Russell Rowland: Depriving students of sound scientific education is a step backward

To The Daily Sun,

A recent letter writer is incorrect about evolution. The fossil record, and an abundance of other evidence, indicate that organisms do evolve over time. This is why the writer has a tailbone, but not a tail.

Cumulative findings of paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology, and other fields have established evolution's reality beyond reasonable doubt. It is not a “theory.”

The theory in question is Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” sometimes known as “survival of the fittest.” According to the National Academy of Sciences, a scientific theory is “a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.” It is not a “belief.”

To deprive New Hampshire schoolchildren of a sound scientific education is to invite the Dark Ages back. The letter writer claims that “evolution is both dumb and dangerous.” I’m sorry to have to say that his comment is more appropriate to his own letter.

Russell Rowland

Meredith