A LTTE from a KS biology teacher. (re: Evo v. ID "debate" )

[coda]

He was a HS biology teacher for 4 decades, out in a SW KS town called "Liberal" :).

It's very long for a LTTE, but it is very much worth reading. If a LTTE isn't considered "copyrighted material", maybe it could be posted in its entirety.

It'd be nice if he could go to Topeka. I think his message could only be complimentary to the testimony of the Topeka attorney, Pedro Irigonegaray.


---

April 24, 2005

The creationist who does not believe in creation and the evolutionist who does

Vernon L. Gilliland
GUEST COLUMNIST

In the Bible are the words, "Jesus laughed." Does God have a sense of humor? Human behaviorists say that laughter and humor are good for people and that people who are ill, often gravely, have greater and quicker rate of recovery when they take it with humor and laughter. At least when I was with cancer it seemed to work for me. Sometimes when I am at a large shopping mall or just around a lot of people I just look. It seems to me that with all the variety of persons that God has to have a great sense of humor when he made people. Why else would people have a nose just above their mouth?


Another thing about people is they argue. They have different opinions about everything. Some arguments are not so good as those which can lead to a life and death. The arguments about trivial matters that people take so seriously must also seem humorous to God. One of these must be the one made on-going by the Kansas State School Board members who are trying to push something they call "Intelligent Design" into the public school as a replacement for, or as a co-equal with, evolution. Do not they, and the public, realize that intelligent design and evolution are one and the same, only looked at in different ways?


<snip>


What is the creation? We refer to it as mass (matter), energy, space and time. All these things can be measured by the rules and laws of the physical world because they are defined by the laws and rules. Now, if God existed before the physical world and is separate from the physical world, then God cannot be measured by these laws and rules and therefore cannot be measured by science. In other words, there is no scientific way to either directly prove or disprove God. I can measure a gram of water or wavelengths of light. Try to measure an ounce of God or light up a flashlight with the energy of a soul. But is God still there? My faith says, "Yes." My proof is written only inside.


<snip>


So, are all the rules of astronomy, geology, paleontology, genetics, physical and biochemistry, radiology, on and on, to be discarded to make way for the ideas of those who wish everyone to have their religious and political philosophy? Are we willing to give up our modern world made by the use of these rules because if we accept the ideas of these people it is logical to give up the sciences that make our world possible? If those Kansas State Board of Education members want to sit in their little churches and sing and preach their sad misconceptions ­let them. That is their right. But they have no right to bastardize the sciences that the Creator has given us. The sin of that is not against the created but against the Creator. Their views are funny to me if only a pathetic sort of way. I just hope God has a sense of humor.





more (much more).....

http://www.swdtimes.com/swdtimes/2005/042405/opinion.html

Vernon L. Gilliland is recently retired high school biology teacher after teaching 39 years at Liberal High School. He earned his BSE degree from Emporia State University and then MS degrees from Kansas State University in education and Emporia State in Biology. He was a contributing author to the text book "Biological Science, An Ecological Approach," seventh and eighth editions.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Excellent letter, and...

I can understand why Alyandra wrote to him after getting out into the real world.

[Just a guy_withaVOTE]

2. My problem with evolution

is that it runs counter to the 2nd law of Thermodynamics.

I wish someone could explain how anyone serious about science could accept that kind of incongruity.

[teach1st]

3. Nobody serious about science accepts that incongruity...

...because it ain't there. People who believe that evolution is not possible given the second law of thermodynamics are usually Creationists.

Science explains the issue quite neatly:

http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings/thermo.html

[Just a guy_withaVOTE]

4. Have you read his essay?

maybe I'm being unfair, maybe there is a better source, but this isn't it.

He seems to propose two arguments, but he rebuts the first.
(his first is the argument that entropy must occur in closed systems, but as I say, he rebuts that argument in the same paragraph.)

His second argument is that if the creation of life violates the 2nd law, It would be be violated each time a new human was born. The origin of life is indeed interesting, but that's not really evolution he's talking about there.

As I say, not being a scientist, but definately not one to believe something just because it is popular dogma, I have a problem with evolution.

Specifically, as Paul Simon says, "everything put together falls apart". We see this this process of entropy all the time, and anyone who has bought an older home can swear by it. But in contridiction to this easily easily observed principle that everything is coming to an increased state of disorder, we have this 19th century theory rooted in 19th century ideas, that just doesn't work in the real world.

As a general rule, we know that a scientific theory can be trusted if it predicts future events and explains present events consistently. I don't know, has there been a provable case of evolution yet? I know that the example of the English moths has been discredited, and the example of doggie speciation only exists when there human intervention. ( which I guess would support intelligent design if you are into that.)

I am not trying to abuse your beliefs here, I have my own.
and, it's not always wrong to believe something just because someone says its so.

So I apoligize for being so stubborn, but I still don't understand how anyone who has an inquiring mind can accept all the incongruities that evolution presents.

[coda]

5. Unfair? Stubborn? How about presumptuous?

"I wish someone could explain how anyone serious about science could accept that kind of incongruity."

And then there's me, who thinks it's the height of arrogance that a non-scientist would dismiss the seriousnous of a vast number of scientists, based solely on his insistance that they've accepted an incongruity, while offering no proof that said incongruity exists.


If that's your problem with evolution (as you stated above), then by all means don't rely on teach1st's link.


Google's your friend, my friend. :)