Foiling the black knight

Kelly C. Smith

pp. 219-235

in: Glenn Branch, James H. Fetzer (eds), Evolution and its rivals, Synthese 178 (2), 2011.

Abstract

Why is the academy in general, and philosophy in particular, not more involved in the fight against the creationist threat? And why, when a response is offered, is it so curiously ineffective? I argue, by using an analogy with the battle against the Black Knight from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, that the difficulty lies largely in a failure to see the nature of the problem clearly. By modifying the analogy, it is possible to see both why large sections of the academy have remained unmoved and also why many of the reactions to the threat have been so unsuccessful. Finally, I offer some very broad suggestions as to how to modify our approach in light of this new perspective.