Letters to the editor for Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014

Evolution isn’t science; creation isn’t a story

Marilee Swirczek had an excellent commentary going Wednesday, Feb. 12. Her initial premise that “intentional misinformation is an acceptable, even ‘great tactic’ of those interested in manipulating our perception” is very true. She showed her own susceptibility to this manipulation when she wrote, “Consider the Texas school district that adopted a textbook offering the story of creation as an alternative to the science of evolution.” This clever bit of misinformation has been imposed on the public for a couple of hundred years.

Evolution is not a science and creation is not a story. The available evidence actually points to a designing creator; for example, the DNA code. It requires faith to believe either interpretation of the facts. Some of evolution’s own scientists have admitted this. Michael Ruse was the leading anti-creationist philosopher to convince the judge to rule against the Arkansas “balanced treatment” (of creation and evolution in schools) bill in 1981-82. Yet he once said, “Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”

Geneticist Richard Lewontin once said, “ ... we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” If they “cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door,” they must intentionally misinform.

Don R. Drake

Carson City