DESIGN FLAWS
Your article entitled "Throwing Out Darwin" (Cover Story, by Wayne Garcia, Jan. 18-24) was poorly written, and reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of science, and the difference between science and religion.
It's hard not to see your bias and belief, and that is the problem: there's bias and belief, and there's science. It's important for the education of our children that our educators know the difference, even if you don't.
At bottom, the issue here is very simple. Science does not claim to know the origin of life because it does not know. Intelligent Designers (who are most definitely not scientists) claim that there is no way that life could have had its origin by "accident," that only an Intelligent Designer can account for the seemingly infinite variety of life. The scientists have the honesty to say they don't know the origin of life, which the principles of good science demand absent evidence. The other, the Intelligent Designers, say that it "must have been" God or an Intelligent Designer.
"Must have been" is not science; it is belief. If someone wants to say that life is so complex and so beautiful that the only explanation is a supernatural one, then let them say this — in religion classes!
Alan S. Wolfson
Bradenton
ARE YOU THERE GOD?
I enjoyed your article on the ID mess. I found it especially interesting as I have been listening to tapes on the intellectual history of the 17th and 18th centuries, in which the debates about the existence of God abounded. More to the point, many scientists of the time simply saw the wonderful complexity of the world that was being discovered by science as reflecting God's work. A popular position was that of Deism, that allowed that God created the universe, but, since he was perfect and made a perfect world, had no need to tamper in it along the way.
As for the religious adherents of moving ID into science classes, I have noticed that they have not decided to give science equal time in the pulpits of America. Perhaps they should be taken to task!
Anthony Moore
Tampa
WELL DESIGNED
So I'm heading out of the restaurant I frequent, and spying the latest edition of the Planet, I prepared to do my whistling past the graveyard routine as any good evangelical would do. On reaching the door I sneaked a peek at the cover story about ID.
I grabbed a copy, but not before mulling over all the possible ways the Planet was going to trash the impudent fundies propagating such madness.
At home, I took a deep breath, and cautiously started the first paragraph expecting a fit of castigation against those seeking to impugn the unassailable doctrine of Darwinism. Well into the article I had to concede that the author did an excellent job. I have read many print and web articles on the ID/evolution controversy, and yours captured the big picture better than most, and included enough technical details to help focus your readers.
I am thankful that you didn't continually bang the drum of "ID is not science," but explained its dilemma of being accepted by the status quo scientific community. I'm sure with the investigation you did you are aware that there are thousands of career scientists who are PhD's, MD's, professors and Nobel Prize winners who reject Macroevolution as an unsustainable theory in light of scientific advancements.
I also was impressed by the inclusion of quotes from professionals involved in the disputes over ID, both pro and con (though I could have done without that pompous Lilliputian-brained Judge Jones). Frankly, I was stunned by your inclusion of the Smithsonian witch hunt of Sternberg, facts that are usually found only on ID and Creation Science websites and never never in MSM publications as that would smack of "sympathy" for the ID cause.
I realize you are not a great fan of ID, but I respect your generally objective and well-researched presentation of a growing debate.
Richard M. Scott
Clearwater
I.D. ADDITIONS
Your article "Throwing Out Darwin" was interesting. Your quotes of what I said were accurate as far as they went.
I don't know anybody who is 'throwing out Darwin.' Darwinian Evolution is thought to be a significant part of our biological world by everything I have read or heard on the subject of ID. But like Newtonian physics it is only part of the answer.
In biology Darwinian Evolution does a good job of defining microevolution like Darwin's Finches, animal and plant breeding, etc. But Darwin never made any claims about the "origins of life." Nor does Darwinian evolution account for the complexity within the cell. Mathematicians have demonstrated it is mathematically very remote to the point of being practically impossible for a cell to have accidentally formed. Likewise it is impossible by Darwin's own theory for the irreducible complexity of the machinery of higher order animals to have formed by evolution.
Also if you review the data coming from NASA programs such as Microwave Aperture Program you will find evaluations of this background radiation from the "Big Bang" showing a well-choreographed expansion in both time and space.
Finally, in the 19th and first half of the 20th century we realized that the universe consisted of two fundamental properties, mass and energy. At the beginning of the 21st century it may be dawning on us that a third property intrinsic in the universe is information — i.e. ID.
Fred Cutting
Clearwater
SUGG ON SAMI
I would like to thank you [John Sugg] for your articles over the years on Dr. Sami al-Arian and the grave injustices and double standards that have been occurring in regard to his case.
As an alumna of USF's Political Science department, I am truly ashamed of the actions taken by the university relating to Dr. al-Arian.
Further, as a citizen of this great country, I bow my head in shame, as it seems we have been backsliding in time to an era we would all love to forget: McCarthyism. Or perhaps what is next on the agenda is concentration camps for Muslims like we had for Japanese during WWII?
The only thing keeping this at bay are big "J" journalists like yourself who have a conscience. Keep up the good work.
Nicole M. Ford
Orlando
