Utahns' e-mails defend, attack intelligent design

"Even small changes in physical constraints would make life untenable. Some, like the microbiologist Michael Behe, show that many small organisms and organs in animals have what is called irreducible complexity — they can't be created by blind natural selection."

Kim Hyatt, Mt. Pleasant: "My own experience with prayer tells me that there is, indeed, a supernatural force in the universe that I have been taught (and believe) to be God. But I don't think that my experience has the same weight, scientifically speaking, as do the geologic record, the fossil record, observations of the solar system and beyond, and findings from the laboratory that support scientific theories, especially those of evolution and cosmology."

Kathleen Warner, South Jordan: "I am not surprised that there are many scientists who believe" in God. The only people who think science negates that "are these right-wing evangelical Christians who think the Bible is to be taken absolutely literally. Instead of just teaching their kids what they believe at home and/or at church, they want to try and force their narrow set of beliefs and their narrow interpretation of the Bible on everyone else and then call it science on top of that. . . .

"I don't think that anyone here is trying to say the theory of evolution is perfect and is the be-all, end-all of biological science. But it has stood up pretty well to empirical researching over 150-plus years, and it's the best we have at the current time."

Kurt A. Fisher, Salt Lake City: Intelligent design "violates a basic principle of scientific reasoning by asserting that the existence of a thing can be inferred from the absence of evidence — leaving an implausible, extraordinary explanation as the only possible cause. . . .

"ID proponents go a step beyond mere argument to ignorance — they purport to insert divine, unseen, mysterious forces, the existence of which can never be confirmed by experimentation — as the cause of observed effects.

"If that form of 'reasoning' is to be taught in our public schools, our culture is doomed."

Dave Gray, St. George: Falling behind in science "will happen to the United States if this nonsensical posture of infiltrating ID gibberish into the public school system is given political expediency. . . . Above all things, our kids should be taught that stupidity is not a virtue."