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Caswanna Allen

   Thank you for covering our AGEC 4823 class project seminar. The article nicely captured the primary issues of the seminar. We appreciate your sharing our work with the UAM campus community.

Jared Bickford, Jim Dickson, Lance Douglas, Katrina Fore, Laduska Simpson, Brian Stover, Dain Strickland and Amber Weindel

C. Robert Stark, Jr.
Associate Professor of Agriculture (Agricultural Economics)

   I have a comment on the Chaos in the streets of Monticello story. I hate to say this but the story was a waste of time and paper material. There is no chaos in Monticello. And I read your story, not everyone is fortunate like you Mr. Gill. We all do not have nice families that can provide the things a child needs going to college so do not chastise the less fortunate. I noticed you have not been outside of Arkansas all of your life, because the traffic here is nothing. Go to New York or Hollywood Boulevard sometimes and see how you like the traffic. You do not pay tuition, your parents and this community pays for your scholarship and tuition. And there should be traffic laws, because young bucks like you like to hot dog up and down the streets and then someone gets into an accident, then what are you going to do? Good Question. Don't use blinker signals, get stopped by cops. If you are that scared of roaming around Monticello, I would suggest you move to Beverly Hills. I can't believe someone allowed you to print this. Unless it's a joke, then that's cool. But are you serious? I suggest you retire from journalism.

PEACE OUT

Chadwick Newton

Dear Editor,

   In defense of my statements and in response to Mr. Jeff Dickens and Mr. Mark Wegley's letters, I would like to clarify some things and show their own errors in "philosophical" discussion.

   First I would like to say in response to Mr. Dickens statement, "ID is not science, and the reason is pretty much summed up in your own words: 'Most of us hold these ultimate convictions because we have felt God change our lives in ways that cannot be explained effectively to a non-believer.' Can anyone say Christian fundamentalism? Thanks for making my point for me."

   I in no way wrote that sentence to justify Intelligent Design, I wrote to defend the notion that I am Christian not because I have been brainwashed but because of what God has done personally in my life. He took that one sentence completely out of context and I think it was very irresponsible for him to do so.

   I would also like to touch on what Mr. Wegley wrote, "In reading Roan's letter recently, I was shocked that he would actually suggest that Intelligent Design Theory (ID) be taught 'because an overwhelming majority of people do not believe in evolution.' This (ill) logic seems to imply that the university should teach things because they are popular."

   Again, my statement taken out of context. I was referring to the debate between TWO options or choices: Intelligent Design and Creationism. Obviously if we were to be taught what was popular it would be taken from a pool of hundreds of alternatives. I was stating it made logical sense to teach I.D. along with Evolution because of the broad support I.D. has picked up over the years and made not the slightest jest as to that reasoning being the only reasoning.

   That behind us, I would agree with Mr. Wegley that neither myself or Mr. Kelley showed much knowledge of what we were discussing, I can accept that accusation. I do know about I.D. though. I know of the prominent figure behind I.D., Dr. William Dembski and his ideas of Complex Specified Information, the formula for "universal probability bound" and other concepts. I also believe what Dembski has written; that "Perhaps the best reason (to be skeptical of his ideas) is that Intelligent Design has yet to establish itself as a thriving scientific research program." In 2005 Behe testified in court that "there are no peer-reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred."

   I know and understand the wild criticism directed toward I.D. But if these scientists are really looking to expand knowledge, why won't they even consider an opposing theory such as this? My problem is that people against I.D. are so mean-spirited and get so very quickly. A class at the University of Kansas was recently designed to teach that Creationism, I.D., and other religious philosophies and ideas were "mythologies." Thank God that class was canceled by more civil people. This is what you get into, people with differing viewpoints try to gain acclaim in the scientific field getting ridiculed, slandered and mocked yet we strive to be civil and get along.

   Here is the fact; there is no reason why Creationism and Intelligent Design should not be taught in public schools and universities. America is suppose to be dynamic, not monopolized in the scientific field. It is ridiculous for opponents of this theory to keep hatefully protesting something so many people believe in and have concepts behind. I hope those who may respond to this letter will refrain from taking one sentence out of these many to make a point or try to make me look foolish for being a Christian conservative.

God Bless,

Colt Roan
Freshman Student

    Dear Editor,

   In response to the subject of evolution and more specifically Mr. Wegley's comment -- "In Kelley's article and Roan's response there exists an almost willful lack of specific knowledge about the issue at hand. Neither writer is able to address the issue directly, only the most general popular notions of the issue, and this troubles me." Therefore, here are some Questions for Evolutionists that deal with specific knowledge:

(The following questions were distributed to the 750-plus people who attended Kent Hovind's debate at Winona State University in Winona, Minn., on Jan. 9, 1993.)

1. Where did the space for the universe come from?
2. Where did matter come from?
3. Where did the laws of the universe come from (gravity, inertia, etc.)?
4. How did matter get so perfectly organized?
5. Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?
6. When, where, why, and how did life come from non-living matter?
7. When, where, why, and how did life learn to reproduce itself?
8. With what did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce?
9. Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival? (Does the individual have a drive to surviv e, or the species? How do you explain this?)
10. How can mutations (recombining of the genetic code) create any new, improved varieties? (Recombining English letters will never produce Chinese books.)
11. Is it possible that similarities in design between different animals prove a common Creator instead of a common ancestor?
12. Natural selection only works with the genetic information available and tends only to keep a species stable. How would you explain the increasing complexity in the genetic code that must have occ urred if evolution were true?
13. When, where, why, and how did:
* Single-celled plants become multi-celled? (Where are the two and three-celled intermediates?)
* Single-celled animals evolve?
* Fish change to amphibians?
* Amphibians change to reptiles?
* Reptiles change to birds? (The lungs, bones, eyes, reproductive organs, heart, method of locomotion, body covering, etc., are all very different!)
* How did the intermediate forms live?
14. When, where, why, how, and from what did:
* Whales evolve?
* Sea horses evolve?
* Bats evolve?
* Eyes evolve?
* Ears evolve?
* Hair, skin, feathers, scales, nails, claws, etc., evolve?
15. Which evolved first (how, and how long; did it work without the others)?
* The digestive system, the food to be digested, the appetite, the ability to find and eat the food, the digestive juices, or the body’s resistance to its own digestive juice (stomach, intestines, etc.)?
* The drive to reproduce or the ability to reproduce?
* The lungs, the mucus lining to protect them, the throat, or the perfect mixture of gases to be breathed into the lungs?
* DNA or RNA to carry the DNA message to cell parts?
* The termite or the flagella in its intestines that actually digest the cellulose?
* The plants or the insects that live on and pollinate the plants?
* The bones, ligaments, tendons, blood supply, or muscles to move the bones?
* The nervous system, repair system, or hormone system?
* The immune system or the need for it?
16. There are many thousands of examples of symbiosis that defy an evolutionary explanation. Why must we teach students that evolution is the only explanation for these relationships?
17. How would evolution explain mimicry? Did the plants and animals develop mimicry by chance, by their intelligent choice, or by design?
18. When, where, why, and how did man evolve feelings? Love, mercy, guilt, etc. would never evolve in the theory of evolution.
19. How did photosynthesis evolve?
20. How did thought evolve?
21. How did flowering plants evolve, and from that?
22. What kind of evolutionist are you? Why are you not one of the other eight or ten kinds?
23. What would you have said fifty years ago if I told you I had a living coelacanth in my aquarium?
24. Is there one clear prediction of macroevolution that has proved true?
25. What is so scientific about the idea of hydrogen as becoming human?
26. Do you honestly believe that everything came from nothing?