Creationists Focus On Missing Link

Edwin M. Yoder’s article “Creating a Science Out of Something Else” (Editorial Pages, Dec. 16), is certainly the best expression of ridicule aimed at creation science yet published. Unfortunately, the article shares a fault with most others on the Louisiana case in its failure to get beyond the superficial issue of whether our ancestors were apes or Adam.

The complaint of the creationists which underlies this issue--and a perfectly valid complaint it is--is that Darwinian evolution has always been completely at a loss to provide man with a foundation for questions of how to live his life. Creationism, however foolish it appears to modern man, is at least superior in its ability to point toward answers for the moral questions about which human beings have always speculated.

It may not be right to “compel schools to teach religious faith in the name of biology,” but it is clear that neither the physical sciences nor the social sciences are capable of providing a moral foundation for life.

DANIEL C. PALM

Claremont