Regarding David Grow’s “Real ‘science’” (May 25, Gazette): Mr. Grow crows about his knowledge of science and castigates my letter for being ignorant “of basic science and evolution in particular.” He must not have read my commentary (Letters, “‘Designer’ debate,” May 18, Gazette) in which I said “evolution works.”

I do not have a problem with evolution; I have a problem with those Darwinian evolutionists who then make the assumption that life just “happened.” And it is insulting to accuse someone’s comments of being ignorant just because they disagree with you or hold different ideas.

I am happy that Mr. Grow admits that life did not happen by chance. That is quite a concession, but there really are scientists who still argue that life on earth came into existence by chance, or, as Mr. Grow says, “developed.” Mr. Grow states that “life developed more than 3 billion years ago involving molecules,” but “molecules don’t fossilize.” Pardon me, but molecules do fossilize because everything is composed of molecules.

I have a silicified dinosaur vertebra on my office shelf along with a beautiful Devonian-age brachiopod shell completely replaced by pyrite, as well as a fossilized fish from the Eocene-age Green River Formation in Wyoming.

Then Mr. Grow says “molecules and their environment behave according to the laws of chemistry and thermodynamics.” Laws imply intelligence. None of the laws governing chemical reactions or thermodynamics produce life. And certainly no one has been able to produce a living cell using chemistry or thermodynamics, or a combination of them.

I seriously doubt whether either Mr. Grow has actually read Dr. Stephen Meyer’s book “Signature in the Cell,” because it is a quite scholarly work that takes considerable time to peruse. It has not been “thoroughly debunked by scientists.”

Then Mr. Grow makes two incredible statements: 1. “It is well-established that the genome (DNA) accumulates information as a result of natural selection.” 2. “The fact new species have evolved in historical times …” Perhaps he should enlighten Dr. Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, so Crick wouldn’t have to postulate that life came to earth from outer space.

No new species have evolved for an extremely long period of time, and certainly not in the approximately 10,000 or less years of his torical times. Species have adapted to environmental changes, but none have evolved into new species in historical times!

Denier-in-chief Stephen Hawking said, “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.” And still, he doesn’t believe in God!

—M.G. Oxsen
Norman

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