Hi all,
I hate to disagree, but I must. There are many
active listservs dedicated to ID, creationism, etc., of which talk.origins
is among the best (
http://www.talkorigins.org/ ). And I strongly
recommend them.
But those broad listservs do not focus primarily on
paleontological issues, of which many of our threads here are. Let's
face it, biologists, astronomers, chemists, ecologists (creationism almost
never shows up on the ecolog listserv), and many soft-rock geologists deal
with evolution in their work, but it's either ancillary (applied, as in
biostratigraphy), using living organisms (which can be "seen living today"
and therefore thought to be more "factual"), or so saturated in math (most
of astronomy and biology) that it's a different issue. For example,
most creationists (at least the savvier ones) are fine with
microevolution. Almost all of my students can rationalize natural
selection acting on populations.
But the reason evolution (as seen by
paleontologists) is almost always going to be held in greater doubt by the
public is because of the deep time element. This really is distinct
from most other disciplines that deal with evolution as a routine
matter. And so while I could understand (and would surely join) a
separate listserv for "paleontologists-defending-evolution," I really think
it belongs here on paleonet.
Basically, I really do think we have a
bigger battle to fight than most. And the decline of paleontology does
not bode well for this, especially since most evolutionary biologists (our
sister group) don't consider deep time. And this is even more
important since there are legitimate issues that paleontologists and
biologists do argue over (and that add further fuel to the creationist's
fire).
As always, I'm speaking from my own experience. But I
hear it's a big problem elsewhere too.
Phil