The U.S.A. is the most amazing of all in that it harbors ignorance like no other. Bend's daily paper published an "In My View" June 3 titled: "Intelligent design (ID) should be tolerated in public school!" The author, Sarah Anderson, has apparently been living in a cocoon since the Dover Pennsylvania trial of Kitzmiller v. Dover, 2005. Biochemist Michael Behe, the guru of ID, conceded under oath at the trial that ID was God-based. The court ruled that "ID" was "thinly veiled religion," unsuitable for public schools and unconstitutional!
She starts with the usual mocking of the theory of evolution. Evolution is a proven theory with overwhelming evidence and "has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact" (National Geographic, Nov.2004.) Her belief doesn't change that fact!
She errs in what happened to Sister's teacher Kris Helphinstine. He was not fired for "presenting scientific information opposed to evolution" (does any exist?). He was fired for "presenting creationism" in his biology class (Bulletin, 3-20-07). There is no debate between science and mythology! Anderson suggests that ID is not a religion in spite of the fact that it's not founded in science. If, as she claims, "ID uses the same evidence as evolution," then wouldn't it be called "evolution?" ID lacks scientific evidence. Anderson finally got it right in her last paragraph: "ignorance is the enemy; blind adherence is the enemy." She's guilty of both! Scientist Daniel C. Dennett of Tufts University states: "The evidence for evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biography and anatomy, but of course from molecular biology...to put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by the process of evolution is simply ignorant!"
I'm glad she brought up the "Law of Biogenesis." But isn't it in dispute with God creating Adam out of dust? Biologist Harold Morowitz, George Mason University, says the mystery of life is answered by our metabolism - chemical reactions that turn energy and atoms into biologically useful molecules, involving 11 small carbon molecules - "the stuff abundant on the young Earth." Those 11 molecules perhaps developed amino acids, lipids, and genetic molecule. "Life is an elaboration of something very simple.
Recommended reading: "Was Darwin Wrong? NO!" Nat'l Geo., 2004; "Darwin's Ghost" by Steve Jones, renowned geneticist.
Bob Bates, Bend