Dear Scientific American,

Thank you for your recent interesting and informative issue, “The Evolution of Evolution.” I agree. Since a priori we know that evolution explains how we got where we are today, we certainly don’t want any religious fanatics to point out any flaws in our presuppositions or theories. It is important to squelch all debate and make sure there is no meaningful dialogue with opposing viewpoints. So thank you for hanging in there. And thank you for all of the info you packed into this issue.

As a researcher in the medical sciences I frequently see inconsistencies in the data supporting an evolutionary model. It is comforting to know we can hide these inconsistencies from the uninformed and safeguard our mantra of tens of millions of years of “…crazy diversification in the variety and complexity of animal life,” time so vast that no one can comprehend and thus no one can challenge either. Brilliant!

I also was relieved to see the article “The Latest Face of Creationism” exposing the creationist agenda for what it is. It is important to vilify these loonies and make sure no one is hoodwinked by their Trojan Horse attempts to get into our schools or to have laws passed for any sort of equal access. Let’s keep our agenda quiet so no one knows that we secretly harbor some doubts but still will fight any attempts anywhere to challenge our right to indoctrinate all students everywhere. (Thank you Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott et al!) The enemy of our young is the free flow of ideas and opportunity to examine all sides of intellectual issues. We must catch them early or if we allow them to think and evaluate ideas and presuppositions we might lose some innocent minds to Intelligent Design. Heaven forbid! There is too much at stake here. If they realized the religious zealotry in our ranks it would not go over well.

Thanks again for this brilliant and revealing issue of Scientific American.

With gratitude

Steve Shive

Steve - aka Rudy Baga - knows that he will probably never see his tongue-in-cheekiness in print, "but it was fun writing it."