Letters

From the November 1999 issue

(Page 2 of 5)

It's easy to show that, starting from pre-industrial conditions, the chance that modern, highly specialized, and well-fed cities such as Manhattan or Los Angeles (or even, say, Plains, Georgia.) would emerge is inconceivably small. And yet, modern Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Plains function daily with a deep division of labor and successful coordination. No serious economist--or syndicated columnist--has ever argued that the complexity of modern industrial society is "theologically suggestive." To make this argument would be to reveal a complete lack of understanding of Adam Smith's insight that economic coordination is (to borrow a phrase from Adam Ferguson) "the result of human action but not of human design." I'm continually astonished at the capacity of intelligent people to embrace baseless, and often comically wrong, arguments.

Don Boudreaux
Foundation for Economic Education
Irvington-on-Hudson, NY
[e-mail]

Wouldn't any universe, whether or not it contained life, be so complex that its existence would be statistically improbable? Why then would we expect our universe to be any different? We seem to have no difficulty attributing a lottery win to sheer chance even though the odds against it are enormous. Why must we look for some other explanation for the universe just because the odds against its existence are higher?

I think if someone were to research the history of religion's fractious relationship with science he or she would discover a certain trend: When science discovers some principle that conflicts with prevailing dogma, religion initially responds by either denying the evidence (e.g., evolution or the possibility of multiple universes) or suppressing it (think of Copernicus or current Islamic theocracies). If those approaches fail, religion simply reinvents itself and finds a way to fit the scientific fact or theory in question into its new scheme of thinking. And so biblical "days" come to mean "billions of years" to incorporate the hard evidence about the age of the universe and evolution and so on. The "anthropic principle" seems to be another such move on the part of religionists.

In any case, this constant fuss over the secular and physical worlds on the part of religion is highly suspect. It reeks of a very human desire to direct and control the thinking and actions of others. And that is clearly not the core purpose of any major world religion. Virtually all religions are geared toward achieving a state that transcends the physical and secular world and all of its various laws, natural and otherwise. Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of such a transcendent state any more than it can prove or disprove the existence of a Supreme Being who may or may not have created it.

It is highly unlikely that God will ever be found in the details. I sincerely doubt that we will be able to sneak up on God and prove His existence by turning over rocks--regardless of how big and impressive they are. If God exists, then He is surely beyond such petty, physical concerns.

Dan Kacsir
Indianapolis, IN

Kenneth Silber replies: I appreciate the time and effort of the large number of readers who wrote to REASON, or to me personally, in response to my article. But contrary to Jeremy Dunn, it is incorrect to say that I "rightly [noted] the Christian parallels in relativistic cosmology, a sudden creation from nothing that peters out into a nihilistic nothingness." I noted no such "parallels" and do not find them compelling. Also, readers of Lewis E. Little's letter may be misled into thinking that it's my view that omega (the curvature of space) had to be extremely "fine-tuned" for the Big Bang to produce a viable universe; that's actually a view that I sought to refute.

Public School Scars

One would think that at 72 years of age and after seven children, 13 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, the wounds would be healed. Not so. Nick Gillespie's editorial ("Schools of Alienation," July) chafed my high school scars until they bled.

I attended a public school of 400 in a Midwestern town of 35,000. As I was neither heavy enough nor quick enough for contact sports, my interests centered around fishing, hunting, golf, choir, drama, and reading. My appearance, use of "50-cent" words, and popularity with the coeds made me a marked man with the jocks and muscle set. But I refused to look down.

As a result they beat me regularly. They slammed my face into a cast-iron radiator, breaking my teeth; they held me down on Main Street and cut off my hair; they cuffed my ear hard enough to break the eardrum; and, of course, they threw me into lockers. Fighting back only increased the severity of the attacks.

All this occurred during a time when millions were fighting a world war (in which I would soon take part) to prove that might does not make right. The school did nothing. My parents did nothing. I did nothing. I wanted to kill them all. I had the guns and the know-how. Fortunately I did not have the courage or insanity or whatever to use them. Besides, I figured God would disapprove.

Jim McDermott
Islamorada, FL
[e-mail]

Thanks for your articles on the factors behind the Littleton shootings. Mr. Gillespie's resonated deeply with me as a reminder of years of frequent harassment, occasional serious threats, and my vengeful thoughts. Mr. Hazlett ("Hostage Rescue," July) clarified why these conditions are so much more explosive in schools than, say, in the workplace: There's no escape.

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