As we approach the twenty-first century, recent events in Lawrence, Kansas, give cause for pause. When creationists sought to have evolution taught as theory, not fact, in the Lawrence public schools, a group of scientists and educators responded by forming a group called FLAT (Families for Learning Accurate Theories), challenging the “Round Earth Theory” while arguing that our planet may be a tetrahedron (see page 453).

Incredibly, FLAT's statements at a press conference were reported by some media with the same objectivity as an announcement of the latest rise in wheat sales. The fact that the parodistic pronouncements of FLAT could be so treated provides a disturbing window on the world where creationists have been able to successfully sow their revisionist concepts in the minds of America's heartland. What spurred this burst of creationist aggravation was a mother's objection to a kindergarten lesson where a plastic dinosaur model was appropriately placed on a chronological chart of the Earth's development.

It must indeed be challenging to teach the products of the last few centuries' thought in an intellectual climate sometimes reminiscent of the Middle Ages. Satire will, alas, continue to be well merited for the foreseeable future.