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Schools confuse creation issue

To the editor,

I am writing in response to the column written last week 'Let There Be Evolution'. I am not usually one to respond to columns, however this one struck a chord with me. I noticed in today's Wildcat there were other responses to the column. I feel that perhaps they were a bit too harsh, but they made me realize that this article struck others as well.

Sheila's position is that she desires that evolution continue to be taught in the same manner that it has been throughout my education.

That is, to teach children that evolution is "scientific fact." It also seems that Karen Johnson's bill asks that teachers present both the scientific data for and against evolution.

Sheila states that the same people who would accept this bill are the same people who promote creationism taught in schools. And the reason she does not agree with creationism is that it is religion, and we mustn't mix church with state.

I am a Philosophy major and a Religious studies minor. I have dedicated my studies to the searching of the truth. Prior to my college education I was led to believe that evolution was a fact. Never was the material proposed in such a way to allow for other ideas or thoughts.

It wasn't until my college classes that I found out that they were just theories. There was no so called "scientific" proof behind these theories and yet countless other "scientific facts" are based completely and totally upon them.

The fact that they haven't been disproven in the last 150 years does not mean they are either true or false. If we are to use this line of reasoning, it is clear that the creationist's view also has not been disproven. In my search for truth, what I have found to be most consistently truthful is that we "know" very little. I have an opinion of the way things are. Sheila does too. So do billions and billions of other people on this planet. Very few of them have been proven or disproven.

Rather than get into a philosophical debates on which theory is right which theory is wrong, wouldn't it be better if our children were given all the theories and ideas and allowed to decipher on their own which they felt contained the most truth?

James Fleckles

Philosophy Senior