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REBUTTAL

Ila Johnson (“Evolution is still just a theory,” Rebuttal, Thursday)

has it partly right: Conclusive, certain knowledge is not attainable

through science, but only by direct, personal revelation from God, such

as the appearance of Jesus Christ to the Apostle Paul on the road to

Damascus.

I respect the faith of those who have had such experiences, as long as

the truths they proclaim are limited to the spiritual realm.

When it comes to truths about the material world, however, we mortals

must do the intellectual labor of using our reason and our senses if we

are to learn about nature. Our collective scientific knowledge grows

(dare I say “evolves”?) as we acquire ever more information. That is why

all scientific knowledge is necessarily inconclusive, incomplete and

subject to revision -- in a word, theory. Nor is it meaningful to

distinguish scientific “fact” from scientific “theory.” There is no such

thing as a scientific fact, if that means something that is conclusively

proven.

Lack of finality does not make theories unreliable. We do accept and

rely on scientific theories every day, even those that are not subject to

experiment, such as the Copernican theory that the Earth revolves around

the sun rather than the other way around. We wash our hands to avoid the

spread of infection, and we use vaccines, antiseptics and antibiotics,

which are all based on Pasteur’s germ theory of disease. Engineers design

aircraft and spacecraft using Newton’s theory of gravity and his laws of

motion, even while physicists are busy adding to our knowledge about

those phenomena -- and we believe in those theories enough to entrust our

lives to them. We teach our children these theories both to help them

understand the world we live in and to educate the scientific

professionals and technicians who do their part to keep our society and

our economy running.

Of course, the Copernican theory is subject to verification by

scientific observation, as are all scientific theories, including

evolution. But we can’t set up an experiment in which we change the

Earth’s orbit and watch what happens. Likewise, if we discovered, i.e.

observed, a fossil skeleton of a modern human being that dated back to

the dinosaur era or earlier, that would disprove our theory of evolution.

So far, however, the fossil record completely supports the theory.

The theory of evolution is no different from those other scientific

theories. It constitutes our best, current, scientific knowledge of the

ancestry of today’s living creatures (including human beings), based on

what we have observed in fossils and in living plants and animals. It

neither precludes nor establishes the idea that there is purpose to life,

nor does it undermine, contradict or support anyone’s spiritual values.

Scientific knowledge has nothing to do with these matters. It deals

purely with the natural world not the supernatural; it concerns the

physical not the metaphysical. The practice of scientific inquiry does,

however, promote the values of intellectual honesty and humility, care

and thoroughness, critical thinking, the courage to stand behind one’s

own work, and respect for the work of others.

Children learn their values at home, in religious institutions and

from their cultural heritage. Our schools need to teach our children

about biological evolution to help them understand the natural world we

live in and to educate the future doctors, nurses and other health

professionals, as well as biologists, biochemists and paleontologists,

who will increase scientific knowledge and put it to use for the benefit

of our descendants.

So-called creationism is not science because it does not increase our

understanding of how the natural world works. Creationism distorts

natural science in order to try to force it to appear to support certain

religious beliefs. Its purpose is not to discover new knowledge but to

prove conclusions that are never subject to questioning within the system

of creationism. It is a hodgepodge of biblical phrases engrafted upon

pseudoscience, as a substitute for intellectual honesty and scientific

labor. It has no place in our public schools. (By the way, that concept,

“the missing link,” has no place in the science of evolution. It is based

on the idea that human beings are descended from the ape species that

exist today -- a notion which has no basis in observation or theory --

and no respectable biologist supports it.) Any school board member who

tries to push the teaching of pseudoscience on an equal plane with

genuine science should not be accorded the recognition that the board

presidency represents.

ELEANOR EGAN

Costa Mesa

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