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When I was in seventh grade, the junior high science teacher was new to our school. He was super cute; everyone thought he was a student because he looked so young. The first day of class, he got about half way through his introduction before he had to stop because Marci was laughing so hard. He asked her what was up and, through uncontrollable giggles, she told him his fly was down. I’d never seen an authority figure turn so beet red. Poor guy. <\/p>\n
A few months later, more comfortable in his position, he taught us our first biology lesson. It started like this: “Some ‘scientists’ think, get this, that life started when two cells bumped into each other in some swamp somewhere. Can you believe that? Isn’t that nuts?!” We all laughed and agreed that it was indeed silly. Dumb scientists. It wasn’t until much later that I realized he was a devout Christian and couldn’t bring himself to teach us about evolution. Maybe because my mom is so smart and worldly, I eventually learned about Darwin and fossils and our monkey-like ancestors. And, because I was raised Catholic, I got to see and appreciate the difference between the Adam & Eve story and the one Darwin set forth. And I had an amazing professor in college who firmly advocated that a story doesn’t have to be historically accurate to be “true.” But I wonder if some of my less fortunate junior high classmates still think it’s ridiculous that we could be the descendants of two cells “bumping into each other.”<\/p>\n