Letter: Evolution foe uses false premise
Letter: Evolution foe uses false premise
2theadvocate - Baton Rouge - 12/3/11
Darrell White’s Nov. 27 letter, “Ex-judge opposes biology texts,” criticizing evolution in biology textbooks that were approved by two state committees, contains a false premise.
He argues that “scientific criticisms” of evolution should be included in the textbooks, but his argument works only if genuinely scientific criticisms exist.
White’s argument fails because all evidence since publication of On the Origin of Species confirms Darwin’s theory of evolution. There is no evidence undermining evolution. The science has withstood every attempt to discredit it for 151 years. Creationists such as White have no evidence.
Contending that “scientific criticisms of Darwin’s views would clearly be admissible in a court of law,” White asserts that an attorney withholding such evidence could be “guilty of unethical conduct.” How, he wonders, can “such facts” be withheld from students?
White knows better than this. If anyone is guilty of withholding evidence, it is White.
He knows about the Pennsylvania “Dover trial,” Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005), in which his friends at the Discovery Institute were given six weeks to present their “scientific criticisms” of evolution. DI is the creationist think tank with which White and the Louisiana Family Forum partnered in 2008 to promote the sham “Louisiana Science Education Act.” Why didn’t White mention this case?
I was an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the Dover trial, in which DI also had two “expert” witnesses. It was supposed to have five, but three of them bailed out before they were deposed, rather than take advantage of this golden opportunity to present their “scientific criticisms” of evolution in federal court.
Judge John E. Jones III gave the remaining witnesses all the time they needed to present evidence. DI’s witnesses were exposed under cross-examination as the creationists they are, having produced no evidence against evolution. Nor have they produced evidence for “intelligent design” creationism, which two of White’s associates wrote in their public comment forms should be included in the textbooks.
Yet White and the LFF worked with these DI losers to write and promote the LSEA, which Gov. Bobby Jindal signed in 2008. White calls for Jindal to “speak out on the biology textbook issue due to be considered by BESE at its December meetings.”
I wholeheartedly agree. The governor should explain why — with his Ivy League biology degree from Brown University — he signed a creationist law that he knew would threaten the science education of his constituents’ children. Will he explain? Only time will tell.
Readers can find the truth about the LFF’s attack on public school science education at the Louisiana Coalition for Science website. Then they should ask BESE to approve the textbooks.
Barbara Forrest
professor
Holden