How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.

Even those of us who don’t (or, as in my case, no longer) believe in God have to agree. If you want wonder, and something to marvel at, you can’t beat how life on this planet has evolved. God should take it as a compliment.

The Vatican has made peace with evolution. Mormons are going that direction, too. It’s a relatively narrow brand of Christianity and, unfortunately, a much larger swath of Islam, which thinks evolution is an -ism which contradicts religion.