Letter – Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs

Talk about it

To the editor:

I couldn’t agree more with Pastor Knappen’s commendation of Lincoln or less with his condemnation of Darwin. Several points are germane.

1. Darwin identified and labeled evolution, He no more invented it than Newton invented gravity. I’m thinking the Pastor’s Boss authored them both. Should Sir Isaac be held accountable for 9/11 because gravity contributed to deaths?

2. Evolution is addressed as a hypothesis rather than a theory. Contrary to vernacular use, a theory is not speculative. When scientists deem a body of evidence overwhelmingly supportive of a hypothesis – which begins speculatively – then and only then is it elevated to theory. Finding a theory disturbing or conflictual with one’s belief set is fine – but not intellectual grounds for disputing it. That requires in-depth expertise in the field, which I failed to detect in his letter.

3. The good reverend suggests that Darwin’s Theory is somehow causal in Hitler’s extermination of the Jews. Like theory, causality has a scientific meaning and here it is confused with “plausible.” Causal means that we have substantial evidence that a factor is conclusively responsible for an outcome. Here there are a myriad of other explanations. Consider the equally plausible possibility that, while Darwin described “natural selection,” he would likely have seen Hitler’s “unnatural selection” for the abomination that it was.

Every one of us is entitled to believe whatever it is that we choose to believe. Some folks have no problem living with seeming inconsistencies and outright contradictory information while others rush to a resolution congruent with their beliefs. Sometimes this haste welcomes the unvetted, the silly, and even the inane.

Dennis Murphy

Alexandria, MN

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