Jason Williams from San Diego State University claims creation ought not be taught in public schools alongside evolution because students’ education will be marred by mixing faith and science. Perhaps we should consider whether evolution is based on fact, or whether it is also a dogma. Any theory of origins faces the difficulty of explaining something which can be neither directly observed nor accurately recreated. At the heart of both creationism and evolutionism are critical assumptions – assumptions not built upon observational science,but rather grounded in faith. The evolutionist assumes that eternal matter and energy gave rise to life spontaneously through time and chance. Creationists assume an eternal God who spoke the universe into existence. Neither set of assumptions can be tested scientifically but must be accepted by faith. According to Hubert P. Yockey in Journal of Theoretical Biology, “One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom, a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written.” H.S. Lipson in Physics Bulletin goes even further: “In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to `bend’ their observations to fit in with it.” In the article under question, Williams writes that “one’s faith does not justify handicapping an entire generation of children by removing significant facts from their education or confusing that same education by teaching the stories of faith alongside the facts of science.” I agree wholeheartedly and suggest that we need to re-evaluate the way origin science is taught in public schools. Let us not dogmatically declare molecules-to-man evolution to be fact and use “seek and destroy” tactics on all else. Paul Brown

Electrical engineering