Put scientific research first in schools

Really? Arlene Sawicki would force public schools to “Teach alternatives to Darwin’s theories” (May 21). She hopes that books on the pre-scientific religious myths and legends of creationism and intelligent design are in the school library. Is this to promote religious ideologies? Whose?

Rather, I would hope that National Geographic is available for an academic, scientific and intelligent view of man and nature as an alternative to a collection of preliterate desert tribal stories of gods and heroes.

She complains that the teaching of current scientific knowledge is an attack on her Judeo-Christian belief system. I can understand that the sciences of biology and anthropology would be a threat to most traditional religions, but every visit to a natural-history museum or university would be equally dangerous if your mission is to perpetuate ancient beliefs and ideologies.

Back when I was a Baptist, I thought my teenage fundamentalist beliefs should be the law of the land. I was warned that college would cause me to lose my faith. It did. In fundamentalism, both religious and political.

Even fishing in local forest preserve lakes will challenge reliance on old patriarchal tribal musings about the world that biblical storytellers experienced. Years ago, I found an ancient fossil worm showing his curves, embedded in a limestone rock formed when this area was at the bottom of the inland ocean. Now it holds the birdbath steady and descendants of the dinosaurs perch on it for a morning drink.

David G. Kives

Hoffman Estates