Letters to the Editor

Evolution debate continues

Although the media and most public school texts present evolution as an incontrovertible fact, the truth — that the controversy is far from over — was obvious to a near unanimous Legislature that voted in favor of the Louisiana Science Education Act (SB 733), which allows for things like dissenting views of evolution to be taught in public schools.

In Dr. Griffard’s respectfully written letter to the editor (“No gaping holes in evolution,” Aug. 6), she asserts that there are no holes in the evolutionary theory and that every new finding since Darwin has reinforced it. But contradictions abound.

Recent advances in microbiology show the incomprehensible complexity of DNA and living cells which is incompatible with random origin. New studies show the unreliability of radioisotope dating methods, long accepted as irrefutably dating Earth’s rocks as millions of years old — significant because Darwinism requires Earth to be that old. Plus, in 150 years of scientific advancement since Darwin, there is still no evidence that beings of one species can somehow mutate into beings of another with a different genetic makeup (i.e. complex animals evolving out of single-celled predecessors). Such predecessors lack the very genetic information needed to make the evolved organism even possible.

Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics shows the tendency of things to deteriorate, not evolve to higher life forms. In her letter, Dr. Griffard labeled that argument as a common misconception. While it is a common objection to evolution, it is not a “misconception.” It is scientific support for a different theory, which doesn’t require the earth to be billions of years old.

There’s a growing list of scientists who criticize evolution (dissentfromdarwin.org), but they are dismissed as irrelevant because they don’t support it — circular reasoning at its best.

At recent hearings related to SB733, after three professional Ph.D. biologists testified against evolution, LSU Darwinist biologist Dr. Bryan Carstens testified that there was no controversy among professional biologists about the “fact” of evolution. If Dr. Carstens, who represents the evolution-as-fact viewpoint, wouldn’t even admit under oath that there was legitimate controversy when it was blatantly obvious to everyone else there, how much more is being hidden from our children because it doesn’t advance evolutionary theory? Regardless of what side of the debate you’re on, one thing is certain — the debate’s not over. I’m just grateful to our legislators for allowing it to continue in the classroom. Our children, and science itself, are better for it.