Darwin said theory needed proof

Published 9:00 pm Monday, August 13, 2001

I enjoyed reading the Aug. 12 article, “Darwin debate is still evolving,” by Herald writer Todd C. Frankel. Darwin himself said that when he thought about the human eye it gave him a headache. He also said in his book “On the Origin of Species” (which I have read, unlike most people with a Darwin fish on their car) that if future finds in the fossil record did not support his theory, than it should be rightly rejected. The fact that these finds do not tend to support gradualism has led to the currently cutting edge theory of “Punctuated Equilibrium,” which is barely taught in the government schools.

Theories of life’s origin have always been used to guide social mores, an example being Darwin’s theory itself, which many of his contemporaries openly admitted they accepted because it freed their consciences from the idea of an omnipotent god.

The completion of the Human Genome Project certainly makes the idea that we are biologically engineered by something, or someone, that writes incredibly tight code, as valid as any other idea. This is as threatening to people such as Eugenie Scott or members of the ACLU as Darwin was to the God-fearing public of his time.

Is anyone else sick of paying taxes to fund government schools that only endeavor to teach our children what to think, rather than how to think? I say we should start running the risk of letting people make up their own minds, especially about subjects that can’t be proven one way or the other.

Everett