Faith vs. faith in evolution debate

Re: Intelligent Design Is Not Scientific… and …While The Theory Of Evolution is, letters to the editor, Oct. 12.

An atheist philosophy professor of mine once told me he disagreed with his religious colleagues — who see God as the necessary source of universal order — because he was able to accept the orderliness of the universe simply on faith.

That’s what scientists do: They accept on faith that basic laws such as cause and effect have always existed and always will. Philosophers like David Hume long ago pointed out that you can’t prove such a thing, for example because the only way to prove the future will be like the past is that in the past, the future was like the past. That’s a circular argument, which means it’s logically empty.

The contest between religious people and secularists over things like the ultimate source of order isn’t about religious faith versus scientific rationality. It’s about faith versus faith. At least the religious folks (among whom, for the record, I do not belong) understand the nature of their own beliefs. It’s the scientific rationalists who fail to understand their own foundations as faith.