Image via WikipediaWhile we remain optimistic that HB 25 might be dead in committee, I want to continue sharing some of the outstanding activist efforts we are seeing across Mississippi in response to this anti-evolution bill. Our own Mims had a letter to the editor published in the Sun Herald yesterday. If there is one thing of which we can be confident, it is that creationist efforts will continue in our state for the foreseeable future. For that reason, I am going to reproduce Mims' letter below for our future reference once the newspaper no longer links to it.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Jan. 14
I recently read HB 25, which was introduced in the Mississippi House last week for consideration in this session. This bill requires a sticker be placed on every text in Mississippi schools that deals with the theory of evolution. The text of this sticker is extremely misleading and inaccurate.
Here are just a few of the inaccuracies:
n “This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things.”
Evolutionary theory is about the development of life from its simple beginnings. It does not attempt to explain the origins of life in the first place.
This is not to say that scientists aren’t working on a natural explanation for how life began on earth, and getting closer all the time.
Evolutionary theory is not controversial in the scientific community. Scientists overwhelmingly support this theory. The controversy is cultural, not scientific.
n “There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things.”
I am stunned that these topics are not discussed in our textbooks. They should be. The Cambrian Explosion is explainable in evolutionary theory. New fossil evidence and advances in molecular biology are giving us a better picture of this era all the time, including the fact that it wasn’t really so sudden.
We have many well-documented transitional species. To claim otherwise is just factually wrong. We do have complete and complex sets of instructions for building a living body, including our own. This is the field of genetics, or more specifically, genomics. Have the authors of this sticker never heard of the Human Genome Project?
Even if they haven’t, our children surely should by the time they leave high school. In fact, they should know enough about science to point out all the inaccuracies contained in this sticker by the time they leave our secondary schools.
n “Study hard and keep an open mind.”
This, at least, I can agree with. I would add, to paraphrase Bertrand Russell, “but not so open your brain falls out.”
Mims H. Carter
Pass Christian
XGR: cut and sew
3 hours ago
