Letters to the Editor 03/08/2006

To the Editor:

On Saturday, March 4, the community of Sisters said good-bye to three local men who dedicated their lives to others; Nick Santiago, Airman First Class/AIC, USAF; Hort Hammond, Founding Father of Sisters Habitat for Humanity affiliate and a member of Sisters Kiwanis; Orville Tadlock, a father to over 50 young boys in need of a secure, nurturing home.

While the community was saying good-bye to these dedicated men, we also celebrated 100 years of life with Cliff Clemens. It was evident by the displays at Cliff’s party that he is a man who has dedicated his life to serving others.

I would like to say “thank you” to the families of all these men who gave their support and encouragement during their years of service. Our community is a better place because of these men who devoted their lives to serving others. Their dedication and examples will live forever and the lives touched by their generosity will be forever grateful. I sure am.

Gratefully,

Theresa Slavkovsky

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To the Editor:

How I enjoyed browsing through our spacious new library warmed by the beautiful display of quilts and other art displays!

We are indeed fortunate to have such a wonderful new building to house the materials and outstanding services to be found there.

When I first moved to Sisters, I doubted that such a small library could have much to offer but decided to give it a try anyway. I was surprised to discover that we have access to the entire Deschutes County Library network right here in Sisters. Upon request, items will be sent from other branches to the Sisters library for pickup and return.

Library patrons can even request materials that aren’t in our county system. The library staff can sometimes obtain them through reciprocal agreements with other libraries or may even purchase them. The knowledgeable staff members do an outstanding job of assisting and explaining how to get the maximum benefit from the library.

Are you or your children interested in books, videos, movies, musical CDs, books-on-tape, magazines, newspapers or computers? Would you like to do some research or learn about our local history? How about learning how to use the library’s Web site to access national/regional newspapers, encyclopedias, almanacs, phone directories and 320,000 biographies? You’ll be glad you took the time to visit our library and you might just be surprised at what you will find there.

Jan Morgan

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To the Editor:

Has the use of roundabouts been considered? That would allow traffic flow without Sisters being plagued by traffic lights.

Scott Nelson

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To the Editor:

We would like to thank everyone involved with the memorial service for our son’s funeral last Saturday. The donations and contributions from friends and local establishments in Sisters was heartwarming. We would also like to thank Sisters High School for making available its facility. It was a wonderful setting which allowed plenty of room for all those who wanted to attend.

Again, we thank everyone very much for all their thoughts and prayers. May God bless you all.

Alan, Alice & Jon Santiago

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To the Editor:

I respect and encourage Ms. Richardsons’ and anyone’s views regarding ID and certainly respect her freedom to practice religion in whatever way she sees fit.

I simply disagree.

Unfortunately, straw man attacks on Darwinism and appeals to authority do nothing to “prove” ID. You cannot simply attack Darwinism and believe you’ve set ID on firmer scientific footing. In fact, you cannot even point out flaws in Darwinism or any theory and expect it to be toppled.

Science hates a vacuum. You must formulate a competing theory that better explains unbiased scientific observations and predicts the outcome of experiments designed to test your theory.

ID will inevitably fail in this regard, not because it’s a bad theory, but because it’s not a theory at all. No observations support it, no experiments can test it, and it relies on the occurrence of a single event: The unambiguous, large-scale and documented appearance of God.

When this does occur, I will promptly write a public letter of apology to you and all ID proponents.

I did, in fact, find your quotes regarding ID on a companion Web site to discovery.org and it’s companion site dissentfromdarwin.org. And at the risk of appealing to authority myself, I also found the following quotes from this same site:

• Reasons to Believe, a creationist group which accepts that the earth is billions of years old, dismisses intelligent design as “not science.”

• The Institute for Creation Research, which argues for a literal six-day interpretation of Genesis, similarly criticizes intelligent design for not being biblical.

• Third, intelligent design theorists, by and large, do not support the mandating of intelligent design in public schools.

The first two points are conjecture, but the third is critical. Tyrants make their opinions your facts and ID proponents risk making the transition from religious zealot to tyrant when they want to take ID from Sunday School to public school.

Again, I respect and encourage your opinion regarding ID and all things religious, but it belongs in church, not a classroom.

Paul Dacus

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To the Editor:

Last week, in her response to Paul A. Dacus’ letter published February 22, Lorene Richardson objected to Dacus’ using the intelligent design (ID) movement as an example to illustrate religious fanaticism. While Dacus’ letter only briefly mentioned ID, Richardson’s presented enough pro-ID material to encourage me to provide additional information to readers of The Nugget.

To counter the list of 500 scientists mentioned by Richardson, the National Center for Science Education, one of the groups defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools, has produced a list of more than 700 scientists (to date) named Steve (called Project Steve) who support the statement:

“Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to ‘intelligent design,’ to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation’s public schools.”

A link to this can be found at: http://www.ncseweb.org. Rebuttals to Jonathan Wells’ arguments, also mentioned by Richardson, can be found there as well as at many other places by searching Google for “evolution” and “intelligent design.”

Our local library has the book, “Why Intelligent Design Fails — A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism” by Matt Young and Taner Edis. This book provides thorough scientific analyses of the faulty science and mathematics used by the intelligent design movement.

James A. Hammond