The Minneapolis Star-Tribune printed 11 letters today sent in response to their “invitation to readers on ID/evolution“. Mine was not among them, but most of those that they did print were definitely better than mine anyway so I’m totally cool with it.
The bulk of the letters (8 of the 11) were in support of the cause, and none of the remaining three could make any claims to being even a vaguely plausible argument in favor of neo-creationism. Since the paper probably used the number and balance of letters they received to help decide on the distribution of letters to publish, I figure my letter helped get some of those good ones printed, and that’s a happy thought.
One of the real high points is a high school sophomore (Benjamin Segal) from Minnetonka (where “the opposition’s” Dave Eaton is on the School Board – yikes!), who did an excellent job of pointing out the serious problems of any system that allows for miracles:
Scientific theories must be falsifiable: It must be possible to prove them wrong. Yet ID proponents can always claim that any evidence challening their “hypothesis” was planted by “the designer” to deceive us. It’s impossible to repond to such an assertion.
Someone here at UMM needs to get started on recruiting this fellow!
The three “pro-ID” letters were pretty weak. One basically came down to “Bad Paul! Athiest! Athiest!”, without even mentioning either ID or evolution; one wonders why the Strib bothered printing it. The second follows in a similar vein, but at least connects to the subject at hand, claiming that
Evolution is by nature atheistic. It requires that death be considered a natural part of life, instead of a result of The Fall as described in the Book of Genesis.
Wow – to think that all those zillion microbes that die around the world every minute are suffering for the follies of a few humans.
The third is a real gem, providing no actual argument (do I sense a trend here?), but instead quoting two “well-known evolutionists” saying that it’s important to look carefully at all the facts, and to study both the strengths and weaknesses of our current understanding. I always love this incredibly silly approach. This is presumably done in an effort to sow some seeds of doubt, but betrays an truly remarkable failure to understand the scientific process, since any reasonable scientist would agree enthusiastically that these things must be studied carefully and especially at their weak points. The rub, as Mr. Segal pointed out so nicely above, is that this study must be based on evidence and falsifiable claims, and ID just ain’t there.
Oh, and the two “well-known evolutionists”? They turn out to be Charles Darwin and (…wait for it…) Stanley Salthe. Huh? Darwin was a remarkable fellow and a real hero in the story, but hardly represents the cutting edge of contemporary evolutionary theory (and would almost certainly be aghast at the continued use of his embryonic ideas as straw men in these arguments). Salthe, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to be the champion of evolution the letter writer suggests, as his web page makes clear:
I see [reducing all evolution to the effects of competition] as morally vicious, if understandable in the genealogical sense that it serves as a myth congenial to capitalism.
Yowza! He’s clearly focussing on the scientific evidence.
Good job to PZ for setting things up so well in the first place, and to all those that wrote in on behalf of some common sense on this issue. You should also check out PZ’s response to these letters, as he includes all three “opposition” letters in full, as well as providing some more context for the Darwin quote mentioned above.
Apparently you can get all this stuff on-line, but you have to register, blah, blah, blah…
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