In his recent piece titled Darwin's legacy muddled in sad, pointless debate,"" Anthony Cefali extols the virtues of open debate in order ""to better understand ... and possibly even to improve [subjects]."" Yet apparently in practice, when the tide of opinion turns against his position, it becomes a ""sad, pointless debate."" The opposing view is ""arrogant"" and motivated by ""perverse special interests."" It rather seems like the form of debate he appears to encourage is a mere mockery of real debate; one in which his side always wins and the opposition is effectively silenced.
Apart from the self-contradiction and ad-hominem argument, Cefali's piece lamenting the continuing debate over evolution is rife with straw-man misrepresentation and a general demonstration of misunderstanding. The mention of Carl Sagan toward the closing of his article is fortuitous, because Sagan serves as an excellent illustration of one of the many things Cefali doesn't seem to understand.
Sagan was involved with SETI, which scoured the cosmos for ordered information, primarily in the form of radio signals. They did this because they understood that information belies intelligence. Human experience confirms that information only rises from an intelligent cause. DNA is highly ordered information and the quantity of information contained in a living cell is staggering.
A primary argument against evolution is that it postulates information arising from random processes, which has never been observed. Evolutionists have yet to postulate a method for this vast quantity of information to be generated. A quick YouTube search for ""Richard Dawkins information"" reveals that he at least isn't aware of such a process. I for one think a little more debate and a little more searching is acceptable before it becomes sad and pointless.
- Timothy Reasa
UW-Madison student
Undeclared major
