Volume XIX, Number 41

Wednesday, May 5, 2004

Phoenixville revisited

Dear Editor,

Darby, MT, is Phoenixville revisited. I heard of Darby today on National Public Radio. A year or so ago, a school board member in our Phoenixville, PA, school district, got a motion through the board's curriculum committee to require that "Intelligent Design" be taught as equal to evolution in the high school science curriculum. Publicity in the community eventually persuaded the full School Board to abandon that effort, when it learned, from district voters and others, that the district, the school and its graduates likely would be academically stigmatized by such a program, and for such a blatant effort to dilute science for a fundamentalist religious purpose. The proponent board member did not run for reelection.

"Creation science", pushed by the fundamentalist Discovery Institute, is an oxymoron. "Objective origins" and "Intelligent design" are other euphemisms. Proponents of these programs are unable to produce scientifically peer-reviewed articles supporting their programs because what the creationists propose is not science. It is fundamentalist religion.

Does Bishop Ussher's calculation of Earth's age ring a bell?

Harvard paleontologist Dr. Stephen Jay Gould wrote "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" (Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA., 2002), as well as many other books, which should be read by school board members contemplating requiring that "creation science" be taught alongside real science. Then the "creation science" advocates should be required to produce works of equal scientific value, judged so by nationally prominent professors and practitioners of science. They will fail.

Dr. Tim M. Berra wrote "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism" (Stanford Univ. Press, 1990), a very good small book for those in the midst of such debates as Darby faces. In "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002" (Houghton Mifflin, New York, 2002), the essay "Saving Us From Darwin," by Frederick C. Crews dissects and refutes the religionists' arguments. The article "Cobb County Clowns," in Skeptical Inquirer magazine, March/April 2003, shows the respect creationists earn among scientists.

Religion has its place. But that place is not in the science classroom parading as science. The Founding Fathers were well aware of the abuses of government by religious advocates, so they wrote the First Amendment to the Constitution, to separate church from state, a concept applicable here. Teach religion as religion, as history, as social science. But keep it out of the science classroom. We did.

Jay H. Beckerman
Phoenixville, PA

More disinformation from Thomas

Dear Editor,

Retiring State Senator Fred Thomas's Guest Opinion on the new Medicare Law was remarkably well written. So well written, I suspect he did not write it. When you consider the source--the principal advocate of term limits, the author of the disastrous deregulation Montana's utilities, the sky is falling excuse for the GOP's deferred maintenance fiscal policy--it is not hard to believe Fred "penned" his piece on Medicare as part of the systemic disinformation campaign being waged on Americans by the Bush Administration.

Anyone with access to the facts knows the new Medicare legislation is just more corporate welfare for the pharmaceutical fat cats who are lining George Bush's campaign warchest. I'm not surprised that Fred Thomas is on their side. He always has been.

I'm just glad he is a has-been in Bitter Root politics.

Jim Parker
Hamilton

Read Bouma's book

Dear Editor,

Have you read Bouma's book titled, "Wake Up America"? If you haven't, you can get it by going to www.wherejusticefailed.com or by calling (406) 278-5664 to find out where it is available.

It will astound you that such subterfuge is going on in Montana and people in the know will not correct it. It is a sort of life story about Mr. Bouma - his trials and tribulations. Wrong acts and sometimes crooked actions taken against him are finally explained, verified and names quoted. Approximately 100 people have joined the conspiracy against him. They have taken his two farms and thousands of dollars through subterfuge.

Read the book, be amazed and do whatever to can to get our officials to act correctly.

Casey Emerson
Bozeman

Dear Editor,

We are losing our land, way of life.

There is a sad and true story happening to our ranches, our farms and our rural way of life. It is leaving America in danger of losing not only this custom and culture, but also our land. Financial difficulties and dismal future are driving these property owners into the arms of non-profit land trusts such as Nature Conservancy, Farmland Trust, Flathead Land Trust and many others. The elderly with sentimental attachments to their land and way of life, but with children seeking more profitable professions elsewhere, are vulnerable. All of this has provided the invasion and growth of an unscrupulous scheme to take control of these private properties in perpetuity at eventual tremendous profit to the perpetrators. Descendants acquire the on-going financial burdens of taxes, weed control and insurance on property that has been locked into farming or ranching as the only means of maintaining and financing itself. Virtually nonsalable, it will almost assuredly fall back into the hands of the land trust which, in turn, is privileged to develop it for other uses or to sell it to the government at huge profit. What a sham! What a scheme for these non-profit operations, operating very profitably under the guise of legality and supposedly saving the land! America beware! We are actually losing our land, our governmental structure, our democracy and way of life. Even urban areas will not escape the impact.

Clarice Ryan
Bigfork

Burning not the solution

Dear Editor,

I have lived here for almost 28 years, and in the last few years have not seen more than one clear sunny day from the start of spring through August due to the Forest Service policy of burn, burn, burn. Here we are in one of the worst droughts, with strong winds blowing almost every day, and the Forest Service has the audacity to do "prescribed" burns in Tin Cup, Sweathouse, Como, and Burnt Fork, this is for starters. They claim the wind wasn't blowing the day they started the fires, but they are "watching" them.

I don't know about the rest of the people in this valley, but I am not only sick of breathing smoke every year, even the livestock are coughing, but the destruction of our forests and damage to our streams and wildlife is disgusting.

We realize in an area where there is a poor economy and lack of jobs, one of the big businesses here is fire fighting and also some firestarting. We need to come up with another way to make money around here, maybe instead of burning all the trees down and damaging what is left, we could come up with an energy plan that would give people jobs and quit sending our forests up in smoke. Emphysema must be rampant here and I for one am not planning on carrying around an oxygen tank with hoses up my nose. They said the amount of burning they do is dependent on funding, so in other words, the more money they get, the more they can burn. Also, get this one, the less trees we have the less forest fires. Incredible way of thinking. Some one needs to make some serious policy changes or this will look like Arizona without the saguaros.

K. Gervais
Corvallis