• Blind faith • Get used to it • Testing grounds
Blind faith
After reading Mark Beeksma’s Sept. 26 letter, “Faith and science,” I felt like my head was about to explode.
As someone who has studied the history and philosophy of science, starting over 40 years ago, with Thomas Kuhn’s 1969 edition of “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” and most recently with Richard Dawkins’ “The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution,” I can only say that this is yet another example of the war that American Christian fundamentalists have been waging on science and reason; especially since the late 1970s when “The Moral Majority” became political.
One of their favorite tactics is to get elected to state and local school boards where their religious beliefs can run wild. This can manifest itself in promoting creationism/intelligent design in the teaching of biology or revising history books with an extreme right-wing bias. Well-known examples are the Kansas and the Dover, Pennsylvania cases.
Currently, the Texas State School Board, which greatly influences what text books other states buy because of the amount Texas purchases is controlled by Christian fundamentalists. They would have the children of Texas believe that the Earth was created, by their particular god, 6,000 years ago. This is like saying (I’ve done the math) that the distance between New York and San Francisco is 7 yards.
No wonder the American public is so ignorant about even basic scientific facts. No wonder former President Bush made such absurd statements like: “The jury is still out on evolution.”
Or when asked of the Republican candidates for president in 2008, “Who of you do not believe in evolution?,” three of them raised their hands. The next question should have been, “How many of you believe in the Stork Theory of Human Sexual Reproduction?” Or maybe, “ Do you believe in the Demon Theory in medicine or germ theory?”
Science and technology can be use in good ways and in bad ways. However, as Steven Weinberg, the Nobel laureate in Physics once said, “With or without religion, you have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
Lastly, I have a confession to make: I do love Blind Faith, especially Steve Winwood’s 1969 song, “Can’t Find My Way Home.”
Phil Higginbotham, Kapa‘a
Get used to it
János Samu has once again used letters to loose a neocolonial diatribe against the United States (“A primer on aloha and history,” Letters, Sept. 27).
He claims to be Hawaiian. He is not. He was born and raised in Hungary from which he fled to the West, settling in the welcoming United States which afforded him the liberty and freedom to establish his business and seek a better life for his family.
He can only be Hawaiian in spirit, like many of us who were not born of Hawaiian parents but love the climate, beauty, culture and aloha. Most of us support the movement to bring justice to the Hawaiians regarding numerous unresolved issues, efforts reflected in the activities of OHA, the Akaka Bill and the programs of several Hawaiian organizations.
Samu chooses to embrace and align himself with a small group of Hawaiians whose goal is to return the islands to pre-annexation governance. This is not going to happen. The overwhelming majority of the residents of Hawai‘i, state and U.S. citizens, are working to build their lives given the realities of the modern world and do not wish to return to the 19th Century.
Samu would do well to eschew public attacks that feature scattershot charges of U.S. “occupation,” “slaughter,” “murder,” “killing” and “empire.” He only reduces his credibility and further marginalizes himself. He would do better to support those Hawaiians who are working hard to find solutions to legitimate issues that are yet unresolved. To paraphrase his last sentence, Hawai‘i is a state of the United States and it always will be — get used to it!
Myles Fladager, Koloa
Testing grounds
For years we’ve been reading reports on the high rate of suicide of India’s farmers, driven to desperation by the ruthless drive of global agribusiness giants to use India as a testing ground (think Kaua‘i) for genetically modified crops.
As of this summer government policies were implemented aiming to convert all crops to organic over the next 10 years in the India state of Kerala, one of the areas hit hardest by farmer suicides.
The National Crime Bureau estimates that nearly 200,000 Indian farmers have commited suicide since 1997. I was so shocked by this figure that I went online to verify that the figure I read in MaryJanes Farm magazine was correct and it was.
How can we as Americans also defend ourselves against the agribusiness giants? We are the testing ground for the mass production of these seeds!
The elections are coming up and we need to vote for the candidate that is promoting organic farming and sustainability, that is Diana LaBedz for mayor. We cannot see the poisons being sprayed but yet they are in the air. Let’s vote for safety and make Kaua‘i the Garden Island it claims to be.
Lisette Langlois, Waimea
