In response to John Patterson’s letter in the April 23 Daily, “Belief in creationism shows pathetic state of ISU education,” science and religion can coexist without a problem.

In fact, almost all of the “founding fathers” of science (Newton, Kepler, Faraday, Maxwell, Mendel and many others) were Christian and believed strongly in the creation.

Does this make their work invalid? Science explains how things work, not why they work.

Take gravity – we know how to describe it, what its properties are, how it acts on objects, but the “why” of gravity is still a grey area.

Science covers repeatable, observable events. The decay of a subatomic particle can be repeated and observed. The free-fall accelerations of objects can be repeated and observed.

There is no problem here.

The problem comes when one begins to consider macro-evolution science. Macro-evolution is not repeatable.

Microevolution happens and has been observed many times in many species, but macro-evolution has not.

Physics, chemistry, biology – all these are sciences. They deal in the realm of the physical, the observable and the repeatable.

Evolution does not fit the definition of science but is a belief, just as creationism is.

Personally, I believe in the existence of God and that he created the world. I’m also an engineer.

Perpetual motion breaks the laws of physics, and I don’t foresee it ever happening.

I find life beginning from inorganic material to be similarly unlikely.

Before you attempt to deny the existence of a supernatural being, make sure that you at least are making valid comparisons, not confusing the belief in evolution with true science.

Russ Graves

Freshman

Computer engineering