This is our second letter-to-the-editor today, but it’s a quickie. It appears in the Gadsden Times located in Gadsden, Alabama. The title is Evolution not a fact. We’ll give you a few excerpts, enhanced with our Curmudgeonly commentary, and some bold font for emphasis. As we usually do we’ll omit the writer’s name and city. Here we go:
There is a wealth of information to show that evolution is not a fact, or even a good hypothesis. But newspapers usually ignore this information and print articles like “Scientist: Evolution debate soon will be history.”
The letter writer is talking about remarks recently made by Richard Leakey, which you can read about here: Evolution debate will soon be history. Back to the letter:
This [Leakey’s prediction] probably is true, but not because evolution has been proven to be true. It will happen because: 1. Scientists who believe creation are not given a voice; and 2. The public in general wants to be rid of God, and evolution is the best way to be rid of Him.
Do we detect a creationist persecution complex? Let’s read on:
Evolution is not a true science. Science is “the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena” (Webster’s). There is no way to observe, identify, describe or experiment with something that occurred millions of years ago. Archeology and related sciences can tell us much about the past 6,000 years.
Ah, another genius who gets his information either from scripture or the dictionary. His dictionary tells him that science excludes the past, except that archeology somehow goes back as far as Genesis. Great dictionary! We continue:
If America was not so interested in getting rid of God, people like Leakey would be laughed out of town. The idea of digging up a bone and saying it is millions of years old is too ludicrous for debate.
Now he explains why it’s ludicrous:
How do you know that fossil is that old? Because of the rock it came out of, stupid. How do you know that rock is that old? Because of the fossil that was in it, stupid. Mock science will never produce the truth, and fondling bones will never help humanity.
So far this guy is a fairly typical creationist. That is, he knows nothing. But he distinguishes himself with his next sentence because it’s the worst we’ve ever seen from one of these people:
Leakey would bless humanity if he stuck to flying his airplane.
The letter-writer must be very proud of that. Leakey lost his legs when a plane he was piloting crashed in 1993.
The final paragraph is a religious rant that begins: “Darwin’s desire to destroy Christianity will never entirely succeed.” No doubt. With righteous guardians of the faith like today’s letter-writer, his world is secure.
Copyright © 2012. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
To the stupid letter writer who wrote “How do you know that fossil is that old? Because of the rock it came out of, stupid. How do you know that rock is that old? Because of the fossil that was in it, stupid.”
The fossil-bearing rock is dated first by independent means, such as radiometric dating of volcanic rock above and below the fossil-bearing strata. Then, if that fossil is a species that was known to exist for just a short period of time, it can be used as an index to date strata elsewhere that contain the same species. That’s how the not-so-stupid paleontologists do it, stupid.
That’s the Joseph Kennedy who wanted the off campus/ credited
religious classes.
Does the letter-writer believe Jesus would approve of smug, insensitive remarks about double-amputees?
Charley Horse says: “That’s the Joseph Kennedy who wanted the off campus/ credited
religious classes.”
Apparently so. A class act indeed.
Words cannot suffice.
This person is nothing but obscene, from his characterization of “fondling bones”, to gloating over a tragic accident.
Both today’s featured letter writers express fear about the country “getting rid of God”, and I’d say that these two raving, lying, controlling, manipulating, domineering, cruel, maniacal “defenders of faith” typify the reason that people are leaving organized religion in droves. Nor can these types discern spirituality from religion, so leaving “the church” is tantamount to atheism in their unenlightened minds.
Leaky’s statement seems to have unnerved some folks (unless vituperative articles like these are more or less constant in print media across the country).
@retiredsciguy
“The fossil-bearing rock is dated first by independent means, such as radiometric dating…”
Yes, and creationists’ refutation of evolution is necessarily a refutation of every branch of science. This is the message that needs to get across to the general public: Evolution deniers are deniers/destroyers of all science. (I know that you realize this..I’m blowing off steam after reading these two hateful letters today).
When the creationists make the claim that the dating process is hopelessly circular, one of the things that comes to mind is how the evolutionists settle on those exact figures. Was there some kind of secret convention where they got together on fixing the dates? Of course, they wanted to deny the Bible, but why did they pick on the age of the extinction of dinosaurs to be 65 million years ago, rather than 65 thousand or 65 billion?
TomS says: “why did they pick on the age of the extinction of dinosaurs to be 65 million years ago, rather than 65 thousand or 65 billion?”
It’s like coding in BASIC. You don’t number your lines “1,2,3” etc. Instead you number them “10, 20, 30,” and so on. That way you have room to slip in additional lines of code wherever needed without the agony of re-numbering everything. And so it is with evolution. With billions of years, we can accommodate whatever comes along. It’s a brilliant conspiracy!
Creationists have their own BASIC code.
10: print “God didit”;
20: goto 10;
Enter science, with a Ctrl^C
Tomato Addict says:
15 INPUT “Enter criticism”; resp$
16 IF resp$ = “” THEN GOSUB 100
100 EXIT
I found a few more lines of lost Creationist code:
200 IF science$ = “True” THEN GOTO 666
…
666 FOR ever = 1 TO 2 STEP 0
670 NEXT ever
I’m not sure where it goes in their program, but I know where to tell them to stick it.
TomS: “When the creationists make the claim that the dating process is hopelessly circular, one of the things that comes to mind is how the evolutionists settle on those exact figures.”
As you know, “the” creationists (if I may indulge in the bait-taking that I have spent 10 years preaching against) don’t claim that it’s circular, but rather (collectively, if one factors in the pseudoscience code of silence) try to have it both ways.
You of all should know that any “creationist” who has (or pretends to have) either problem (falsified or unfalsifiable) with the “when” questions need to ask not how “evolutionists” settle on those figures, but how OECs and IDers do. They will always dismiss “evolutionists” as having a prior commitment to (methodological) naturalism. Yet people they consider far more “reasonable” arrive at the same conclusion. So they ought to be eager to explain why they think that’s so.
I tend to take SC’s advise and do not argue Evolution with the thumpers. I do like to try and discuss the weaknesses of creationism.
For instance last week I started a thread asking if any creationist org had proven an Olive tree/seed/cutting could survive 10 to 15 months submerged/immersed/floating on salt water. 275 responses later no one has given me a direct answer.
However, I have been called everything but a child of god including blasphemer LOL. The same guy says that as a Xtian he loves and respects all others. It is his duty as a Xtian. I guess he forgot his duty later cause that is when he called me a blasphemer and warned me not to show up at his church asking questions like that. LOL