Evolution is No Myth

The local debate over evolution and creationism yet continues. This letter by Marcia Greer was published today under the heading, “Science: No place for creationism.”

I was dumbfounded by the poor reasoning and arguments in a recent letter titled "Teach students the truth." The letter writer asked for intellectual honesty, and for our students to excel in science, yet wants stories of creation taught. That's exactly what they are: stories. Yes, evolution is a theory. A theory is a framework that guides scientific research. It is not a guess; it is not based on written stories by men who had their own agendas thousands of years ago. The fossil record does show evolution. For example, evolution of vertebrate legs is well documented in the fossil record. The evolution of some dinosaurs into birds also has documentation; the most famous fossil is the Archeopteryx, showing a creature with traits of both dinosaur and bird. If, as the letter writer said, we need to include creation stories, how about all the other myths including Aztec, Hindu, Norse, etc. I think it is only fair to give those myths the same focus another unproven story deserves - the Bible. What makes our creation myth so much more believable than anybody else's? Nothing. While we're teaching all these stories, we'll crowd out the real science that our kids aren't learning. Evolution, while much is unexplained, can be documented, tested and researched. That is science. Keep religion in religion class or mythology. This nation is already lagging in science.

This letter in support of teaching only evolution in public schools is fairly standard like the previous one. I'm publishing it for the sake of completeness and I have no additional comments.