Choosing Sides in Evolution vs. Genesis

Re “Genesis Through the Back Door,” editorial, Nov. 20: May I suggest a new sticker for Cobb County science textbooks: “Evolution is a theory -- arrived at through an exhaustive and diligent search for truth conducted by the brightest and most rational members of our species -- not a fact, unlike creationism, which is a fact because men thousands of years ago wrote a story saying so, men who also thought the world was flat and the sun revolved around the Earth.”

Pete Magill

South Pasadena

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The Nov. 20 editorial states that creationists “ignore the overwhelming evidence supporting the widely accepted theory of evolution.” At least you admit that it is a theory.

But you protest the creationists’ move to come through the back door by using the term “intelligent design,” which is their theory.

We’ll call it intelligent design because that designation undergirds the claim that the order and design we find in our universe is certainly more logical than happenstance.

How anyone can observe the order and design in the heavens, or the nervous, digestive and reproductive systems in the animal kingdom and still believe in evolution is mystifying.

It did not require much intelligence to come up with your editorial, but it certainly required a lot of “intelligent design” to get it published and delivered to my door.

Robert H. Rowland

Corona

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Your reference to “the overwhelming evidence supporting the theory of evolution” unwittingly supports evolution’s critics.

If evidence for something is “overwhelming,” it is a fact. Indeed, everything in the universe -- from the mightiest galaxy to the tiniest subatomic particle -- evolves. The process of evolution goes on all around us every day, e.g., the selective breeding of livestock, racehorses and show dogs is nothing but controlled evolution.

Creationism, on the other hand, is not even a theory. A theory is a proposition for which there is insufficient proof but which nonetheless has a functional scientific application. Creationism has none.

If it’s going to be taught in schools, it belongs in a mythology class.

Forrest G. Wood

Bakersfield

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If the origins of Earth and life, and the process that produced today’s world, are the results of intelligent design (“creationism” in two words), as the evangelicals in Dover, Pa., want to teach their children, they may want to pause and reconsider.

Maybe “divine design” (sort of catchy) or “magical design” (evangelicals believe in magic) would appeal more to kids. The word “intelligent” as used provokes contradiction, especially among intelligent people.

The notion that God created this world and everything in it through an intelligent design process in effect dumps responsibility into God’s lap for the incredible disorder that the physical Earth has created for all life on it from the beginning.

The evangelicals would do better to tell the kids to question everything they are taught and demand credible answers.

John M. Freter

Yucca Valley

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It is about time that the truth is being told: Evolution is a theory, not a fact. For too long our children have been taught evolution as the truth. There may very well be overwhelming evidence supporting evolution; however, there is also overwhelming scientific evidence to disprove the widely accepted theory.

If neither can be proved as cold, hard fact, why should they not be taught alongside each other? The students should be taught both evolution and creationism. They deserve the ability to choose what they want to believe.

Do we really want our children to believe that we came from lucky mud or primordial ooze, or that we were “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14)?

Blanca Lopez

Northridge