'SETTLED PRECEPTS OF SCIENCE'

Just what are those? Why anything scientists say they are, of course. Well, until someone disproves them. But in the meantime you are not allowed to question them especially if you're [shudder]religious[/shudder]. Museums, challenged by creationists, are fighting back:

Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.

They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.

After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."

That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.[emphasis added, nac]

So the troops are being trained on how to deal with those pesky and oh so unreasonable creationists. A pamphlet has even been written:

When talking to visitors about evolution, the pamphlet advises, "don't avoid using the word." Rehearse answers to frequently asked questions, because "you'll be more comfortable when you sound like you know what you're talking about."

Indeed.