Since the eye is composed of

numerous complex components, the elimination of any single structure,

such as the retina, would render the eye useless. It would seem that for

the eye to have been an advantage to the evolving organism that it would

need to have been fully formed in one rapid sweeping series of chance

mutations. Otherwise a partially constructed eye would have offered no

advantage and the mutation would have been harmful rather than helpful

to the evolving organism.

Those who guide our science

curriculum prefer to think that an evolutionary scenario leading to a

fully functioning eye is more scientific as a collection of random mutations

that just happen to coincidentally produce a highly complex structure.

And yet when the possibility of purposeful design is invoked, the student

gets an F or the teacher gets fired or denied tenure.

Why? Because it is "unscientific".

But I think the problem goes deeper. The truth of the matter is that both

evolution AND intelligent design qualify as "pseudo-science"

because they both deal with past events that cannot be observed in the

present.

Science is a study of the here

and now. It tries to understand how and why things work. It develops a

set of hypotheses that become theories and ultimately known as the laws

which govern our physical universe. Without understanding the laws of

aerodynamics there would be no Delta Airlines.

A theory becomes a law because

every time, without fail, when the theory is tested, the same result occurs.

You wouldn't get into a jet if that were not the case. In the same way

every theory starts out as a hypothesis that becomes a theory after much

testing and proof of its validity. Each hypothesis must be able to be

proven true or false. It cannot remain in some ambivalent gray area. The

ability to falsify a hypothesis is key to the scientific method.

Darwin hypothesized that the

fossil evidence would eventually prove his theory to be true. After 150

years of paleontology, there have been virtually no transitional fossils

found to support "gradualism" as Darwin's theory has come to

be known. The last big find was a "transitional" bird from China

that turned out to be a hoax.

So blatant is the lack of fossil

evidence that most paleontologists now support a theory popularized by

the late Stephen J. Gould of Harvard known as "Punctuated Equilibrium."

This new twist says that evolution didn't happen gradually but in very

rapid spurts so fast that it didn't have time to leave a trail of fossils.

Isn't that convenient? The

lack of transitional fossils has effectively falsified gradualism according

to Darwin's own measure. Why isn't that in your tenth grade biology text?

Instead, an alternative theory is proposed that can never be falsified

or verified. How is this even a hypothesis? It's not, it is conjecture

or as some would say pseudo-science.

Proponents of evolution talk

of insects becoming resistant to pesticides or bacteria becoming resistant

to drugs as evidence of evolution. This is pure semantics. Every organism

has the ability to adapt to its environment and be well within the genetic

capabilities of the organism. But how adaptation can then be offered as

proof of evolution on a macro level stretches logic to the breaking point.

Because bacteria become resistant to drugs is a proof that all living

things on the planet evolved from a common ancestor? Can the "evidence"

get any more anemic?

Here is the bottom line that

no evolutionist wants to admit. Both intelligent design and evolution

are based on faith.

A science writer reviewing

Stephen J. Gould's book, "The Burgess Shale," wrote, "One

of the ways we have lived with Darwinism, and the knowledge that the biblical

story of creation is at best metaphor, is the reassurance that Nature

herself embodied a god-like plan, leading inevitably to ourselves."

What can be clearer? It's OK

to believe that nature has a god-like plan, but we dare not call it creation

or intelligent design. Somehow nature's plan has to be completely determined

The origin of life is a religious

question in the first place that can never be answered with science. To

see things in the present and then make untestable, unprovable assumptions

about the past is not science it's faith.

I would like to see some intellectual

honesty. Don't teach my kids a picture-perfect story of evolution that

has little basis in actual proven facts. Teach the controversy. There

is much conflicting evidence, there are facts that can be interpreted

in different ways and facts that are nothing more than fabrications that

still show up in the text books.

The truth is that, in accordance

with the rules of the scientific method, evolution has never moved beyond

the stage of an unproven hypothesis.

Either teach the subject with

all the controversy, both pro and con, or don't teach it at all. Anything

short of a full discussion representing all sides of the debate is deliberate

distortion and manipulation.

Russ Breault

Peachtree City