Creationist reasoning shows misunderstanding

This is in response to the Oct. 4 letter “Seeing the light on how the universe started,” which, like a lot of creationist reasoning these days, attempts to use a misinformed version of science in order to disprove that which science teaches us. In particular, use of the phrase “evolution of chance” shows a classic misunderstanding of how evolution works.

Evolution, properly understood, is the very opposite of a chance process. It is the naturally occurring selection of random genetic variation.

There is some chance involved, granted, in getting to the point where genetic variation exists in the first place; science explains this very easily, however, by considering the billion billion or so chances the universe had to get it right.

In contrast, the creationist hypothesis is that a grand designer, presumably the most complex entity in the universe, simply materialized, fully formed, out of nothingness. Scientifically speaking, this is the ultimate of unlikely events. This is the reason that, despite what the creationist literature will tell you, science has so much difficulty realigning itself with any form of religion – it's just so darned unlikely!

Dave Owen

Cedar Rapids