SCIENCE STOLE RELIGION'S BATON

In response to "Ignorant Design at the SBOE" [July 25] and a subsequent letter of praise:
    Your rhetoric (and your cartoon) portray anyone who questions evolution as the only origin theory as a religious fundamentalist. Isn't one of the defining traits of fundamentalism a close-mindedness to alternative ways of interpretation and thinking?
    I don't have a huge problem with evolution. As Stephen Hawking wrote (about a related scientific theory), evolution does not "preclude a creator, but it definitely sets limits on how and when he did the creating."
    However, we are lacking much evidence for evolution on a grand scale (or, macroevolution), for example, sufficient intermediary fossil records. At the same time, you make the claim that intelligent design has no evidence.
    At one point you mention no real biologist questions evolution. Who's to define "real biologist"? Are you a biologist? I'm not, but I do know Jonathan Wells holds a doctorate specializing in embryology and evolution from UC Berkeley. Yet, you casually dismiss him, even though he does point out that some incorrect evolution diagrams are still part of our textbooks.
    I don't want our education, more specifically, what goes in textbooks, to be decided by a religious fundamentalist. But I don't want to decide only along the lines of scientism and naturalism.
    Our minds are still controlled by dogma. Science just stole the baton from the religious establishment.
    For a more articulate and complete treatment on these matters, I would refer you to Daniel Kolak's Lovers of Wisdom pp. 249-260 and Huston Smith's Why Religion Matters, especially pp. 131-133 and pp. 178-182.