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 The Chronicle welcomes you online! Please feel free to respond to these editorials or letters to the editor by sending your letters to the editor.

We condense letters; most, as published, won't exceed 300 words. A letter must include the writer's name and city, which will be published, and an address and telephone number for verification, which will not be published. Writers may be limited to one letter every 30 days. Open letters, letters to third parties and poetry are not considered. Letters from people living outside the Chronicle's circulation area usually are not considered.

Raps Kansas for putting limits on God

Web posted September 8, 1999

Editor, The Chronicle

The question of evolution vs. creationism has again come to the fore following the Kansas School Board's decision to remove questions about macroevolution and ``the big bang'' from the state competency exam.

Creationists have said that no one saw the big bang or watched evolution in action, so we cannot know what really happened. That is like saying no one has ever seen neutrons being released in a nuclear chain reaction, so we cannot know that an atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima. We know about atomic bombs, evolution, and the big bang because we can directly examine their results.

The theory of evolution is at least as well established as the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. Evolution is as basic to understanding biology as the latter two theories are to understanding physics and chemistry. Evolution is supported by results from sciences that employ vastly different methodologies and ways of looking at the world. These include molecular biology, anatomy, physics, ecology, archaeology, and paleontology (which, incidentally, has identified numerous ``transitional'' fossils, including every major stage between reptiles and mammals and between eohippus and horses).

Creationists argue that evolution is only a theory, and thus no better than their theory of divine creation. The fallacy is that scientists expect theories to be challenged and are willing to modify a theory or even scrap it and start over if new evidence warrants it. There does not seem to be any conceivable evidence that would induce creationists to change their belief.

J.B. Phillips, the great biblical scholar and translator, in his marvelous book Your God Is Too Small, suggested we are always tempted to limit almighty God to acting in ways that we humans think appropriate. I think we see this in action in this controversy.

Andy C. Reese, Augusta