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This is my reply to Mr Viarengo's April 14th e-mail.

Title: Re: evolution
From: wjhudson@newsguy.com
Date: 15 Apr 1999 07:37:07 -0700 (PDT)
 
 

At Wed, 14 Apr 1999 21:50:24 PDT, you wrote
>First of all, thanks for responding. Most people don't (because I like
>to be REAL nasty as an opener).

Yes, I've noticed. :-)

On the other hand, I try to be uniformly civil. I've learned during my long criticism of Scientology, for example, that responding to a negative attitude  without heat is sometimes the only way to start a dialogue.

>I get especially hostile with evolutionists, because, generally, they
>are (1) supporters of public education, (2) Democrats, (3) supporters
>of the Kyoto Lie (using poverty to stop global warming), and (4)
>believe the myth that "separation of church and state" is part of the
>Constitution.

Well, two out of four isn't bad. I can see we are going to disagree on #1 and #4. I am Christian, conservative, pro-evolution and pro-education.

>1. I wish I had a transcription of J. McCormack's letter. I will dig
>through the recycle bin and see if it's still there.

Don't bother, I ran by The Dispatch and bought another copy of that day's paper. I'll be responding to it soon.

>
>Statistics (M.S.) - we got a lot of data sets to work with - two were
>ancient dating numbers. No, I am neither a chemist nor a physicist;
>however, I have met a number of PhD's in both of these fields who do
>not believe in any type of dating past 5000 years. (Many others do -
>but it's not law.)

I'm just a computer geek myself.

There are many dating methods. The vast majority of scientists in the related fields (geologists, physicists, astronomers) find that the various methods agree to within a small percentage of error. Something under 1% I believe.  There are some dating methods which were tried and were shown to provide poor results, and were discarded (metal latency times in seawater for example).  Check out the "Age of the Earth FAQ" at www.talkorigins.org for a discussion of the various dating methods, and their agreement. There are also some creationist rebuttals to various dating methods stored there, so you can see both sides.

>I was always interested in dinosaurs as a kid. So, while in college, I
>took "physical anthropology" as a GE elective. (Anything to avoid
>sociology - the ultimate idiot field outside of art.) It was
>interesting, but until links are found between one "cave" man and the
>next (which won't happen because there aren't any), the whole thing
>(about man evolving) is nothing but a myth.

Would you care to clarify your position in light of new data? What evidence would make you change your mind?

>A friend (who is not so much a Creationist as he is an
>anti-evolutionist) has a very interesting book linking scientific
>"evidence," as well as its flaws, with Genesis. I only had a chance to
>read parts of it (albeit about 75%, but I took no notes). (When I had
>it, I was running around all over French Canada.) Anyway, one of the
>things it talked about was pressure put on the earth to make it crack
>- causing the Ring of Fire (the Pacific Rim) (as spheres crack in an
>open-circle shape when put under pressure). It relates this to the
>passage, "and the world that once was was no more." I will obtain
>either the book or the title and author and send 'em to you.

Thank you. I like to read creationist literature as well as 'mainstream' scientific. I don't have a problem with someone being "anti-evolution" when it comes from a scientific standpoint. For example, Fred Hoyle.

>Evolution is no more than a neat story - something that you could
>easily say about the above-mentioned book. It can NEVER be PROVEN.

As is true of just about any other theory in science. Speaking strictly scientifically, a theory can be either falsified or supported. Evolution is what science calls "well supported". "Scientific Creationism" is what science calls "unfalsifiable". As such, it is not a valid scientific theory.  "Scientific Creationists" on the other hand, like to make the opposite claim, which is demonstrably incorrect.

... If
>people choose to believe it, fine; I respect that. But others should
>have the same right - be it in public schools or whatever - to tell
>their stories, be it as a(ny) religious group believes, or another
>theory from a secular perspective.

This is where I strongly disagree. The establishment clause of the constitution has been interpreted by our courts many times to prevent this.

Unfortunately it is unequally enforced in our schools. My wife tells me that when she was student-teaching in Union City that every religious holiday was talked about in class, except Christian ones.

... It should take about three weeks -
>not a semester - to teach a course in evolution. If it takes more than
>a month, that demonstrates just how slow things have gotten.

I believe that you are incorrect here. As I said in my first letter to the editor, evolution is a broad topic, encompassing many theories, proposals, and hypotheses. It takes a lot of time to cover competing theories and to reconcile where they agree and where they disagree (gradualism vs punctuated equilibria, for example). There is also a tendency to gloss over large portions of evidence because of time-constraints.

One of the major problems I have with "scientific creationist" literature is that it sets up a straw-man of evolution. Almost uniformly, the 'straw-man' is based on "Classical Darwinism", or even on "Lamarckism", not on anything approaching the "Modern Synthesis". I would have much more respect for "scientific creationism" if it lived up to its name.

I also have big problems with "mainstream science" in that it tends to be dismissive of "scientific creationist" arguments. This is not the same thing as rebutting them, like I'm trying to do. What I'm talking about is the attitude that you see in scientists to just say "oh, thats bunk" and leave it at that. Science still does a very poor job of educating the public on the differences between science and pseudo-science.

While I'm on this subject, what would you call someone who knowingly uses disproven arguments over and over again?

Thanks again for your time.