Just down from the Tupperware booth, and across from the demonstration kitchen for ‘The Original Waterless Cookware,’ Mary Weigand promotes something very different at the Dane County Fair.

The part-time nurse from West Bend seeks to convince people that the universe is only 6,000 years old and that Charles Darwin was wrong. Her booth proclaims Christianity and evolution incompatible.

‘Can you believe in evolution when God says he created the world and everything in it in six days?’ she asked. ‘There’s really nothing to reinterpret.’

Weigand, 48, said she’s spending $680 this year for a booth for five days, the second year she’s been at the Dane County Fair. She also plans to be at fairs this year in Waukesha, Sheboygan, Washington and Ozaukee counties.

She is self-funded, with financial help from others who believe as she does, she said.

Donald Waller, a UW-Madison botany professor who studies evolutionary biology, was dismayed to learn of the booth’s existence from a reporter.

‘I think it’s a testament to the power of belief and the difference between belief and science,’ Waller said. ‘She is asking that the physical laws of the universe be changed to accommodate her views.’

Techniques such as radioactive isotope dating repeatedly conclude that some geological […]