Letter: Bible must not be considered as authentic science

Monday, Aug. 29, 2005 | 9:03 a.m.

Many on the religious right continue their attempt to eliminate or diminish the teaching of the scientific theory of evolution in favor of a biblical-based explanation of life. Advocating the teaching of the origin and diversity of life based on biblical sources is anti-science and should never be allowed in public schools.

The Bible is a book of religion and not a book of scientific principles. President Bush's personal approval of teaching anti-evolution philosophy demonstrates that this president does not know or fully understand science and how it works.

Religious sects, and the pseudo-scientific Creation Society, insist on a biblical interpretation. They vehemently discredit scientific fossil evidence, radio-isotope dating methods, the current geologic time scale and many other accepted and proven principles upon which modern science is based.

Discrediting radio-isotope dating as a method of determining the age of fossils also undermines many principles of biology, chemistry, geology, physics and astronomy. It lends credence to creationists advocating that the Earth is no more than 10,000 years old and that known scientific principles such as uniformitarianism, continental drift and species mutation are false. It will lead to the discrediting of more than 1,500 years of discovery by scientific scholars from Galileo to Einstein.

To adopt biblical doctrine and anti-science ideas as authentic science will make the United States the laughing stock of the scientific world and return us to the Dark Ages. Will the Flat Earth theory eventually be taught as valid science in our schools?

VIRGIL A. SESTINI

Editor's note: The writer is a retired science teacher.