ABSTRACT
Young Earth Creationist and Intelligent Design media insist that the horrors of Columbine were a consequence of teaching evolutionary biology to impressionable youths. According to Darwin-skeptic communications, such mass violence ensues from cultural and ethical decay linked to society-wide science education imbued with naturalistic, evolutionary explanations. While these and other contentions are factually dubious, focusing exclusively upon the coherency of these allegations misses something important about the messages themselves. For the import of such communications is not necessarily found in the reasoned expositions upon which their arguments are based. Instead, the sociological significance of these types of claims may rest upon their persuasive dynamism. Accordingly, this chapter introduces the Evolution Wars and provides brief histories of the Darwin-skeptic and proevolutionist groups considered throughout the book. The book’s hypotheses and methodology are then laid out in view of previous scholarship on the Evolution Wars. As is made clear, the goal is to move beyond evaluating fact claims in Evolution Wars communications. Instead, the objective is to delineate the persuasive qualities of Darwin-skeptic and proevolutionist communications while considering the ways in which such media can influence message recipients.
