When asked if he had ever taken the time to fully read Of Pandas and People, the reference book on intelligent design available for students in the Dover library, Linker responded “no”–after all, he said, it was summer when he was asked to do so.

Salzberg also urges readers to “drop the artificial debate about evolution and intelligent design.” But he himself encourages just such an artificial debate, for no design theorist questions microevolution, the sort of change that produces new flu viruses.

“There are people right now in Dover, Pennsylvania fighting to ban a completely harmless book called Of Pandas And People from public school science classes, against the express wishes of a majority of the parents…. You can put all the lipstick you want on this pig, with armwaving generalizations about ‘separation of church and state,’ but the pig won’t get any prettier.” Atheist Dean Esmay