, and has stood up against attempts to prove it false. A theory is thus the highest level of understanding, synthesizing a wide variety of observations and experiments. But that is not what the word theory means to 99 percent of Americans, including many scientists and educators when they are outside the classroom.

Dictionaries have noted the changing definition of this word. Older dictionaries give preference to the scientific definition and consider the use of theory to refer to a guess or hunch to be a form of slang. Today, the slang meaning prevails, and a theory is a belief, something taken to be true without proof, an assumption, a suggestion, a hypothesis. Similarly, theoretical is used as a synonym for tentative, an idea that has not been tested with observations.

How do we really use the term in everyday language? A theory is a hunch that a detective comes up with in a murder mystery. It is one of several competing ideas, none of them proved. Fringe theories and conspiracy theories are crazy ideas that are out of the mainstream. New medicines or changes in the tax laws may be good in theory but don’t work in practice. Among some scientists, theorists are thought to lack solid grounding in the facts (see the accompanying sidebar).

What about scientific usage? We don’t hear much anymore about the Theory of Gravitation, or the Atomic Theory of Matter, or the Theory of Plate Tectonics. These phrases have a vaguely antique flavor. Gravitation and atoms and plate tectonics are accepted as legitimate subjects that don’t need the preface “Theory of.” The only two areas where “Theory of” remains in common use are Theory of Relativity and Theory of Evolution. Relativity is associated with Einstein, a genius whose work was abstract and unintelligible to laypeople. I doubt if most people realize that the principles of relativity have been tested, or that relativity has practical implications, for example in calculating the interplanetary trajectories of spacecraft. Judge for yourselves what this association implies for “Theory of Evolution.”

There is another usage that should be mentioned: theory as a discipline, such as organization theory, color theory, economic theory, music theory, etc. These phrases imply the existence of a knowledge base or conceptual framework, and their names are given to university courses or areas of specialization. In science there are chaos theory, cosmological theory, information theory, and—yes—evolutionary theory (as used in the title of Steve Gould’s last book). This usage is, however, rarely discussed in arguments about “only a theory.”

If we accept the framing that calls this topic the theory of evolution, we face a dilemma. Some people just ignore the problem and concentrate on presenting the facts of evolution. They may believe that these facts and their implications are self-evident. But the human brain does not always work that way. We have seen recent examples. The majority of voters who supported the 2004 re-election of George W. Bush told pollsters that they believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he had been behind the September 11 terrorist attacks, despite countless news stories to the contrary. Many people believe that airplanes are more dangerous than cars, no matter what risk statistics are presented. Even after well-conducted trials showed that herbal medicines such as echinacea are ineffective, public sales have remained strong.

Alternatively, many scientists and educators recognize the public misunderstanding of the scientific term theory and try to explain this to the audience. In her excellent book Evolution vs. Creationism, Eugenie Scott devotes much of the first chapter to the scientific meaning of the terms theory, hypothesis, falsification, etc. However, few members of a nonscientific audience with concerns about teaching evolution to their children are ready to accept that this word, whose meaning they know perfectly well, has in fact an almost opposite definition in science. Thus before asking the audience to consider that their opinions about evolution might be wrong, we start by asking them to accept a contrary definition for a familiar word. Anyone who teaches knows how hard it is for students to unlearn things they already know and believe. So why do we accept this wholly unnecessary burden when discussing evolution? No wonder those who frame evolution as a theory often win.

We should be discussing simply evolution, the same way we might discuss plate tectonics or genetics or any other branch of science. To debate the “theory of evolution” is a trap. It is letting our opponents frame the discussion to their benefit. Once we stop defending the theory of evolution, we are also free to criticize “only a theory” disclaimers in textbooks without apology or diversionary explanations.

The Either/Or Fallacy

The concept of framing has other implications for the creation-evolution debate. One that we are all familiar with is the effort to portray this as a choice between two models—godless evolution versus divinely inspired creationism. In a two-model formulation, any perceived difficulty with evolution becomes support for creationism. We should not accept this framing of the conflict. Actually, I would think that today it would be obvious that there are at least three models on the table: evolution, the young-earth creationism of biblical literalists, and the more sophisticated concept of Intelligent Design (ID), which accepts the age of the universe and the change in Earth’s biota over time. It is a tribute to the discipline of the anti-evolution camp that they have avoided most public debates between the biblical literalists and ID. But we are free to exploit this split and to ask which alternative is proposed to be taught alongside evolution in science classes.

Most opponents of evolution in the schools are Christian fundamentalists, and many of them believe that evolution is a moral issue, a struggle between the forces of good and evil. Obviously proponents of evolution do not see it this way. What we want is a level playing field where we can present the facts. But as noted above, facts often lose out in a confrontation with deeply held beliefs.

To achieve a level playing field, we should avoid debating evolution in a religious context. Specifically, we should not speak on these issues in a church other than our own. In an unfamiliar church speaking to an audience of like-minded opponents of evolution, all the cards are stacked against us—not because there is anything antireligious about evolution, but because the audience believes there is. This situation also creates a temptation to debate religion itself, such as arguing about the “true” message of the first book of Genesis or contrasting the beliefs of Roman Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants. This is not likely to be a winning strategy for the scientist, who is again a victim of framing.

An Issue of Values

Many antievolutionists base their opposition not on scientific issues, but on their belief that evolution threatens their value system, specifically their family values. I don’t see why we should not face this issue directly. Family values are not the monopoly of the creationist advocates. Most in these audiences will share a common interest in the education of their children, which is a fundamental American family value.

If I were speaking to an audience of parents, I would stress that evolution is central to many sciences, and that one cannot be a scientist without understanding it. I would note that students who don’t understand evolution will have trouble getting into the best colleges. I would comment on the great number of scientists and engineers being graduated in “competitor” countries like China, and note that American students are not top scorers in international science tests. We can make a persuasive and nonpartisan case that the future of the nation depends on its scientific and technical literacy. Relatively few Americans will reject such arguments and state a preference for ignorance. Teaching evolution is part of a bigger issue of the competitiveness and economic well being of the nation (and of the state and local community). This is a real issue of values, for our children and their futures. And it is an issue that might appeal to lay members of school boards and textbook selection committees.

Health is another value issue. Medical research is supported by Americans across a wide political spectrum. How many people understand the role of evolution in the development of new medical treatments? Or the place played by genetics in creating new drugs? There is no more dramatic (or scary) example of evolution than the emergence of drug-resistant pathogens, as well as recent diseases such as AIDS. Newspaper stories about threatened pandemics due to mutations in avian flu or other emerging viruses can only be understood in an evolutionary context. Suppressing the study of evolution cuts off future opportunities to improve public health. Surely this values argument has wide appeal.

Beyond Biology

We also suffer when we accept that evolution should be debated purely in terms of biology and biology courses. In the present American public school system, these courses are already watered-down so that evolution is likely to be mentioned in only or one or two chapters or discussed in only one study unit of a biology course. It is easy to belittle a subject that seems so marginal. We should reframe this issue in terms of crosscutting ideas that affect all science. The audience should know that evolution and the concept of deep time are essential to geology and astronomy and genetics and pharmacology as well as high-school biology. It is also an opportunity to tell an audience how many people in this country are working in evolution-related jobs. If the audience comes from a traditional conservative religious background, they may have no idea that evolution is widely accepted among scientists and medical professionals and that it contributes to the livelihood of many Americans.

Many conservative Americans support competition and believe that free-market economic conditions are essential to national success. Most of them would be shocked to know that this philosophy has traditionally been known as social or economic Darwinism. Perhaps we should note that Darwinian natural selection is in many ways nature’s equivalent to free-market competition. The other side of this argument addresses the belief that evolution leads to socialism and communism. Perhaps it is worth noting that Stalin’s support for the anti-Darwinian biologist Trofim Lysenko set back Soviet agriculture for a generation and contributed to the starvation of millions of Russians.

Finally, we can reframe the issue in terms that do not immediately offend a conservative religious audience. The context in which most opponents fear and reject evolution is that of human origins. The scientific story of the evolution of our human ancestors is fascinating, but it also provokes the strongest resistance. My own interests, as an astrobiologist, are in microbial evolution, which is a less threatening subject. I remember a young teacher coming up to me after a lecture and saying how amazed she was that I had talked for an hour about evolution and the history of life without mentioning primate evolution or human origins. I am not suggesting that we ignore the fascinating story of homonid evolution, but I bet that there are many people who would be more receptive to evolutionary concepts if we refrained from an in-your-face challenge to their convictions about human origins or the nature of the human soul.

Another topic that is controversial is the origin of life. Creationists love to confuse origins with evolution. They frequently use criticisms of, for example, the relevance of the Miller-Urey experiment to undercut the entire concept of biological evolution. Let’s not be sidetracked into the problems of the origin of life. While a great deal of research has been done to define the conditions under which life began on Earth and to understand basic biochemistry, the actual process by which living things emerged is not understood by science. I believe we can and should admit this mystery. There may be many people who will open their minds to the ideas of evolution as long as we don’t claim that science has all the answers, especially about the ultimate origin of life and the meaning of being human. These topics can be explored later, when we have overcome initial emotional resistance to any form of evolution.

Above all, I hope that we can frame the evolution-creationist debate in ways that open our audience to the exciting ideas and accomplishments of science. When appropriate, we should be happy to defend teaching evolution in the context of family values and economic advantage as well as pure science. There is no reason to make this a debate about religion; we are almost sure to lose such a confrontation. But we must also understand where our audience is coming from and find ways to present the science in a non-confrontational and accessible way.

SI on Evolution and ID

Here is a list of some other Skeptical Inquirer articles on Intelligent Design and creationism.

• Charles Sullivan and Cameron McPherson Smith, “Getting the Monkey off Darwin’s Back: Four Common Myths about Evolution,” May/June 2005
• Dennis R. Trumble, “One Longsome Argument,” March/April 2005
• Robert Camp, “‘Teach the Controversy’: An Intelligently Designed Ruse,” September/October 2004
• Bruce and Frances Martin, “Neither Intelligent nor Designed,” November/December 2003
• Mark Perakh, “A Presentation without Arguments: Dembski Disappoints,” November/ December 2002
• Mark A. Wilson, “‘Geology Confronts Creationism’: An Undergraduate Science Curriculum,” January/February 2002
• Randy Moore, “Educational Malpractice: Why Do So Many Biology Teachers Endorse Creationism?” November/December 2001
• Taner Edis, “Darwin in Mind: ‘Intelligent Design’ Meets Artificial Intelligence,” March/April 2001
• David Roche, “A Bit Confused: Creationism and Information Theory,” March/April 2001
• Martin Gardner, “Intelligent Design and Phillip Johnson,” November/December 1997 (our earliest article on ID) News Articles/Editorials:
• “Time for Science to Go on the Offense,” July/August 2005
• “AAAS Board Urges Opposing ‘Intelligent Design’ Theory in Science Classes,” March/April 2003
• “Botanical Society of America’s Statement on Evolution,” November/December 2003
• “Bogus Poll of Scientists Latest Twist in ID/Creationists Fight against Science Standards,” November/December 2003
• “American Association of Physics Teachers Statement on the Teaching of Evolution and Cosmology,” January/February 2000
• “Science Trumps Creationism in New Mexico,” January/February 2000