My weekly column was published in today’s edition of the Wednesday (Prattville) Progress and News Record:

I am always encouraged when people feel the need to respond to something I have written, whether that is to agree or disagree. So, I read with interest the response to my column on the “Academic Freedom Act” by Robert Burton, published in last Saturday’s Progress. I believe Mr. Burton missed my point, because I took great pains to enter the debate about origins. However, since Mr. Burton obviously wants to engage in that debate I will be happy to respond.

Mr. Burton refers to 300 scientists who have signed on to a statement questioning only one aspect of evolutionary theory. This statement was circulated by the Discovery Institute, from whom Mr. Burton also borrows one entire paragraph of his column. What is the Discovery Institute? It is a think tank based in Seattle that according to the Washington Post spends over $1 million a year for research, polls and media pieces supporting “intelligent design”, the latest name for creationism. It is a political organization, not a scientific one.

I would offer this response by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS is a private, non-profit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars mandated by Congress to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters) to the question, “Don’t many famous scientists reject evolution? No. The scientific consensus around evolution is overwhelming.”

Mr. Burton cites polling data that Americans believe in creationism. I never said they didn’t, and I certainly don’t challenge that belief. What I challenge is the statement that the process of evolution has not been documented. Mr. Burton claims I was wrong when I stated evolution happens, but then goes on in a parenthetical to contradict that very point, admitting that evolution can occur within a species. So, I feel no need to respond further to that point.

Finally, my biggest concern with Mr. Burton’s argument is his thought that somehow “historical science” is less valid than “process science”. There are whole fields of science that are based almost exclusively on “historical science”. Astronomy, geology, and archaeology are all fields that theorize about events that have taken place in the past. Mr. Burton says that if you are not dealing in process science then, “No tests can be performed, much less repeated, to ever prove a particular view on origins because no human being was there when the universe was formed.” He is both right and wrong.

We will never know definitively how everything began because none of us were there. In fact, I said this at the end of my original piece. So, we are in complete agreement. However, it is false to say that you can perform no tests to support evolution. I return to the NAS, “Hypotheses can be made about such phenomena, and these hypotheses can be tested and can lead to solid conclusions. Furthermore, many key mechanisms of evolution occur over relatively short periods and can be observed directly–such as the evolution of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.”

I didn’t start a debate on origins. My original point is still salient, the bill that Senator Mitchell put forward and Mr. Burton urges you to support does not specifically discuss the teaching of creationism for a very good reason. Because that would violate established federal law. The bill is much broader and would allow any teacher or student to replace what science tells us with whatever their own beliefs are in any area, not simply in this ongoing debate. The “full discussions” that Mr. Burton indicates he desires are already allowed, within the bounds of established law, the bill as proposed is unnecessary and dangerous.

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