This Letter to the Editor was written in response to the Viewpoints article published Thursday, Sept. 25 entitled "Creationism: telling lies to kids."
Mr. Crawford,
I found your article “Creationism: telling lies to kids” to be highly offensive to me as a resident of South Carolina and as a scientist. I agree that it is never okay for educators to allow their personal beliefs to permeate into their classrooms, but there were several key points in your argument that were misleading.
First off, your portrayal of education in Tennessee and Louisiana is that of an “old-fogey of a would-be professor shuffles in, coughs in the crevice of his tweed jacket…”
While there probably are professors of older age in both Tennessee and Louisiana, I’m sure there are just as many in other states (such as Illinois and New Jersey).
The fact is, many of these “old-fogey” professors have a lot of experience in their field and are very well respected in their communities. Your argument implies that a professor of older age cannot adequately provide the education that today’s kids need to experience.
Additionally, your attack on creationism is based on evidence that you have to support evolution (and seemingly little in support of creationism). I agree that often creationism is taught apart from science, giving the impression that if the universe were created that evolution must be a lie.
I have been told all my life that I can’t be a scientist and a Christian; this is simply not true. I graduated last May with a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of South Carolina. I am now pursuing a Masters in the Art of Teaching (MAT) degree in hopes of teaching high school biology and chemistry.
During my time here at USC I studied under many professors who are on the cutting edge of research in their field (including one who recently transferred from Stanford and taught a class on the origins of life.)
In our class (entitled “Biochemical Evolution”) we discussed, in great detail, possible origins of life.
While there are many great theories of how life came to be, the main point of the class was for us to discover that there is so much that we don’t know.
With that being said, Christianity and science do not have to be mutually exclusive. Who is to say that God didn’t create life and that evolution isn’t the study of the creation as it changes in the environment over time?
After all, one of the foundational principles of science is that experimental evidence in support of an idea does not, by default, disprove the other ideas (therefore meaning that all of the experimental support of evolution does not disprove the idea of a creation but instead only supports the idea of evolution).
By promoting the idea that all creation theories are “junk ideas” and that informing kids of other possibilities (since we still do not have solid proof of how life came to be) is lying to them, you are committing the very act that you accused teachers in Tennessee and Louisiana of committing: presenting your own beliefs as fact.