The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 6 of 14)

A few notes to Mrs. Fabrizio:

I don't consider myself fully a Republican. I consider myself a Libertarian, and I find the Republican Party to be more supportive of my ideas than the Democratic Party. And I will most likely be joining with the GOP or one of her candidates in the near future to support the 2008 elections. There's full disclosure.

Now, yes, I have seen this e-mail (and various other formats) in cyberspace. I find this kind of demagoguery to be very funny, but also frightening. There are people out there who actually believe this trite. And I do agree with most of your responses.

But on to Evolution. Things may have changed in the 10 years since I graduated high school, but throughout my time in school, in school systems across the country, Evolution was always taught as a Theory, not fact. It was taught as the best supported theory that has been advanced for the method of species variation and to explain how new species are created, and why some species eventually disappear.

It is also important to note that some states have passed laws allowing Creationism to be taught as an equally valid theory. It is not. Evolution is a theory built out of hundreds of years of empirical observations on the interaction of all of the life on this planet. Creationism, on the other hand is not a scientific theory, but a religious belief that should be taught in Church. The Theory of Evolution has been around for centuries, and is widely accepted by almost all of the biological community (both strongly Christian and openly atheistic) simply because nothing else comes close to being able to answer all the questions involved in life's changes and expressions.. Most importantly, it should not be confused with Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. The Theory of Natural Selection was advanced by Darwin after years of observation around the globe (while on the HMS Beagle), specifically the Galapagos Islands off the coast of South America which has a wide variety of animal life not seen anywhere else in the world. Before publication he shared his ideas with other Naturalists, who had made many similar observations.

Natural Selection is the best supported theory on the mechanics of Evolution. It holds true under one of the most important aspects of scientific theory, in that it can be applied to create a desired outcome. Humans have been applying the Theory of Natural Selection for millennium, ever sense they stopped hunting and gathering and started raising and farming. Cow breeds, dog breeds, corn, wheat, rye, and dozens of other species and genus have been adapted to human's needs through artificial selection. In the cases of dogs, cats, and other useful animals the artificial selection of breeding allowed for speciation before recorded history and the modern animals are unrecognizable to their prehistoric ancestors. Darwin's major difference is that the competitive nature of the environment created the selective process, rather than human intervention. Even today, microevolution experiments occur in laboratories, universities, and even high schools across the country using micro and macro organisms, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, algae, and even insects. One of the major health risks this country faces currently comes from microevolution, as strains of bacteria become resistant to our antibiotics, causing the diseases to flourish and needing new antibiotics to combat them.

Evidence for Evolution abounds. While the fact that the over-all bone structure varies little from vertebrae to vertebrae can be seen as economy of design (a support for Creationism), the presence of toe-nails on whales and pelvis and leg bones in snakes cannot be so easily explained without Evolution. The mitochondria which drives aerobic respiration in everything above the level of bacteria is the only thing which makes multi-cellular life possible, and replicates itself independently of cell replication, and most importantly, is not coded in the cell's DNA. Bacterial life was the first to come, and mitochondria (and chloroplasts in plants) are prokaryotes like bacteria, not their eukaryote hosts (the DNA is dispersed throughout the cell rather than centralized in a nucleolus). DNA between Humans and bacteria has less than a 10% difference. The difference between human's and chimpanzees is less than 1/100th of a percent. It takes serious training to identify the differences between vertebrae embryos. The list goes on and on, these are just what I can pull up now.

p>Yes, Global Warming and the carcinogenic properties of tobacco smoke are poorly supported. Evolution does not fall into this category and should not be dismissed with the same breath as the above ideas. Please understand that attacking Evolution in this fashion undermines the importance of the conservative position and make it more difficult to properly address the serious problems with those theories that are advanced without proper support. br> -- Charles Campbell br> Austin, Texas /p>

Many of Lisa Fabrizio's responses to the list of "Things you have to believe to be a Republican" call for response, but allow me to comment on one of them: "If the indoctrination of free-love, 'alternate lifestyles,' and sexual promiscuity had been kept out of our schools -- where they had no business in the first place -- our children wouldn't need condoms."

I was raised Catholic and attended parochial grade school and a Jesuit preparatory school in the 1950s well before the "free-love" '60s and '70s. And I can testify to the fact there was plenty of adolescent sexual behavior despite the fact that it carried the ultimate punishment, the "mortal sin." And I'm not just talking oral sex. And I'm talking grade school as well as high school.

I'll agree that the '70s was a time of sexual experimentation but that primarily was among people 20 to 40 years old. I know what it was like in the '50s and I don't think it's much different now from then. If anyone wants details I can report events that look like anything happening today.

topics:
Taxes, Education, Trade, Business, Medicaid, Religion, Islam, Abortion, Environment, Global Warming, Books, Movies, Constitution, Law, Iraq, NATO, Africa, Alaska, Medicare