Story on Creationists

I thought your article on the embattled creationists was quite thorough and probing (“Degrees Without Darwin,” Jan. 6). One of the key observations that not everybody grasps is that the creationists seek evidence which fits a preconceived template for the history of the world, while scientists, if they are really scientists, seek a hypothesis which will satisfy their data. Hypotheses which work become theories and then laws.

When creationists talk about “evangelical evolutionists” they seem to be invoking evolution as a religion, which takes it out of the domain of science. Evolution is merely the best explanation of the mass of data to be interpreted. Creationism is a monumental failure at fitting the data.

Scientists do not reject the creationist idea because it is biblical and they are against religion. There are 10,000 ideas about the history of the world which do not fit the data and have been or would be rejected. The classic one, which cannot be disproved, is that the universe and all its parts, including fossils, stones and you and I were created five minutes ago. Ideas like this are taught in school, but in philosophy, not science. Creationism too, is an appropriate subject for a survey course in philosophy.

You note a favorite observation by creationists, that the complexity of the “stink bug” could not occur by chance. No evolutionist would argue. What you did not note is that the process of natural selection is in no way completely “chance.” Genetic variability and mutations may be random but after that, the iron discipline of survival takes over.

JOHN TOOMAY, Carlsbad