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SUNDAY FORUM: An Unintelligent Verdict on Intelligent Design?

Posted on: Wednesday, 4 January 2006, 09:00 CST

Nervous evolutionists

I must take exception to several statements in your Dec. 23 editorial, Intelligent verdict on intelligent design.

Supporters of intelligent design are not merely part of a religious or political movement, as your editorial would suggest. Respected scientists around the country from Michael Behe to Stephen Meyer to Robin Collins have embraced intelligent design as a rational, scientific theory.

Although it may be the logical conclusion one should reach on studying the theory of intelligent design, it does not presuppose an argument for biblical creationism. Intelligent design merely holds that close scrutiny in all realms of science, from cosmology to microbiology, reveals the evidence of intelligent order and construction, much in the same manner that a computer program is evidence of deliberate, intelligent purpose.

Secondly, evolution is anything but settled, as your editorial also suggests. Gaps in the fossil record and an inability to explain how complex organisms could have evolved over time when removing but one of their key components would cause their entire system to collapse and cease to function (a theory known as irreducible complexity) are but a few of the examples of problems that plague the theory of evolution.

The real question your editorial should ask is why there is so much fear in allowing an ordered public discussion regarding the differences in intelligent design and evolution. The academic arena, long espoused as the bastion of free thought and the free exchange of ideas, to me would seem to be the ideal place for such a discussion to take place.

If your theory is as strong as you suggest, you should have no fear in allowing students to be exposed to alternative ideas so that they can make up their minds for themselves.

Matthew R. Holt

Chesapeake

Thermodynamics issue

The judicial ruling in Dover, Pa., (news, Dec. 21) should not be the final word. Although your article said that the irreducible- complexity argument was brought into evidence, it did not mention the existence of gaps between species in the fossil record. This weakness of Darwinian evolution is seldom mentioned along with its success at explaining the role of natural selection in improving a particular species.

A third line of reasoning apparently has never been used by intelligent design proponents. It points to lifes ability to subvert locally the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that the measure of order in any closed system of matter-energy decreases with every action, such as friction, the flow of heat or the mixing of one substance into another.

Life forms are not closed systems, and so by selective absorption of energy from sunlight plus nutrients from food, followed by selective excretion of waste products, they are able to store up order and reject disorder (we derisively call it pollution).

The challenge for Darwinists and/or Big-Bang theorists is to explain how this capability evolved gradually or suddenly from inanimate matter. Was there a slow ascent, from slightly overcoming the Second Law, to the current refined abilities of plants and animals to thwart it readily? If so, at what point does one begin to call the transforming agent life? If not, can one suspect a creator?

Barry J. Mitchel

Portsmouth

Shrinking our world

Your Dec. 23 editorial cheered the judge who decided that intelligent design should not be taught. Marianne Means column the next day mostly espoused the same philosophy.

The shock, ladies and gentlemen, is that both evolution and intelligent design are theory. We havent proved that Darwin is correct. I honestly believe he is, and that in time his theory will be proved, but as of this date it is not.

Thus the judge, through edict, and The Pilot, by attempting to squelch a competing theory, have done no less than those who chose a flat earth over a globe. You have chosen to squelch dissent in support of a theory, thereby inhibiting critical review. You believe proof is unneeded because the basis of the competing theory can be said to be derived from religion.

It seems odd that The Virginian-Pilot, whose very printing press is a partial result of the trigonometric tables derived from priests at a monastery, would choose to ignore this competing theory.

Mark A. Bazemore

Virginia Beach

Source: Virginian - Pilot

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