Back in June, I reported on this new sleazy tactic by Ray Comfort: he produced an abridged edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and then had the gall to tag on a preface that he had written himself, full of the standard creationist misconceptions. Comfort is astoundingly ignorant of basic biology; the best analogy to what he’s doing here would be if I were to give a chimpanzee a few blank sheets of paper and a convenient pile of his own feces and ask him to write a theological exegesis of the book of Genesis.

Oh, wait. On second thought, the chimpanzee would probably do a smarter job of his task than Comfort did of his.

Anyway, Ray and his polyp, Kirk Cameron, have a grand plan. They are going to give away their mangled edition of the Origin on 50 college campuses on 19 November, with the intent of allowing students to see the ‘alternative’ view. As if no one has heard of creationism, or as if it was a valid alternative to science.

There is a strategy to address this obscenity. They’re giving the books away for free: just get one or a few. Take them away and put them on a bookshelf, or rip out the introduction and donate the rest of the book to charity (which is a little impractical, I fear: these books will be very cheaply bound, and will not survive the mutilation). But anyway, let the intelligent, rational community sop up these sad mutilations of a great book and tuck them away from the gullible.

Alternatively, send copies to your favorite opponent of creationism on your campus. I know I keep a bookshelf full of creationist literature, and a Cameron/Comfort-edited version of the Origin would be a hilarious joke to have on hand. I doubt that the University of Minnesota Morris will be ‘lucky’ enough to get a team of these evangelical idjits on campus, though…so maybe one of you readers can get a copy for me? Get two, I’ll sign one and send it back to you so that you have an extra special version. Be sure to tell the people handing it out that you want an extra copy for an evil atheist!