{"id":218,"date":"2008-11-28T10:19:21","date_gmt":"2005-12-31T12:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=218"},"modified":"2008-11-28T10:19:21","modified_gmt":"2008-11-28T16:19:21","slug":"abqjournal-letters-to-the-editor-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/id\/abqjournal-letters-to-the-editor-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The ID Faithful Speak!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, Eric C. Toolson, UNM Biology Professor, wrote about the <\/p>\n

Dover, Pennsylvania, legal decision against teaching ID in public schools. His column spawned a counter-attack printed in today’s <\/p>\n

Albquerque Journal. mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ABQjournal: ID UNMasked for What It Is\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd Religion<\/a> <\/p>\n

By Eric C. Toolson, UNM Biology Professor<\/p>\n

Judge Jones may have been taken aback by what he heard in his court, but none of this <\/p>\n

comes as any surprise to scientists who have attempted to counter scientifically absurd claims and the continual efforts to force schools <\/p>\n

to teach fundamentalist Christianity as science. Deliberate misrepresentation of scientific concepts and distortion of scientific <\/p>\n

evidence are the stock in trade of ID promoters. Jones’ opinion merely exposes their tactics to public view.<\/p>\n

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor<\/a><\/p>\n

No Hard Evidence <\/p>\n

Supports Darwin<\/p>\n

As a grad student 35 years ago, I was astounded to find out that there is no real evidence for Darwinism at all\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd <\/p>\n

not in the fossils, not in the wild and not in the lab. All my teachers had told me that evolution had occurred, but I suddenly realized <\/p>\n

that none of them had given me a shred of real evidence.<\/p>\n

Afterward, I found that most people, including most scientists, think <\/p>\n

evolution occurred not because of evidence, but simply because someone else told them it had occurred. …<\/p>\n

D. RUSSELL HUMPHREYS, <\/p>\n

PH.D.
\n Albuquerque<\/p>\n

Nobody appreciates hyperbole more than I do (a self-proving statement), but “NO <\/p>\n

real evidence … AT ALL,” not a “SHRED of REAL evidence.” Puh-lease! Skillful exaggeration is part of debate, but don’t lie to win.<\/p>\n

One can only imagine what a disappointment Humphreys was to his teachers. However, Humphreys’ conclusion is important. As <\/p>\n

students, we have all accepted many things from our teachers as a given. But good students ask questions without assuming they already <\/p>\n

know more than the teacher. It’s a delicate dance.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we should move this debate over to cold mathematics. What is the PROOF <\/p>\n

that 2 + 2 = 4? Isn’t geometry full of so-called “theorems” and “proofs” — can we really trust any of them? How do you know what pi is <\/p>\n

and how would you prove it? Trusting your teacher doesn’t count! If you can’t prove it, does it not exist? Is pi a lie?<\/p>\n

It <\/p>\n

wasn’t until I studied Calculus that so much that had to be accepted ‘on faith’ was finally proven. But Calculus wasn’t <\/p>\n

discovered\/invented until a few hundred years ago — was all of math before that just “faith” and no more valid than the Gospels? <\/p>\n

Perhaps we haven’t discovered the evolutionary equivalent of Calculus yet (though I think Watson & Crick probably did). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[11\/28\/08: letter deleted at writer’s request]<\/ins><\/p>\n

Religious zealots see the world <\/p>\n

through religious eyes: everything is their religion or someone else’s (false) religion. You project what you already know. Insert the <\/p>\n

“hammer and nail” aphorism here.<\/p>\n

Why is life without a designer so intimidating to [so many]? Don’t be afraid — it’s the same <\/p>\n

world without a god. You are still accountable to yourself, your family, your friends, your teachers, and your society. Are you really <\/p>\n

only good out of fear of punishment or promise of reward?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Open Eyes, Check Out All Theories<\/p>\n

As a Christian, I <\/p>\n

find it hard to believe there are people who really recoil at the possibility that there might be a being so indescribable and powerful, <\/p>\n

who could have created all that the eye can see and then some. …<\/p>\n

Let us not be so dogmatic. We should encourage exploration and <\/p>\n

study of all scientific theory, whether you agree with the outcome or not.<\/p>\n

HOWARD DEWITT
\n Alamogordo<\/p>\n

\nclass=\"mine\">I don’t recoil at the possibility that there might be a being so indescribable and powerful. I’m a big fan of <\/p>\n

possibilities and certain we fail to perceive more than we do perceive. But not every possibility is a probability and even fewer are <\/p>\n

realities. There is no god. As an atheist, I find it hard to believe people recoil at that fact.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Evolution Lacks <\/p>\n

Photo, Fossil Proof<\/p>\n

We are told there is no evidence for design. Test it yourself. Write down every speck of evidence that you <\/p>\n

find for a wristwatch being designed or that the book you are reading did not randomly come together. When you have done this, compare <\/p>\n

your data to the incredible workings of the human body with its coded DNA, you will see vast evidence for design emerge. …<\/p>\n

PHILIP ROBINSON
\n Albuquerque<\/p>\n

Now, this one is really interesting. Does it matter that I don’t own <\/p>\n

a watch?<\/p>\n

The watch is a product of human intelligence and culture. Human intelligence might be argued to be millions of years old; <\/p>\n

certainly hundreds of thousands of years. Culture has existed at least 50,000 years. How long have there been watches? Non-astronomical, <\/p>\n

mechanical time pieces may be thousands of years old, but I’m betting wrist watches aren’t 200 years old (too lazy to google it).<\/p>\n

Who designed the watch? A human being. IF you allow that human beings are a product of evolution, then evolution had a hand in the <\/p>\n

designing of the watch, as well as Philip the Doubter and Mark the Believer. We are inside the black box we seek to describe. Our very <\/p>\n

intelligence is either the product of evolution or fiat — it constrains what we are capable of conceiving and discussing (language is <\/p>\n

also a product of this process). But, we’ve had this argument before (mjh\u00ef\u00bf\u00bds blog — Wherein Mark disproves the existence of god<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Now the earth is at least 4 <\/p>\n

billion years old — if IDers don’t believe that, what time frame would they allow us to use? If they happen to say whatever number of <\/p>\n

years Evangelical Christians believe, then that whole claim that the “designer” isn’t just the narrowly-defined Christian god really is <\/p>\n

a smokescreen.<\/p>\n

But let’s say that Adam and Eve sprang from Zeus’ forehead 10,000 years ago. It took 9,800 years to design a <\/p>\n

watch. Why weren’t Adam and Eve created wearing watches? Or given gold watches on expulsion? Yours really is a vengeful god.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, let’s say that self-replicating organisms didn’t come from afar via a comet or god’s fallen eyelash; let’s say it all <\/p>\n

starts right here. Now, I do NOT believe that after 4 billion years, a watch would appear directly out of natural selection (indirectly, <\/p>\n

it did), anymore than I believe an infinite number of monkeys will produce a duplicate of an entire play. Why not? Because Life doesn’t <\/p>\n

need a watch anymore than monkeys need literature. Life produces what life needs. Billions of years allows for a lot of very subtle or <\/p>\n

abrupt changes, most of which won’t leave a trace (unless it’s in the DNA).<\/p>\n

Once we have what we need, humans produce what we <\/p>\n

want, including pornography and religion, with many noxious bi-products like pollution and zealots. Oh — and watches. mjh<\/span><\/p>\n

PS: See www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/category\/nada\/id\/<\/a> for all my coverage of this <\/p>\n

topic, a sub-topic of www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/category\/nada\/<\/a> (NADA = New <\/p>\n

American Dark Ages).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, Eric C. Toolson, UNM Biology Professor, wrote about the Dover, Pennsylvania, legal decision against teaching ID in public schools. His column spawned a counter-attack printed in today’s Albquerque Journal. mjh ABQjournal: ID UNMasked for What It Is\u00ef\u00bf\u00bd Religion By Eric C. Toolson, UNM Biology Professor Judge Jones may have been taken aback by … Continue reading The ID Faithful Speak!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}