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Re: “The Bible as museum guide,” Sept. 25 news story.
A religious fundamentalist walking through a museum and repeating his mantra “Lies, all lies” is front-page news in The Denver Post. The man offers no evidence to support his assertion, and the 10-year-olds accompanying him serve as cheerleaders. Are we surprised that 10-year-olds are endlessly gullible?
The distressing part is that the gullible 10-year-olds may grow up to be gullible adults. If no evidence or thinking are required, but the assertions of one person are treated like truths, is it any wonder that Americans are notorious patsies for every diet fad, every quack cure, every political extremist and every religious sect that comes along? Does the man leading his Children’s Crusade offer them any information on genetics or biological diversity or ecological pressures or adaptations and extinctions?
If all the dinosaurs were drowned in Noah’s flood, why do we still have crocodiles, snakes and lizards? Why are we worried about extinctions among elephants, apes, ivory-billed woodpeckers and other species, if extinctions happened only once and a long time ago?
Do we still wonder why America is held in such low esteem in the world when we give such credence to witless zealots while eagerly attacking our institutions of learning?
Frank Lee Earley, Elizabeth
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I hope the intention of putting that ridiculous drivel about Biblically Correct Tours on the front page of the Sunday edition was to point out how truly backward these people are and not because of some misguided sympathy with their cause. The mere fact that these tours exist and that there is active debate in the wider community over teaching Creationism in schools is a testament to the dangerous backward slide this country is taking when it comes to reality. I shuddered when I read of the girl shouting, “Nonsense!” about the Earth’s estimated age to the zealously mindless adoration of the parents. What’s next? A return to witch trials?
Dan Wunder, Loveland
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I congratulate The Denver Post on putting a creationism story on the front page. I think it is time we address the issue of evolution and science. I do believe that the creation story in the Bible currently is a more accurate representation of how life came about, but I am also a scientist and what is more important to me is that we allow a “theory” to be a “theory” until better evidence comes along to support it. Evolution can never be proven, just as creationism can never be proven. Most scientific theories can never be proven, and it is up to us to allow our kids and future generations to be open to scientific investigation by letting them explore the endless possibilities. If the evidence does not support the hypotheses, then a new theory needs to be developed.
Chriss Grosvenor, Broomfield
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Not only do Rusty Carter and Tyson Thorne of Biblically Correct Tours want to do away with science, they want to do away with common sense. Thorne is reported as telling students on a tour of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science that fossils were formed in sedimentary rocks deposited during the biblical flood of Noah’s time and that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. What nonsense! Think about it. There are sedimentary rocks around the world thousands of feet thick containing fossils. To get that amount of sediment deposited would require the equivalent of eroding the Rocky Mountains several times over, and the creationists want it done in 40 days. Imagine the rainfall – falling with the force to pulverize rock to create the sediment. And Noah’s wooden ark survived? I think not. God gave us a brain with which to think. We would honor Him if we used it.
David Schey, Golden
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Re: “Biblical tour masquerades as science,” Sept. 25 Jim Spencer column.
That was a nice 1-2 punch thrown at intelligent design and creationism in the Sept. 25 Denver Post: the front-page story about creationism museum tours and Jim Spencer’s column on how six-day creationism equals intelligent design equals religion and not science.
Why are creationism tours front-page news? Instead of trying to lead readers by the hand to the conclusion that intelligent design is just creationism in sheep’s clothing, why not give your readers a chance to think for themselves? We are actually quite an intelligent group of people.
As you do so well on many other topics, I would like to see a head-to-head debate in the Perspective section of the Sunday Denver Post, with one Ph.D. scientist on the evolution side discussing why intelligent design is not science and one Ph.D. scientist on the intelligent design side discussing why it is science.
Dan Kennicutt, Highlands Ranch
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One of the oldest, and shabbiest, of rhetorical or journalistic tricks is to portray the most extreme or obtuse among one’s political or intellectual adversaries as representative of the whole.
I was quite disappointed to see The Post and Jim Spencer resort to such a “straw man” by attempting to portray all of us who believe in a creator and support the discussion of the possibility of a creator in public school and university classrooms as intellectual Luddites.
To be sure, one is hard-pressed to see anything more than a profoundly beautiful allegorical correlation between the Book of Genesis and the unfolding of creation as we have come to understand it through science and cosmology.
Nevertheless, the more we learn of the magnificent complexity, elegance and precision reflected in the genetic code, and of the degree to which observations of the universe through the Hubble telescope and other media confirm that everything in creation was formed in an instant (the “big bang”), the less inclined we should be to assume that science proves there is no creator.
To the contrary, some of the greatest scientific minds of the last century, including Einstein, refused to declare that science had proved that God is dead. Distinguished physicists, most notably John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke, Charles Hartshorne and Charles Townes (inventor of the laser and maser), have succeeded in reconciling their uncompromising belief in science with their similarly uncompromising belief in a creator.
Mark E. Brennan, Centennial
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Women and Katrina
Re: “Women hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina disaster,” Sept. 25 Perspective article.
As if we don’t have enough interest groups trying to promote a race issue as a result of Hurricane Katrina, now we have Elaine Enarson trying to create a gender issue out of the same disaster.
Enarson would have us believe that women will essentially rebuild the social fabric of the area, and will need to counter the “men who turn to drugs and alcohol or even violence with so much out of their control.” Are not women subject to the same influences?
In the difficult months and years of reconstruction ahead men, as usual, will do the bulk of the hard, dangerous, dirty work, as they did during the storm itself, and much of their efforts will be taken for granted. Enarson’s article implies that only women will labor “behind the scenes” as teachers, counselors, health care providers; however, experience conclusively proves otherwise.
Overcoming the effects of this tragedy is difficult enough, without the introduction of this unnecessary obstacle.
Mike Fullerton, Highlands Ranch
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Elaine Enarson is from the generation of women who said to men: “We do not need you, we do not want you, we just want your money and your children.” And the government agreed, giving women the children, welfare, public housing and child support. The government gave women welfare only if there was no man in the house and jailed those poor fathers who could not pay back the welfare it had given their families.
This was hardly a vision of men and women coming together to solve their common problems. It was a vision of demonic men pitted against saintly women. Enarson is true to that vision, painting men as violent and hard to reach in their “stony silence.” Women truly deserve support, she argues, for they will weave together the social fabric while men are lost to drugs, alcohol and violence, though they might put up a building or two.
Enarson wants more training for women, more relief funds for women, more sympathy for women. And she wants them from the men she denigrates. She calls this “gender equality.” I call it gender warfare. War, even a gender war, does not build; it destroys. Only when men and women come together in mutual respect can the social fabric and its infrastructure be restored.
Paul C. Robbins, Arvada
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Re: “Questions of credibility dog Holtzman,” Sept. 18 news story.
Marc Holtzman’s attempt to become governor has become despicable. He wasn’t born here. He wasn’t raised here. He has no family here. He has no ties to our community. What he has is a lot of money. He is using this money to try to defeat Referendums C and D, because he thinks that will give him a political boost among the ideological zealots in the Republican Party. These ballot measures are important to Colorado’s welfare, but it doesn’t matter to Holtzman. If harming the state he wants to govern will help him get the office, that is fine with him.
Given his limited time in Colorado, these anti-C and D ads Holtzman has purchased have the feel of a drive-by. It is a form of political looting.
I am a Democrat, but I don’t bash people because they are in the other party. Gov. Bill Owens, state Sens. Steve Johnson and Norma Anderson and many others have shown political courage and taken a position that is best for the state in spite of the political backlash. But Holtzman is using the welfare of Colorado as a chip to be bargained away for the benefit of his political career, and the people of Colorado should punish him by forever confining him to private life.
Ken Gordon, Denver
The writer is majority leader of the Colorado Senate.
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Endangered Species Act
Re: “For eagles, Endangered Species Act a success,” Sept. 25 Ben Long column.
Citing bald eagle recovery, Ben Long called the Endangered Species Act (ESA) a soaring success, then discussed House Resources Chair Richard Pombo in a manner that suggested Pombo might serve one up for Thanksgiving: “If he got out more, he might know the story of the bald eagle.” If Long had done his research on the eagle and ESA successes, he might be less critical or optimistic. Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act in 1940. ESA protection came well after the 1972 ban on DDT, which may well have more to do with eagle recovery.
The Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005 attempts to update and make the ESA more effective, calling for better science on adding species to a list currently more than 1,200 strong with a recovery rate less than 1 percent. Reauthorization of the original act, or a reformed law, was a requirement. Those informed of current ESA effectiveness see reform as positive, saving the act’s spirit while better protecting property owners and endangered species.
Ken Faux, Greenwood Village
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Re: “Bill curbing species law sails ahead,” Sept. 27 news story.
Rep. Richard Pombo’s primary argument for why the Endangered Species Act needs to be rewritten is based on a flawed belief that because we haven’t removed more species from the Endangered Species List, the act must be a failure. Pombo’s rationalization is flawed in several ways.
First, dozens of species have been restored and taken off the endangered species list, which by itself makes the act a success. Second, as your article points out, only nine of the more than 1,200 listed species have gone extinct – again, making the ESA a success. Third, while it has taken hundreds of thousands of years for the flora and fauna on this planet to establish a balance in nature, human development has altered this balance within a few decades.
This said, Pombo wants endangered species to miraculously heal themselves in the 40 years since the law was passed. His expectations are illogically reliant on an arbitrary timeframe void of scientific basis.
Joshua L. Hicks, Denver
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War protest in Washington, D.C.
Re: “Thousands rally in D.C. against war,” Sept. 25 news story.
It is too bad that the professional protesters who showed up in Washington, D.C., last weekend didn’t instead use their energies in a more productive way.
Jesse Jackson, who at one time did great things for his people and his country, is now among those who have done so much to tear down what our troops have fought so hard to obtain. Cindy Sheehan falls into the same group.
If these people had instead volunteered to help Habitat for Humanity build the houses in New York and other communities to be shipped to New Orleans, or had helped on the phones for the Red Cross or gone to the South to help out the people who had lost everything, they would have had something to be proud of.
John A. Hotchkiss, Hotchkiss
