Accountant Paul Ingis, 43, has been studying such material for years, and looks for opportunities to share the answers he's mastered. When clients ask what he's been up to, Ingis responds that he's been studying creation science. If they express interest, he launches into his routine.
"It's fishing. You never know when you might meet the one in 1,000 who will listen," Ingis said.
It's impossible to measure the success of the one-on-one evangelizing inspired by Answers in Genesis. But Glenn Branch, who defends evolution for a living, does not doubt it's having an effect.
Ham and his fellow evangelists "do a lot to promote a climate of ignorance, skepticism and hostility with respect to evolution," said Branch, deputy director of the nonprofit National Center for Science Education.
Evolution has scored a few high-profile victories. A federal judge ruled in December that the school board in Dover, Pa., could not require teachers to discuss intelligent design (the concept that some life is so complex, it could not have evolved by random chance). And in Cobb County, Ga., a federal judge ruled that disclaimers pasted onto science textbooks were illegal. (The stickers, removed last year, called evolution "a theory, not a fact.")
Still, those who teach and promote evolution say the challenges are multiplying.
Several Imax theaters in the South -- including a few in science museums -- have refused to show movies that mention evolution or the Earth's age.
Bills that would allow or require science teachers to mention alternatives to evolution have been introduced in Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Utah. State boards of education in Kansas and Ohio adopted guidelines that single out evolution for critique. The governor of Kentucky used his State of the Commonwealth address to encourage public schools to teach alternative theories of man's origins.
A national conference for science teachers in the spring will focus on helping them respond to creationists' challenges. In an informal survey, the National Science Teachers Assn. found that nearly a third of its members felt pressured to play down evolution.
Ham's dream is to increase that pressure.
He will evangelize in Rocky Mount, N.C., next weekend and in Bossier City, La., after that. The month of March will take him to Modesto; Avon, Ind.; and a college retreat outside Cincinnati. His colleagues from Answers in Genesis will match his pace, preaching over the next few weeks in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio.
At every stop, they will recruit men, women and children to stand up for God as the creator.
