Theology, religion should be kept out of science class

Editor,

I am writing in response to the column by Babu G. Ranganathan. It is true that we have little scientific evidence that the first DNA molecule formed by chance. Many believe that DNA was formed from the template of another, self-reproducing molecule. And, as Ranganathan points out, there is no scientific evidence of the existence of God.

There is also no scientific evidence of aliens putting humans on earth, giant space worms living below ground controlling everything, or a variety of other things that I can think of.

In science class, we are supposed to teach things that are discovered and tested using the scientific method. We are only supposed to teach things for which there is direct evidence. Just because I can think of a possible way that DNA came into existence doesn’t mean I’m allowed to teach it without evidence. The study of theology and religion does not belong in science class, because it is not science. I don’t go barging into English literature classes demanding that biology be taught.

And, contrary to what Ranganathan writes, there is scientific evidence for what he terms “macroevolution” (a fallacious term coined by proponents of intelligent design — microevolution and macroevolution are the same thing). It is very childish to assume that small changes that are well documented (evolution of drug resistance, for example) could not add up over a very long amount of time to yield large changes. The existence of similarities between animals is very good evidence of evolution. Also, to deny the evidence of the fossil record is to willingly deceive oneself.

Finally, I would like to address his comment that “the mathematical odds of even the simplest DNA molecule coming into existence by chance is comparable to a monkey typing the sequence of all the letters and words in a dictionary by randomly hitting keys on a computer keyboard.” This assumes there is only one monkey doing this for his entire lifetime. Instead, assume there are trillions upon trillions of
monkeys (because there are trillions upon trillions of chemical reactions taking place across the universe). In fact, the number of monkeys is essentially infinite.

Let us imagine that the almost infinite number of monkeys is given billions of years to type out a very simple sentence. Doesn’t seem so unreasonable now, does it? Now imagine that after this sentence was formed, there was enormous selective pressure for that sentence to evolve. Oh wait, this metaphor is ridiculous, because the system of evolution is nothing like monkeys randomly typing on a keyboard. Because the system of evolution is actually complicated and requires several upper-level courses to truly understand, people like Ranganathan like to reduce it to metaphors that are convenient to them and have little to do with reality.

The purpose of this letter is not to deny the existence of God; it is simply to dispel misinformation and to point out that the existence of God should not be discussed in science class.

Jessica K. Friedman
UNM student