In the best of all possible worlds, many reporters would be attending the many conferences celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. But in the world we live in, where travel budgets have dried up and stories are updated around the clock, few will make it to these mini-seminars on the theory of evolution.

That's why bloggers come in handy. (Rather than digress on journalists v. bloggers, see Doc Searls on post-journalism journalism.)

This past weekend, when scientists and other interested parties gathered for Darwin 2009 at the University of Chicago, PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor, provided running commentary. A self-described "godless liberal," Myers is helpfully clear about his predilections.

Myers' short summaries have a lot of good background and information, but I was particularly struck a talk by Ron Numbers. Numbers, a professor in the history of science and medicine, has written extensively on science and religion.  Addressing the history of creationism, he noted that in the 1920s, when the movement began, adherents did not believe that God created the world in a literal week. Rather, many agreed with William Jennings Bryan that a "day" of creation could have lasted thousands of years.

Only Seventh Day Adventists held to a literal 24-hour day, a belief attributed to their founder, Ellen White, and one which other fundamentalists considered bizarre. But conservative Christians successfully mainstreamed the notion in the 1960s and by the 1980s were ready to push their ideas into the public square—or, more accurately, into the public school classroom.

Since then there have been waves of litigation, textbook battles, charges and counter-charges over evolution, creationism and, more recently, intelligent design. Yet in all the pieces I've read, I never understood just how recent the current understandings were, much less the details of their historical provenance.

It's a little like reporting on the Taliban and forgetting to mention that we helped to organize and arm them. (This is not a direct parallel; rather it's an insightful example.)

There will be lots more insightful examples at Trans/Missions because this week we are starting something new. We've asked ten religion and media mavens to take turns writing with me. Updating The Scoop on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, we'll have more content, more variety and lots more incisive commentary.

Diane Winston