Final version

[herewiss13]

nwhepcat's response to my latest rant gave me the inspiration to complete the letter to the editor. It's not a great letter, it's about 100 words too short for that...too many scientific points left un-adressed or properly caveated, but it gets the job done. Writing small things is hard. But at least, the falsehoods of the previous letter aren't left completely unchallenged.



Everyone is entitled to their opinion. This doesn't make every opinion equally valid, nor does it justify supporting an opinion with falsehoods. Unfortuately, the author of Thursday's letter denoucing evolution did just that.

Among other major errors, he stated that Archaeopteryx is just "a bird with teeth" like the modern quetzal and hoatzin. However, neither bird _has_ any teeth. If Archeopteryx is just a "bird with teeth", then it's also a bird with clawed forelimbs and a long bony tail, two other characteristics no modern bird shares (save young Hoatzin which have foreclaws). Take away its feathers and Archaeopteryx looks like a tiny dinosaur. How much more transitional does a fossil needs to be?

The author also wrote that mutations cannot be positive or create new information. This is also completely wrong. One counter-example (and there are hundreds) is the existence of a nylon eating bacteria. We even know the exact mutation that allowed the bacteria to break down nylon. This genetic info is both new (nylon was invented in 1935) and positive (to the bacteria).

I appluad the diversity of opinion demonstrated by the Op-Ed page. But opinions backed only by a catalog of mistatements are worse than useless. Thursday's letter no more deserved to be published than one I might write claiming that the Sun revolves around the Earth, the Moon is made of green cheese and that Columbus discovered London.