When the New York Times derided this book for children -- as possibly giving comfort to religion! -- I wanted to buy it right away but of course it was already out of print. So the King County public library system was my best alternative. It's a very clever yet simple allegory by William Steig, the author of Shrek, contrasting a Darwinian and an intelligent design perspective. A yellow wooden doll and a pink wooden doll debate where they came from, with the yellow doll voicing fatuous opinions straight out of Darwin about how it all came to pass by accident. In the end, a man, their designer, comes along and scoops them both up.
Finally, my turn in the library queue came. After I got home from work with the book, our 7-year-old, Ezra, read it in a few minutes. "Pink seems smarter than Yellow," he commented. After I had read the brief and charming little book aloud to him, Naomi (age 6) and Hannah (age 3), Naomi said "Again!"
It was a bit over Hannah's head but then again, the subject also seems to exceed the grasp of the New York Times science reporting staff.
He has nothing to say about the qualities of the book -- its cleverness, the quirky personalities of the characters, the simple drawings that somehow capture rich subtlety and emotional detail -- or the fact that kids love the book. All we get is the boilerplate identification of science with materialism. "It's not the pro-religion stance that bothers me here," he explains, "so much as it is the anti-science one." Yeah right.
He makes clear that he won't be reading the book again to his children. Apparently a children's book that dares to ask the most perennial question in human history is enough to cause metaphysical indignation at the New York Times.
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So Ezra and Naomi will never become scientists. Too bad. As the African proverb says, "Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse."
I continue to be amazed, although I should not, at the number of intellectual persons, so tolerant in their views, that heap the charge of ignorance and intolerance on those of differing opinions. There appears to be no room for true discovery, for they have removed anything that even hints of the supernatural from their consideration. Yes, "Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse."
Looks like Ben Stein's not the only celeb that is willing to take on the scientific establishment's blockheaded view on intelligent design theory. Maybe a new motto for the scientific establishment should be,"not the wishfully think is worst of all". Any designer that has an IQ of zero will never be able to design anything, no matter how many generations it tries and no matter how many mutations it sees. Without intelligence, there can never be design. For the scientific establishment to insist that there cannot be ID is to back them into a hole that they probably don't want to be in. Wayne Hollyoak
So let me get this straight. Richard Dawkins says that the Creation story in Genesis is a fairy tale for children.
David Klinghoffer says that Intelligent Design is valid because.... it makes sense as a fairy tale for children.
I guess the only debate is whether there comes a time to put away childish things.
As an Agnostic, I have problems with this book... Then again, I also have problems with schools teaching kids from an early age to be tolerent of homosexuals or act like they're extra-special. I'm not anti-gay or anything like that; it's just that I don't agree with indoctrinating kids to believe a certain way in such politically charged issues when they're too young to understand what they're talking about.
When I grew up, I was taught to believe in Christianity and eventually came to have huge difficulties at looking at anything with an unbiased mind because I had been taught that certain things were true and right from an early age, even though they were not really backed up by anything.
So personally, I'm against teaching kids an opinion on anything beyond simple action-result type of things until they're ready to make the decision for themselves. For example, I would like a son of mine to think at this level: "If I punch this kid, Dad's going to send me to my room, so I better not punch him." or "If I pick up my room, Dad's gonna be proud of me, so I'll do that." That's just my opinion based on my own experience.
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