Search

ARCHIVES
CONTACT US
WORLD NEWS

Creationism far from science

To the editor,

I must take issue with J. Derekh Froude's labeling of evolution as a "religion" in his recent letter to the editor. He suggests that since biology and evolution does not deal in "indisputable fact," it must not be scientific. It may come as a surprise to him that fields such as archaeology, sociology, and astrophysics are no less scientific even though there are great controversies in each, and even though they deal in issues that cannot be investigated in a test tube or in a laboratory. Science deals almost exclusively in theories, not "indisputable" facts, and even theories as venerable as Quantum Mechanics or Newton's Theory of Universal Gravitation are still "just theories", subject to revision or replacement upon receipt of better data.

Moreover, the evidence from the geology and the fossil record, genetics, biogeography, and homology have lead the overwhelming majority of scientists to conclude that species arise via common descent with modification, i.e., evolution. Those who disagree do so primarily for sectarian, not scientific, reasons. Even a passing study of the rhetoric of creationism, especially Young-Earth Creationism and proponents of a global Deluge, will show how riddled Scientific Creationism is with misrepresentations of evolution, bad arguments, and bad data. This investigation is left as an exercise to the reader, but Laurie Godfrey's "Scientists Confront Creationism" is a good place to start.

Neither is evolution necessarily atheistic. Whether evolution happens completely through naturalistic processes, or whether it requires God to fiddle with DNA sequences every million years or so, is a belief of completely personal preference. You may recall how Michael Behe argued in "Darwin's Black Box" that evolution could coexist with Intelligent Design. This shows there is no conflict between science and religion, but there is certainly a conflict between hyperliteral sectarian interpretation of the Bible and science.

Finally, Froude also conflates the scientific theory of Darwinian Evolution with the philosophical theory of Social Darwinism. There is nothing that links the two ideas other than a simple confusion between "what is" and "what ought to be." One can just as well believe in evolution and God simultaneously, or not believe in God and still see morality as a useful social concept designed to protect the well-being of mankind as a whole. In fact, you can believe in evolution and Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, or the Kantian Moral Imperative, or Mill's Utilitarianism, or Social Contract Theory ... ideas Froude will consider when he takes Intro to Moral Philosophy next semester.

Chris Ashton

Computer engineering senior