You may have noticed that this is Charles Darwin’s 200th birth year. So did the local creationists here in the Netherlands, especially one Kees van Helden. Kees is a professional Christian, who had been in the news before for protesting against supposedly blasphemous advertisements put out by Dixons in 2007 and who has his own lobby organisation, Bijbel en Onderwijs (Bible and Education), mainly known for agitating against Harry Potter, “the modern face of witchcraft”. This Kees van Helden thought it would be a neat idea to use the Darwin anniversary celebrations by publishing his own anti-Darwin leaflet and delivering it to each household in the Netherlands. Saving souls through direct mailing, so to speak.
Fair enough. Now for the brilliant bit.
Several Dutch bloggers were annoyed enough by this to start a counter offensive: “terug naar je maker” (back to your maker). If you dislike getting creationist propaganda through your letter box, send it back. They set up a website and included nice, polite example letters to make your viewpoint clear. So far, so ordinary.
But then some bright spark downloaded the leaflet from Kees’ own website, then produced an annotated version explaining just what’s wrong with it… It’s a brilliant way of turning creationist propaganda into just another tool to explain evolution, a very teachable moment.
The same person also found out who’s really behind it, as the people who produced the leaflet used an old template identifying the organisation they worked for: the Schreeuw om Leven (Scream for Life) anti-abortion foundation set up by Bert Dorenbos, the ex-director
of the Evangelistische Omroep (Evangelical Broadcaster). And where do we know the EO from? Exactly, from censoring the evolution bits out of David Attenborough wildlife documentaries…