Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Stop using Bible to defend creationism

I read with amusement as well as alarm the comments on my letter, “An Uneducated Educator Dooms Students.” Here are a few responses to these comments.

“Listening to evolutionists, one would think that the study of this theory (yes, theory) is absolutely critical to children if they are to have any chance to succeed or become productive members of society.”

There are, of course, millions of very successful folks who know little or nothing about science. Why, you can even become chief educator of Georgia if you like.

The word “theory” is used as a dirty word by those who fail to understand or appreciate the differences between a “scientific theory” and that term used in common parlance. A scientific theory is a bunch of carefully crafted and tested principles and copious amounts of experimental data to confirm these principles.

The whole edifice, to be useful and to be viable, must predict hitherto undiscovered facts that add to the corpus of established knowledge.

Evolution is a scientific theory as compelling as the Atomic Theory or the Theory of Relativity.

“Peter Duran speaks out of prejudice, not knowledge. First, evolution is only an unproven theory with many scientific impossibilities in it. A cursory study of physics alone invalidates certain vital aspects of the theory of evolution. Mathematical probabilities refute it out of hand.”

It is difficult for me not to get immediately angry when I read this kind of nonsense. Yes, you can go to the various creationism web sites and read more of this kind of misinformation. Sadly, these kinds of assertions are designed to confuse most of us who don’t have a rigorous background in the basic sciences.

Yes, there are books that say evolution theory is wrong; there are books that say the theory of relativity is all wet; and there are books that assure us we are captured on a daily basis by UFO visitors.

Yes, I do have a degree in physics and a degree in mathematics and I do know better. Evolution theory is just as proven as the atomic theory and the theory of relativity.

This doesn’t mean, however, all important questions are answered and new questions can’t arise any minute to throw doubt on a part of the theory. Here is an example where evolution theory needed a big fix:

“In 1977, in collaboration with U. of I. microbiologist Ralph S. Wolfe, microbiologist Carl R. Woese overturned one of the major dogmas of biology. Until that time, biologists had taken for granted that all life on Earth belonged to one of two primary lineages, the eukaryotes (which include animals, plants, fungi and certain unicellular organisms such as paramecia) and the prokaryotes (all remaining microscopic organisms).

“Woese and Wolfe showed that there are three primary lineages. Within the prokaryotes, there exist two distinct groups of organisms no more related to one another than they were to eukaryotes. The new group of organisms, the archaea is very simple in its genetic makeup and tends to exist in “extreme” environments, niches devoid of oxygen and whose temperatures can be near or above the normal boiling point of water. Such conditions are reminiscent of what is considered to have been the early environment on Earth.”

A scientific theory is obliged to respond to valid objections:

“Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have uncovered the first genetic evidence that explains how large-scale alterations to body plans were accomplished during the early evolution of animals ... The scientists show how mutations in regulatory genes that guide the embryonic development of crustaceans and fruit flies allowed aquatic crustacean-like arthropods, with limbs on every segment of their bodies, to evolve 400 million years ago into a radically different body plan: the terrestrial six-legged insects.

“The achievement is a landmark in evolutionary biology, not only because it shows how new animal body plans could arise from a simple genetic mutation, but because it effectively answers a major criticism creationists had long leveled against evolution: the absence of a genetic mechanism that could permit animals to introduce radical new body designs.”

“The problem for a long time has been over this issue of macro-evolution,” says William McGinnis, a professor in UCSD’s Division of Biology who headed the study. “How can evolution possibly introduce big changes into an animal’s body shape and still generate a living animal? Creationists have argued that any big jump would result in a dead animal that wouldn’t be able to perpetuate itself. And until now, no one’s been able to demonstrate how you could do that at the genetic level with specific instructions in the genome.”

The scientific community does abandon, even though reluctantly, its dogmas when confronted by valid evidence. This is the kind of attitude we should expect from educators and promoted in our classrooms.

A final observation.

“Consider the following (all references come from the King James Version, published in 1611 while modern science was still in its infancy): Isaiah 40:22, Job 26:7, a circular earth hung upon nothing ....”

Pardon me. Is this phrase offered as proof that the earth is round? I don’t think so! You can pick up any comic strip on Sunday and find phrases that make claims that are false and true. A statement in a book or comic strip doesn’t demonstrate the veracity of the claim.

I took the SAT for college and the GRE for graduate school a thousand years ago. By chance, both tests included a question about the earth being round. We weren’t expected to know the Biblical reference, but were expected to know about Eratosthenes’ Experiment, now a worldwide science and math experiment for kids in the classroom.

This ancient Greek, the head of the great library at Alexandria and inventor of the prime number sieve loved by us math types, measured the actual size of the earth. Educated folks at the time already knew that the earth is round; consider the physical evidence: the earth’s shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse is round; ships disappear over the horizon.

No more Biblical quotes that prove zilch! Please present the evidence.

Peter Duran

Fayetteville, Ga.