Letter to the Editor: Design more political than scientific

Editor,

In the 11/9/05 Statesman, Ben Nilson’s letter claimed all the evidence for biological evolution would fit into a cardboard box. A box that big would completely cover the state of Kansas – and wouldn’t that be fitting?

  Size, however, doesn’t matter for the box to hold Intelligent Design’s evidence, because it’s empty. There’s as much scientific evidence for Design as there is for astrology, the Loch Ness monster, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy – none. This doesn’t deter the Design movement’s leaders because their mission is political, not scientific. These con-artists hype their websites and pseudoscientific books, preying on the gullible and scientifically untrained. Mr. Nilson is an obvious victim, as his mistake-filled letter demonstrated.

Increasingly our education system is being victimized, with biology instructors like the one in the 12/2/05 Statesman (Opinion section) who teach Design rather than science to our kids.

  Kansas schools surrendered to this pseudoscience campaign. In Kentucky, science teachers can now teach Christian Creationism along with evolution. West Jordan’s senator Chris Buttars is making Utah a laughingstock by trying to legislate Design, to the chagrin of many excellent LDS researchers in evolution and speciation at BYU (yes, the church does support them). Similar anti-science ballot measures are being developed in other states. Even our president is so poorly educated he has joined the Design propagandists.

  Don’t be fooled by people with science degrees. There are professors with impressive credentials that believe in alien abductions (Dr. John Mack, Harvard), Bigfoot (Dr. Grover Krantz, Washington State), and civilizations on Mars (Dr. Brian O’Leary, Princeton), to name a few. But they, like the Design cranks, publish no studies showing evidence for their fantasies.

  Science is advanced by research, not by books, ballots, or ballyhoo. Each week, evidence for evolution is documented many times over in science journals while the empty box of Intelligent Design echoes with the chicanery of its dishonest pamphleteers. Don’t let these charlatans further damage our public schools.

 Mark Ellis