Letters to the editor are starting to pop up in response to the news that Senator Wise is planning on introducing legislation promoting intelligent design.
In the St. Petersburg Times:
No alternative
So Republican state Sen. Stephen Wise wants schools to “teach the other side” of Darwinian evolution.
There is no “other side.” Evolution is testable, observable, falsifiable fact. So-called intelligent design is fundamentalist religion.
As Richard Dawkins says, if you’re going to teach the creationist alternative “theory” to evolution, then you have to teach the “stork” alternative theory to parturition.
Nick Hobart, New Port Richey
In the Florida Times-Union:
Why stop there?
Hurray for the bold efforts of Sen. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville, who is courageously battling against the scientific fact of evolution, and Darwin’s theory of natural selection as the mechanism for evolution to take place.
He wants teachers to instruct kids to consider “intelligent design,” which has no supporting evidence whatsoever.
Well, why stop there? Why not demand that teachers present alternatives to Newton and his so-called laws of gravity?
Why not challenge Copernicus’ godless theory of a heliocentric solar system?
And why not challenge Einstein’s theory that matter and energy are equivalent?
That should satisfy Wise and his credulous, faithful and noncritically thinking supporters.
JON DEHNER, Jacksonville
A burden on schools
State Sen. Steve Wise, a Jacksonville Republican, said he plans to introduce a bill to require teachers, who teach the well-established and well-recognized as accurate theory of evolution, to “discuss” the discredited “theory” of “intelligent design.”
Why has he remained so long on an education committee, first in the House and now in the Senate, with such an idea? What an indictment of the leadership in both bodies.
Of course, he will disregard the overwhelming opinion of teachers of science throughout the state who debunk his fostered, failed theory. He will say, “What do teachers of science know?”
If this bill survives a Senate vote, and is voted out by House committee to the full House, it should be defeated by a very wide margin.
The Scopes “monkey trial” (the same issue) was decided in the 1920s and the indefensible “theory” of “intelligent design” (a new phrase to cover up the same Bible thumping) was left behind by almost all of the states soon thereafter.
Should we further deteriorate our educational system by allowing a failed “theory” to confuse and victimize our students? I think not.
Should we allow Florida to become a laughing stock of the national educational community? I suggest not.
ROBERT M. NIED, Jacksonville
Good job, folks. Keep them coming!
