Stay out of the science classroom
IT is a little dismaying that creationism suddenly seems to be an issue in Hongkong; I had thought it was a peculiarly North American disease. As for the remarkable selection of quotes in Mr Jack Leibowitz's letter of April 24 - oh dear.
To begin with, it was not very honest of Mr Leibowitz to imply that the comedy team of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe either support Biblical creationism, or represent the mainstream of evolutionary thinking.
Their thesis involves little seed packets of genetic material put together by a higher intelligence somewhere in interstellar space; a gentle genetic rain that, they said, would account for the origin of life on Earth, most evolutionary ''quantum leaps'', a wide variety of diseases - and some bugs. Based as it was on a naive strawman version of evolution, this scenario was greeted by the biologists with a deafening silence.
Hoyle's infamous hurricane-assembled 747 is a hoary old chestnut that was roasted long ago.
For one thing, there is only one way a viable 747 can fit together; whereas evolution is a thoroughly contingent process, not directed towards achieving any pre-specified form. (No, not even us.) The Harvard biologist George Wald actually did use the word ''impossible'' in connection with the spontaneous origin of life on earth: but, he continued, ''time is the hero of the plot . . . given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain.'' I think it was really very naughty of Mr Leibowitz to select one word out of all that Professor Wald had to say about evolution.
In any event, research into the origin of life has moved on very far since the days of Urey and Wald; Mr Leibowitz et al, would be better advised to look at the work of, for example, Margulis, Eigen or Cairns-Smith. They should also realise that the origin of life is a significantly different issue from the origin of species - but both are lively, fruitful areas of research. Snipping at the biologists because they don't yet have all the answers is like damning a novel-in-progress because the plot is incomplete.
I do have a couple of questions for Messrs, Leibowitz, Lenoble and Chan. First, where is this ''growing body of scientific evidence against evolution''? There is nothing of the sort to be found even in the outpourings of the self-styled creation scientists; nothing original or sensible, anyway. (And please don't trot out the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is, in this context, another roasted chestnut).
Second, which version of creation is it that they want taught in the schools? Genesis alone gives a choice of two; my personal favourite is the one in which the Earth and the entire vegetable kingdom pre-date the sun, moon and stars. And why stop with the Bible, when there are so many lovely creation myths floating around? They could even throw in Hoyle and Wickramasinghe. But please - in cultural or religious studies, and not in the science classroom.
REBECCA BRADLEY Sha Tin
