Letter to the Lethbridge Herald

Here is a recent letter in the Lethbridge Herald regarding the creationist/evolution debate. 

Academics favour evolution for good reason

Written by Alex Massé

Tuesday, 20 January 2009

In his letter (“Evolution debate is a battle of belief systems,” Jan. 15), H. Richard Friesen notes his belief system, which “includes a Creator God who designed every living thing around us,” is losing ground in “the lecture halls of academia.” Friesen’s explanation for this trend is a refusal among “unbelievers” to accept the consequences meted out by God in the afterlife. Friesen’s argument presupposes that academia is full of unbelievers in the first place. His failure to explain this hidden premise renders his argument rather self-defeating.     Why is it, then, that academics, the most educated career group in our society, tend disproportionately toward atheism and agnosticism? The explanation is quite simple. A belief system that includes evolution corresponds much more closely to observable reality than a belief system that relies on a mysterious floating sky-monster. Academics, whose job it is to engage in lifelong study of the best available evidence and come to the most reasonable conclusions based on that evidence, have tended, over time, to converge upon evolution as an explanation for life. The amount of evidence that has been provided in support of the theory of natural selection is staggering. Evolution has been more adequately accounted for than many theories to which theists regularly subscribe, including the theory of gravity. Friesen’s strongest argument against evolution stems from his own incredulity. He is awed by the stunning beauty and complexity of nature, and rightly so. However, I would think it much more likely that such beauty arose through several billion years of tediously slow progress than through a spontaneous six-day frenzy of magic followed by a nap. Alex Massé Lethbridge