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Today is Friday, May 25, 2012 at 10:21 AM.


On Kaplan's "Creationism" article

From Warner Eliot '46
When reading the article, "Creationism," by Professor Kaplan in the February 1997 issue of Reed, I was reminded of stories told of my father, Theodore S. Eliot '21, Ph.D. in biology from University of Chicago, concerning the theory of evolution. He was teaching anatomy at the medical school of the University of Tennessee in the latter half of the '20s, shortly after the Scopes "monkey" trial in that state, and found himself dancing around the subject when lecturing to his class. He usually ended up telling the class that he was not allowed by state law to teach the theory of evolution but that if he were speaking to a class in the state of Illinois, this is what he would say. . . .

I never saw him taken to jail, so I guess there were no reporters or creationists in his classes. He went on to teach in the anatomy department of the medical school at the University of Colorado, which I imagine he found to be a more compatible environment.

From J. Christopher Hall '86
I thought Robert Kaplan's article on the dangers on the attack on science by religious fundamentalists was a particularly cogent and insightful explanation of the differences between the premises underlying a scientific approach to the origin of our species and the underlying assumptions of fundamentalist creationists. This is the disciplined kind of thinking that Reed taught me and that I hope it continues to teach future students. No wonder Mr. Kaplan was named professor of the year.

From Catalina (Kathleen while at Reed) Reyes '80
The February 1997 issue of Reed seemed noticeably improved from the usual, containing lots of extra detail, more room for letters, and particularly interesting articles (several of which, I noted, were by freelance writers rather than by "in-house-so-&-so 'xx").

I'd like to thank you in particular for Robert Kaplan's article, "Creationism," dealing with the current sociopolitical debate over teaching evolution. As a public radio journalist, the issue has definitely been on my plate here in New Mexico--where the state board of education recently voted to remove mention of evolutionary theory from K-12 teaching standards, and where proposed legislation seeks to force the state to adopt National Academy of Science standards. Kaplan's article gave a more thorough and thoughtful analysis of what's at the root of the problem, than any other I've seen to date. But "stochasticity"? Pul-eeze! I know Reed likes to fetishize its intellectualism--but not everybody has an Oxford English Dictionary: "rare/obsolete"--from Greek--"pertaining to conjecture."

Thanks anyhow!