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Highlands Today

Evolution Debate

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Rob Mixon

Published: February 12, 2008

Louise Laferriere's "Scientific Theory" was excellent and the scientific community made a good point in that letter to the editor pertaining to the teaching of evolution in a science environment classroom.

As stated, especially as it pertains to DNA, "the theory of evolution explains a huge body of evidence, and it is predictive." The warning about the overuse of antibiotics was another good example of how bacteria may become resistant to control due to evolution.

The example that, "Newton's theory of gravity contends that masses attract each other" being wrong is good news for those of us who teach people to fly small airplanes. (We don't want the Earth to be attracted to us until we are ready to land). In this perspective it was stated that gravity may not be used in aerospace. Actually, the physics of lift, thrust, weight (gravity), and drag are the elements affecting an airplane in flight.

The idea that Intelligent Design is only a theory and not yet proven as a scientific theory is an absolute to the scientific community. The point made by Louise Laferriere for teaching evolution in the scientific setting of a classroom is well taken.

However, while working as an extension agent with the University of Florida–Miami-Dade County Extension Service, my work included teaching at seven correctional institutions each week. The Department of Family & Consumer Services had areas of parenting, communication, stress and anger management, and other life skills being taught by me at these institutions as well as to individuals and groups.

At one of the correctional institutions, every time I finished teaching a class the chaplain would invite me into his office. Some of my "students" were incarcerated for sentences of Natural Life. Two of the women had been convicted and incarcerated for killing their abusive husbands – kind of like a "Burning Bed" scenario movie, only this was the real thing!

The chaplain would open his Bible and simply say to me, "This is what you just taught." It amazed me that theory that I had proven to work over an over again would actually be in the Bible! I knew it worked because it had been tested time and again to be a truth, an actual fact.

I will not pretend to have the expertise of Louise Laferriere with a Ph.D in plant pathology and certainly agree that evolution, while not necessarily turning monkeys into humans, has a valid place in science with DNA, antibiotics, etc. Perhaps it is the application of teaching evolution that is the issue here. That application might be different for a science class, philosophy, psychology, or biblical studies. It may be important to keep the subject of evolution being taught to applied scientific principles instead of the origins of the universe.

Rob Mixon
Lake Placid

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