IF

My take on the incredibly infuriating Kansas hearings about whether evolution should be taught in schools --
IF
Rudyard Kipling's Verse

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

"If"
(with apologies to Rudyard Kipling)
Dave Williams

If you can lose your head when all around you
are seeking for the truth in science books,
and let improbabilities astound you
and claim the world cannot be how it looks.

If you can just ignore the fossil record
and claim that it was laid down by a flood,
and say that evolution's past is checkered
'cause God says he made Adam out of mud.

If you think biologic understanding
is best shown by computer engineers,
confront the "evolutionists," demanding
they fill in every gap throughout the years.

If glaciers and erosion aren't persuasive
that our old earth is very plain to see,
then claim a plot by atheists invasive
like Lyell, Cuvier and Agassiz.

If you can see the facts, yet not get rattled
and fight a losing fight, then claim you've won,
cry "persecution!" when your view's embattled,
then you'll be a creationist, my son.