Evolution, Intelligent Design
Re “Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator,” March 25: The only difference between the “intelligent design” movement and “creation science” is the name. There is nothing scientific about either. A scientist tests his hypothesis and submits his findings to replication by other researchers. He follows the evidence, even if it means rejecting his original idea. That’s the way science works.
Advocates of intelligent design start out with the answer they want, searching for evidence they think supports it and ignoring everything else. The one thing they have in common is their religious faith, i.e., belief in the unknown. These people should be careful what they wish for. If they think they can prove the existence of an intelligent designer, they will then have the problem, as Einstein put it, of figuring out who designed the designer. And so on.
FORREST G. WOOD
Bakersfield
*
In its zeal to eradicate any trace of the spiritual or the divine from public life in the U.S., the ACLU makes a serious error: It equates secularity with the atheistic worldview. This goes far beyond the notion of separation of church and state as conceived by our founding fathers. Separation of church and state does not mean separation of God and state. As regards teaching intelligent design in the public schools: I think the coldest, most objective scientist can accept the plausibility of an intelligent order to the universe. Plato and Aristotle show us that you don’t need religion to draw this conclusion. On the other hand, it takes a tremendous amount of faith to believe that the order in the universe is an accident.
JAMES RADOMSKI
San Bernardino
*
“Narrow scientism” has suffocated the human spirit and debased the culture? Holy stealth creationist! I believe it’s the other way around. It is stupid to say that God does not exist. It is as stupid to say that God does exist. However, it is intelligent and wise to say that man created God in his image to rationalize his follies. It is stupid to say that man did not create God. The empirical evidence is overwhelming.
Let the stupid believe in what they want. But fight to the death anyone who tries to stop science, which is our true salvation.
DICK DENNE
Toluca Lake
*
The quest by an aggressive but vocal minority bent on stamping out any reference to an “intelligent force” in our public schools is sadly reminiscent of McCarthy’s search for communists in the 1950s. As a result of their efforts, Roger DeHart is now constrained to teach only a 142-year-old theory, without the ability to introduce the multitude of new information that has become available in the meantime. I would hope that my tax money would be used to educate my children about all scientific facts that are currently available and about any new theories that better fit our 21st century facts without the paranoid fear that the existence of a supreme being might be indicated.
Without delving into any specific issues, it simply defies logic to believe Darwin’s 1859 theory is the gospel truth. The scientific community of 1859 had not even discovered the bugs called germs. How about the undiscovered bugs in Darwin’s theory?
KEN RENTZSCH
Los Angeles
