The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Why Not Goldwater?

2.20.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 6)

The greatest fallacy -- and the clearest example of faulty logic by Bethell and opponents of science -- is to argue that because some evolutionary biologists (for example, Richard Dawkins) are atheists, that therefore all Darwinian evolutionary biology is an atheist attack on religion under the disguise of science. Conservatives and liberals alike should join in repudiating baseless attacks on the very science that not only daily expands our knowledge of the natural world around us, but which has also given us the ability to combat deadly viruses, bacteria, and diseases that can only be understood in light of evolution.
--David Sepkoski
Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina Wilmington

Regarding the recent column by Tom Bethell on "No Intelligence Allowed!" the Ben Stein film on the social issue debate regarding evolution vs. creationism, or "Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design" as rephrased by him:

I'd like to ask Tom an open question. He should feel free to respond in public: "When your kids are sick, will you take them to church or to the hospital?"

Please take into consideration that all doctors are "Darwinists" and everything they do is based on the assumption that the theory of evolution is a valid one, and produces results in the real world.

Mr. Bethell, as you bash Evolution out of one side of your mouth and embrace it whenever you need the benefits, you remind me of those energy conservationists driving around in a gas guzzling SUV whenever it suits their personal needs.

Intelligent design is a non-scientific religious belief not found in the bulk of the scientific community. People who believe in astrology are also expelled from the academic community for exactly the same reasons as are the Intelligent Design proponents. They have nothing to back up their beliefs. Their science is bad, and will continue to be rejected. No movie will ever change that.
-- David Dawson

UNFAIR AND BALANCED
Re: Jennifer Rubin's Helping Hillary:

Ms. Rubin's sound advice to Ms. Clinton left me cold. Why on God's Green Earth would The Spectator, even on a lark, want to provide campaign advice to Hillary Clinton? The rationale that she'll be an easier opponent in the general election is just not borne out by experience. If memory serves, the Clinton years ('92-'00) can be characterized as one sustained political campaign, with the Democratic establishment, media, and federal bureaucracy all being manipulated to maintain and consolidate their hold on political power, with an abject disregard for the rule of law as necessary. The Leninist tactics of the Clintons are legendary (as the Spectator, of all publications, surely knows). Hillary Clinton perhaps exemplifies the "ends justifies the means" approach to politics more than her husband. Indeed, Bubba is a likely disciple of Hillary and her steely, deterministic Bolshevism. Does anyone who knows the Clintons really want them around for a general election? Anyone? I don't, frankly, know a lot about Obama but he's not a Clinton. You can contribute to Barack's campaign. Give generously, while you have the chance, before it's too late.
-- Peter R. McGrath
Winter Park, Florida

Mischief is afoot in the republic. McCain is the one, and Clinton or Obama will be the other one.

I still believe Obama was put in place to keep the leftmost wing of the Democrat Party loyal, and to neutralize Nader. But I take no pleasure in the fact that Hillary will face McCain. And I especially don't enjoy the thought that Hillary is one of the "Democrats who are the doers....and may even get something done."

One of the reasons I so dread Mrs. Clinton is that her retinue of thugs and halfwits are very good at getting things done, most of them irrational, some of them evil. Should Mr. Obama prevail, I can live with his failure to nationalize health care; I will not be hurt by the collapse of his scheme to pay reparations to everybody who wants them. But I greatly fear Mrs. Clinton's ability to achieve these things. And I really hope her plan to hand every American infant a $5,000 "college bond" will go nowhere.

As for Obama's batty advisors, remember that Mrs. Clinton once embraced -- literally, publicly -- Yassar Arafat's wife. Remember also, that she can argue the case for seating delegates from Florida, and for not seating delegates from Florida, simultaneously, on the advice of Mr. Harold Ickkes, heir to the looniest portion of Eleanor and Franklin's New Deal. And, crashing around in the underbrush, there will always be Bill.

We may be forced to embrace the devil we don't know, rather than one we've known for way too long.
-- Edmund Dantes
Coshocton, Ohio

J'ACCUSE!
Re: Roger Kaplan's The Best Since DeGaulle:

The merits of teaching the Holocaust is frowned upon by French intelligentsia (an oxymoron, I know), as it would shine the light of truth on France: Roundup of Jews were instituted by the gendarmerie, willing collaborators willingly rounding up Jewish children for shipment to Auschwitz. My comments, however, concerns the intolerable burden of "guilt" poor French children might feel being informed of the Holocaust that took place in France.

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