RufusAtticus

My longer reply:

Evolution is both a fact and a theory. The fact of evolution is that the properties of populations of organisms change over time. The Theory of Evolution explains this fact. It is a well-tested and well-supported scientific theory, not a speculation as the Cobb textbook disclaimers would have students believe. Any textbook disclaimer is just going to end up wasting taxpayers’ money in an effort to decrease the quality of education. Excellent biology teachers will have little difficulty using the new textbooks to point out that the BOE cannot tell the difference between he scientific and common usages of “theory” and its common usage. The BOE should act to improve the quality of schools, not kowtow to a small number of scientifically illiterate parents.

In his letter, Mr. Paap complains that Dr. Pallas did not provide enough evidence for evolution. Yet he neglected to provide any support for his own claims. Instead his entire letter consisted of personal attacks and a weird argument that cancer-causing mayonnaise can disprove evolution. The vast evidence for evolution comes from many fields including paleontology, genetics, population biology, developmental biology, zoology, botany, microbiology, medicine, mathematics, and computational biology. Newspapers are not in business to report fundamental treatises on evolution. If Mr. Paap wants evidence for evolution, he should keep track of scientific journals such as Evolution or simply ask a qualified scientist.

Ms. Rumble argues that creationists are not uneducated and uses centuries-old scientists to support her claim. Since Newton, Pasteur, and da Vinci all predate Darwin, their opinions on creation or evolution are as worthless on their opinions on the cause AIDS. Ms. Rumble also argues that science can only investigate the present, never the past. I’m sure defense attorneys would be happy to hear that, since their clients are routinely convicted with evidence gathered about past events. Although, science cannot investigate past events directly, it can examine the evidence left behind by them. That is why astronomy, physics, geology, paleontology, and evolutionary biology are sciences not philosophies.

With regards to Ms. Shaver, evolution is science not faith. Faith is the belief in something without evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary. Despite what creationists would have students believe, evolution fulfills neither of those requirements. The rest of her letter consists of an emotional plea based upon an inaccurate picture of evolution. Science does not claim that humans are an accident, but rather the product of mutation plus natural selection with a dash of other evolutionary forces. Although unpredictable, evolution is not a random process since natural selection acts to filter out unviable possibilities. Furthermore, scientific accuracy can not determined by whatever philosophical conclusions one might draw.

Ms. Lingle is under the mistaken impression that Genesis would be true if evolution were not. Genesis is just one of the many mythological accounts of origins that Earth’s religions have to offer. I have yet to see any Christian creationist present evidence indicating that Genesis is a better explanation than Hesiod’s Theogany. Furthermore, if evidence for evolution were lacking, it would not have survived nearly a hundred and fifty years of scientific review and political assault. The Talk.Origins Archive (http://www.talkorigins.org) is a good site to start looking at the evidence for evolution.

Automaton

Good job, yours is a lot more concise than mine.

Coragyps

Rufus: I like your longer version better, but they'll never print it all: better stick with the short one. Well said!

pseudobug

Rufus, your longer reply is excellent. However, I am in the Coragyp camp in that they will never print the long.

I do think that you should/could add a paragraph to the short version re-emphasizing the difference between the faith-based rantings of the delusional creationists and the data-based facts supporting evolution; perhaps a hybrid paragraph of the high points of the rebuttals to each of the creationists.

No matter your choice, each are nice rebuttals.

Dr.GH

"Anthropology has nothing to do with biology (where can we find anti-evolutionary sentiments in the anthropological literature anyway?), ..."

As an anthropologist who has taught physical anthro, and a course called "Human Adaptation” I would suggest that anthropology does indeed have a good deal to do with biology. The letter writers error was that anthropology somehow offered any support for the teaching of “Intelligent Design Creationism.”

RufusAtticus

I sent them both in. Letters are limited to around 150 words. That is why I made the short one.

I went ahead and sent in the long one, just in case.

-RvFvS

gravitybow

150 words!? That barely nicks the surface.
If the paper publishes the shorter version, perhaps you could submit 150-word versions of your longer letter as a follow-up. That way you could still address the fallacies in the other letters.

[ April 23, 2002: Message edited by: gravitybow ]</p>

RufusAtticus

I found some more creationist comments <a href="http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/faith_values_c31ce03a311581ce00ee.html" target="_blank">here</a>.

Notice that once again, an engineer, whose "hobby" is science must set the record strait reguarding evolution.

Note: After, 7 days articles are archived at a pay site.

-RvFvS

gravitybow

Not only set the record straight, but imply that the there is a tidal change in scientific thinking and research that is eroding the more feeble theory of evolution.

Methinks he needs to get a different hobby.

liquid

Ohh Don't get me mad!

I am sure you remember my recent thread concerning the fact that engineers do plenty of excellent scientific research, and that every element of my degree except design and mathematics is an area of science.

Out of respect for the thread, I am not going to get into the issue though.

I do admit that there are a few more engineers that biologists that criticize evolution, but you must remember the fact that hardcore creationists with a scientific leaning are not going to do classical biology or physics courses, leaving chemistry and engineering as the closest alternatives (And indeed that is where you find them). It would be like an atheist becoming a theologian rather than a philosopher.

One thing I just don't understand is that creationist engineers abuse thermodynamics, one of our main areas of study, in such a trivial basic manner. Makes you wonder what they were being taught...