I am assuming that our two writers in the November 5, 2014, Record-Bee Opinion page, Bill Kettenhofen and Stacy Salvadori, are not evolution followers and are probably of the Creationism and/or Intelligent Design school. The problem is that Creationists cannot agree on what it means to be creationist and Intelligent Design believers don”t use the word “god,” so another assumption is that Bill is an Intelligent Design thinker and that Stacy is a Creationist.
The history of Creationism and Intelligent Design covers a wide range of views and interpretations and both were not in common usage before the early 1900s with modern Creationism”s roots dating back to George McCready Price (1870-1963), an amateur geologist with no formal scientific training, and with Intelligent Design evolving in the 1920s. Of course we can find earlier mentions of both evolution and design in past works but let”s keep the discussion to the more present.
Price was a Seventh-day Adventist who developed his Genesis Flood theory in his book,”New Geology,” written in 1923; his works were originally ignored by Fundamentalists perhaps because of his religion but also because he had taken only a few courses in geology at Provincial Normal School of New Brunswick during his aborted one year teacher training course.
It was Price”s desire to abolish evolutionary thinking and he wrote in “Scientific Creationism” (1974) “The Genesis Flood is the real crux of the conflict between evolutionist and creationist cosmologies. If the system of flood geology can be established on a sound scientific basis, and be effectively promoted and publicized, then the entire evolutionary cosmology…will collapse” (p. xi).
It is important to note that a Russian Orthodox Christian, Theodosius Dobzhansky, stated that “Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” So just who are the people who say that our earth is only 4,400 years old or that Darwin is the god of atheists?
Turns out that in a 2009 poll by Pew Research Center it was found that “Nearly all scientists (97 percent) say humans and other living things have evolved over time – 87 percent say evolution is due to natural processes, such as natural selection.” However, only about 32 percent of the general public agree with these statements. The percentage in various faiths who believe in evolution: Buddhists 81 percent, Catholic 58 percent, Mormon 22 percent and Jehovah”s Witnesses 8 percent. Is there really anything to debate?
Greg Blinn, Kelseyville
