Bill came to my attention when his article "Some would avoid this meeting like the plague" (originally in the K.C. Star on 3/21/97, go to here and Search for "Tammeus") was re-published on the Op-Ed page of the Wichita Eagle on 3/27/97 under the title "Newton was so bored he invented science".

At first Bill's article confused me. Luckily I had just been reading about the modern (pardon me, postmodern) method of literary critcism known as deconstructionism. Gee, I thought, Bill is deconstruction Newton and Western Science right before my eyes! Cool!

I was inspired to make use of Bill's style and slapped together a lampoon of his original article.

From the tone of the article I imagined that Bill was trying to be the Lyotard/Dave Barry/ Billy Graham of Science Deconstruction. Thus I was not surprised to find that Bill is employed as a humor/religious affairs writer.

Why do I care? My job involves teaching students about living organisms. Every semester I get to tell students about species and evolution and natural selection. These topics are tricky enough for people to cotton to in the breif time we have to cover them, but many of my students come pre-programmed not to listen to a word I have to say. Thus, I am interested in learning about the people who get to my students before me and what they tell my students. Also, the Wichita Eagle is my "community paper" and I am never pleased to see anti-intellectual and anti-science propaganda on its pages.


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