"Today we know that the universe was not designed to suit us; we have adapted and evolved to suit the universe."

Darwin, nose, spectacles

Kudos to Nina Shapiro for her article about the members of Seattle's "Discovery Institute" ["The new creationists," April 19] whose mission, in true Orwellian fashion, is the opposite of discovery: the suppression of scientific knowledge.

Shapiro quotes from the book Darwin's Black Box by the Institute's high-profile member Michael Behe. This book has been roundly criticized in many places; in the Boston Review, biologist H. Allen Orr sums up, "Behe's chief objection to Darwinism is flat wrong, and, bereft of this, he's got little to say. But when you do look at what else he says, you find a bizarre string of confusions and contradictions."

Also quoted in Shapiro's article is another member of the Discovery Institute, UW staff member Guillermo Gonzalez, who marvels that the universe was obviously designed "for advanced conscious beings to exist." This ancient argument is easily parodied: Voltaire observed that the nose was obviously designed to hold spectacles. Today we know that the universe was not designed to suit us; we have adapted and evolved to suit the universe. Yet the religious conservatives at the Discovery Institute would have it taught in our schools that this view is somehow "controversial" in the scientific community. This is disgraceful.

GEOFF SAUNDERS
REDMOND

Darwin, blinders

Nina Shapiro's piece on "The new creationists" [April 19] is a nice summary of the Intelligent Design movement and Phillip Johnson, its intellectual founder. Shapiro quoted Eugenie Scott, an outspoken opponent of Johnson and anything that challenges Darwinian evolution, as saying, "once you say God did it, you stop looking for a natural cause. It's what we call a science stopper."

In the real world, of course, Darwinian blinders are science stoppers. In Scott's case, she long ago abandoned science to advocate Darwinism. Apparently she has not published a scientific research paper since the mid-'80s.

Shapiro's piece may attract letters from other disciples of Darwin who agree with Scott. Yet they and biologists in general may discover creative new insights when they view life as having been designed rather than as the product of random mutations.

Consider, for example, my findings in Brazil concerning how suppressed ultraviolet sunlight caused by severe air pollution from biomass burning is well correlated with increases in airborne bacteria and documented cases of respiratory illnesses. This research, which is aimed at identifying causes of increased respiratory disease during burning season, was conceived under intelligent design assumptions and conducted with conventional funding, methodologies, and instruments.

I am also investigating how solar UV both sterilizes the upper layer of outdoor bodies of water used for consumption in the tropics and affects the breeding patterns of certain disease-transmitting mosquitoes. That these and other projects are based on ID assumptions is nothing new. The same assumptions were once held by most scientists before Scott's "science stopper," the Darwinian paradigm, virtually closed off this fruitful avenue of inspiration. Were I still a follower of Darwin, the underlying design ideas behind some of my research might never have occurred to me.

FORREST M. MIMS III
SEGUIN, TX

Frauds, geesh

This is in response to Ms. Shapiro's piece on creationists in Seattle ["The new creationists," April 19]. First to correct some factual errors. These are in fact "bible thumping creationists"; just subscribing to "old earth" creationism as opposed to "young earth" creationism. There is no "controversy" over Darwin's essential ideas, the fact of evolution, and the means of descent through modification by means of natural selection. The only controversy is in the heads of a handful of "biblists," not amongst any reputable biologists. No intellectually honest person can become a geologist and not recognize the antiquity of the earth, and no intellectually honest person can or has become a biologist without recognizing the staggering, overwhelming, and definitive evidence for evolution, and the (same adjectives) evidence for the influences of natural selection. The problem most people have is the "biblists" fight so hard to keep evolution out of textbooks and so strongly influence podunk school boards that textbook publishers do an extraordinarily poor job of explaining the facts and the ideas to people. The folks at the "Discovery Institute," on the other hand, are just intellectually dishonest. Folks like Behe's main argument is argument from ignorance and personal incredulity, an extremely poor argument. Because Mr. Behe can't figure it out in his little bible mind doesn't make it not so. Geesh.

The gist of your article in no way accurately portrayed the almost complete unanimity with which they (the biblists you quoted) are recognized as the frauds they are amongst those who have investigated their claims honestly. Next you'll publish an article about how the "mainstream science funding cartels" are keeping teachings about perpetual motion out of the classrooms unjustly. Evolution is better understood, offers verifiable and falsifiable predictions that have borne out over and over, and has a mechanism we understand—in all those things its level of "science" surpasses our understanding of gravity. When these snake oil biblists take on gravity first, they may claim honest error rather than fraud. Until then, they show their colors, and you show shameful credulity.

If the rest of the monkeys could see us now . . .