Sheril posted yesterday about the outrageous (and breathtakingly arrogant) attack on the legacy of Darwin that is Ray Comfort’s psuedo-Origin of Species. Almost simultaneously, a copy of the Comfort book–for it is not Darwin–showed up in the office of the Knight Science Journalism Program here at MIT. Clearly, these books are being deftly circulated.

The National Center for Science Education is refuting Comfort’s staggeringly long and misleading introduction, so I needn’t say more about it. But flipping through the book, there was one highly dishonest aspect that struck me–font size.

Comfort’s introduction is in big font and nicely spaced. You can breeze through those fifty pages, almost like reading Harry Potter. By contrast, Darwin’s text at the back is in tiny, cramped font, a real trial to get through. Gee, what part of the book do you think students are intended to read?

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, even though I am. It appears creationists like Comfort will even stoop to manipulating font sizes in their arrogant and ignorant quest to undermine knowledge.

By now you’ve surely heard about evangelist Ray Comfort’s plan to distribute thousands of free copies of Darwin’s Origin of Species–with his own 54-page nonsense ‘special’ introduction–to students at the ’100 top U.S. universities.’ Yesterday they were given out at Duke (pictured), but unfortunately I missed it since I’m on the road.

In response, the National Center for Science Education has launched a campaign to counter the stunt: www.dontdisdarwin.com features resources, a detailed analysis of the Comfort introduction, the NCSE Safety Bookmark (for use with Comfort’s edition of Origin), and this terrific flier–which I’m glad to report was all over the Duke campus today. Help spread the truth by sharing the url and reposting the flier on your own site.

Thanks to Steve Newton, Robert Luhn, Eugenie, Josh, and all the great folks with NCSE.