Editor,
Shay Talley's letter published in the Daily Lobo on Monday, while lucid, is also demented. While sporting logical fallacies - I smell three right off the bat - Talley's argument suffers mostly from its internal contradictions.
Did you spot them? For instance, the question, "What do we do with the intelligent design we observe in nature?" can be answered simply: Appeal to the authority. Most of them are scientists and researchers highly respected in their fields. Yes, and some of my best friends are scientists, too. I won't even touch the opening of the second paragraph, which is pure rhetoric.
Talley's punch line comes later. Having termed it foolish to dismiss Stephen Jay Gould over his atheism, Talley proceeds to do just that, slamming the whole caboodle of evolutionary scientists for their atheist bias.
Foolish is as foolish does? That is argumentum ad hominem, by the way, making it three logical fallacies, if anyone's still counting. But forget the slipshod mind behind this slick letter. Forget the fine joke of an ending. If religion wants to be another "ism," then it reveals it has an agenda after all, which is one of self-destruction.
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Mark C. Dalen
UNM student
