{"id":53,"date":"2006-09-30T10:26:43","date_gmt":"2006-09-30T14:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=53"},"modified":"2008-08-05T10:24:24","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T14:24:24","slug":"darwin-or-design-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=53","title":{"rendered":"Darwin or Design letters"},"content":{"rendered":"

FlCfS board member Jonathan Smith got our news release published in Winter Haven’s News Chief newspaper<\/a>. (I think free registration is required to read the online paper.)<\/p>\n

Of course, a response popped up<\/a> a few days later. See the letter below the fold …<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A recent letter to the editor bore the headline, “Intelligent Design Creationism a ‘Con.’ ”<\/p>\n

Boy, talk about a “con.” Joseph Goebbels would have been envious of the board member of the so-called “Florida Citizens for Science,” who penned the letter.<\/p>\n

The writer links, repeatedly, “intelligent design” with “creationism.” The two concepts are different, and the writer is either deliberately intending to mislead or he is woefully uninformed.<\/p>\n

The writer shows complete disdain for the upcoming conference in Tampa, “Darwin or Design? Resolving the Conflict.” He champions scientific inquiry, yet condemns, a priori, an event that presumably will present evidence one way or the other. He should welcome such a scientific dialog instead of hysterically condemning it, sight unseen.<\/p>\n

Darwinism is dead. Darwin’s major premise was that given enough time, anything was possible. In Darwin’s day, the consensus was that the age of the universe was infinite. We now know, with almost complete certainty, that the universe had a beginning, the Big Bang, at which point matter, space and time began (were created?). Also in Darwin’s day, microbiology was virtually unknown, DNA was yet to be discovered. Most recently, a British philosophy professor, Anthony Flew, after a lifetime of atheistic support of Darwinist evolution, concluded, at age 81, that DNA was far too complex to have evolved randomly, and he supported, reluctantly, intelligent design. Probability theory confirms this conclusion; there simply wasn’t enough time for DNA to “evolve” randomly.<\/p>\n

The scientific evidence for intelligent design would fill several editions of this newspaper. The scientific evidence for macroevolution, the formation of a new species by random mutation and natural selection (Darwinism), would not fill the period at the end of this sentence. The missing links are still missing.<\/p>\n

I am sure that the board of the “Florida Citizens for Science” will label me as an “ignorant, uneducated, arrogant, right-wing, radical, Bible-thumping fundamentalist,” which is par for the course for anyone who dares to criticize Darwinism.<\/p>\n

Scientific inquiry anyone?<\/p>\n

George W. Siwinski<\/p>\n

Winter Haven<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FlCfS board member Jonathan Smith got our news release published in Winter Haven’s News Chief newspaper. (I think free registration is required to read the online paper.) Of course, a response popped up a few days later. See the letter … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-R","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":57,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=57","url_meta":{"origin":53,"position":0},"title":"I think I found the missing link","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Another letter to the editor. Another missing link exposed. The letter is in response to this stuff here. Has anyone seen the \"missing link\" lately? Here are my thoughts on \"Intelligent Design Creationism a \u00c3\u201dCon,' \" a letter published on Sept. 23. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is exactly what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":898,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=898","url_meta":{"origin":53,"position":1},"title":"News roundup","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"-- Palm Harbor teacher keeps students on the move. 6th grader Kurt Shuster says he thinks Mr. Mackenzie is pretty cool. \"He makes me feel like I am special because he comes up with these names for me, like the Shuster-nator or something really funny that I would like to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":906,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=906","url_meta":{"origin":53,"position":2},"title":"Wise finally gets some love","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the first letter to the editor I've seen so far in support of Senator Wise's possible intelligent design creationism bill. IN REPLY: INTELLIGENT DESIGN Give children facts This is in response to letters regarding Sen. Steve Wise's proposed bill to require teachers who teach evolution to also be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"ID Creationism\" bills '09"","block_context":{"text":"\"ID Creationism\" bills '09","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=27"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":914,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=914","url_meta":{"origin":53,"position":3},"title":"More opinions on Wise","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science supporter Paul Cottle, who is a professor of physics at Florida State University, wrote a nice piece for the Florida Times-Union about state Senator Wise's possible intelligent design creationism bill. Wise's proposal does not represent the viewpoints of all Christians. Last year, Bishop Thomas Wenski of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "\"ID Creationism\" bills '09"","block_context":{"text":"\"ID Creationism\" bills '09","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=27"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":326,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=326","url_meta":{"origin":53,"position":4},"title":"Article: Creationism — Evolution of a Flawed Notion","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Lakeland Ledger writer Tom Palmer offers up a very good piece entitled Creationism -- Evolution of a Flawed Notion. Third, there's the idea that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a rejection of religion. Darwin intended nothing of the sort. \"With respect to the theological view of the question; this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":398,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=398","url_meta":{"origin":53,"position":5},"title":"Creationism is taught in Florida?!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"An article in today's Florida Today focuses on what evolution in the public schools means to Brevard County. The majority of quotes in the story are outstanding, and, quite frankly, reality based. Here's a sample. Superintendent Richard DiPatri said the change wouldn't make a difference in Brevard Public Schools, where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}