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The following is a response to Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher's comments on ID.

Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher snubbed the Kentucky Academy of Science after they sent him a letter objecting to the teaching of Intelligent Design in the public school system.

The Governor responded that ID was a self-evident truth and that he was astounded and disappointed that so many of the so-called intellectual elite could not accept a truth that 90 percent of the population accepted.

While the environment of the planet earth is such as to allow the survival of the present life on earth, the thousands of plants and animals that have not survived should prove that they were not intelligently designed. Any objective evaluation of the earth's environment and the failure of species of plants and animals to survive, must lead to the conclusion that there is no intelligent designer. One can observe that plants and animals either adapt to the earth's environment or die out.

One has only to look at natural disasters and diseases to prove that no intelligent designer would do such a poor job. Any person, granted omnipotence and omniscience, could and would do a better job designing the universe and the life in it.

What is so frightening is to see people like Governor Fletcher governing our country.

John A. Henderson, MD

If the arrival of the fittest and the existence of natural suffering and pain were the only "evidences" that we had for the existence of a designer, then Dr. Henderson may have a leg to stand on.

However, the existence of a designer turns out to be a cumulative case, with many other evidences to consider; such as the fine-tuning of the cosmos to be fit for life in the first place, the irreducible complexity of organisms, historic events, etc.

And what is Dr. Henderson complaining about anyway? In his worldview of "the cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be", who's to say that suffering and pain are truly bad or evil? There would be no bad or evil, only benign events.

Dr. Henderson seems to claim to be more intelligent than the omniscient and omnipotent designer he mentions, saying that the designer would not do it this way. How would he know? Perhaps this is the best world possible within the framework of the laws of the cosmos?

Even in a theistic framework, in a cosmos where the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is key, suffering and pain and death must occur. And according to some forms of theism, the cosmos is in a fallen mode.

Perhaps Dr. Henderson's concept of the designer is askew, and he should do some more investigtation.

A good start would be by looking at

ARN

or

Reasons to Believe

or

Stand to Reason

Catherine Candisky of the Columbus Dispatch reports that less than five months after evolution won a round in the State Board of Education, some board members want to reopen the debate.

Colleen Grady, a board member from the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville, wants to add guidelines to the state science standards for teaching on such topics as evolution, global warming, stem-cell research and cloning.

Grady said she views her proposal as a compromise to ensure that differing views are considered when teaching such hot-button issues.

Space Review's Anthony Young remembers the passing of one of the great scientists of the 20th century.

Von Braun was a believer in intelligent design in the Universe long before it became a catch phrase and a lightning rod of debate.

"For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design," he wrote in a letter to the California State Board of Education in September 1972. He added, "It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance."

Would it be that all scientists were as clear-thinking as von Braun.