Creationism in class?
In 2009, Dennis Prager, a Sunday Opinion columnist for this newspaper, established Prager University. It offers no classes, no diplomas and has no accreditation.
Prager has 2,200 videos on YouTube, which has had 4 billion viewers. Considering my word limit, I will focus on the ones that promote “intelligent design,” which is a front for creationism.
These videos present gaps in the evolution of living beings, and their suggestion is that a divine being is necessary to fill these gaps. Saying that “God did it” does not explain the biological mechanics necessary to fill the gaps. Besides, over the years many intermediate forms of life have been found in the fossil record. For more reading, check bit.ly/3QgihbI and nfgier.com/god-not-hypothesis.
Intelligent design is a theological theory, not a scientific hypothesis. If conservatives ignore this essential distinction, this controversy will undermine the integrity of science education in this country.
Prager’s videos have now been approved by Florida’s Department of Education for supplementary instruction, but the Broward County School Board voted not to adopt them.
Prager spoke at the 2023 annual conference of Moms for Liberty. Protesters held up many signs, and one accused Prager of indoctrination. Prager admitted that his materials contain Judeo-Christian “doctrines, but what is the bad of our indoctrination?”
The “bad” of your creationist teachings, Mr. Prager, is that they are illegal for public instruction. Since 1968, courts in 10 major cases have ruled that creationism is a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
Nick Gier
Moscow
Concern about steelhead
It is time to raise the level of concern regarding the 2023-24 steelhead returns.
According to the Columbia Basin Bulletin published Oct. 12, the total steelhead run returning over Bonneville Dam is forecast to be 112,500 fish. One has to go back to 1979 to find a lower return. This is the forecast made by the U.S. v. Oregon Management Agreement Technical Advisory Committee, the committee whose forecasts determine how our dams and hatcheries are operated in the Columbia Basin.
We are at the end of three years of El Nina weather cycle that pushes cold water north, which favors steelhead and salmon. The year 2021 had the best ocean condition in the past 24 years so it is unlikely that the low run can be blamed on ocean conditions. Record populations of pink salmon, red salmon, coho salmon and fall chinook prove my point.
When you compare the 112,500 total steelhead return to the average return 2000-09, it amounts to 28%. When you compare it to the best year (2001), it is only 17%. When you compare the unclipped portion of the run to the average of the 2000-09 period 38,800 to 117,000, it equals 33%. The number of smolts collected in 2022 was only 28.7% of the average 2000-09. The fallacy of spill couldn’t be clearer.
We need to get more smolts downriver. That requires more hatchery production and a return to barging which gets them below eight dams with a 98.5% survival.
Rusty Bentz
Lewiston
We built dams for all
As I mentioned in a previous letter about bold headlines in the Tribune whenever there is an article relating to dam-breaching on the lower Snake River, the Northwest section of Oct. 1 with half-page photos proves my point.
The Pacific Northwest Fish Symposium, sponsored by the Citizens for the Preservation of Fish and Dams, which was attended by more than 100 people, received minimum space. Yet the executive director for Native Organizers Alliance and their dam-breaching advocates received more than a page of publicity promoting dam breaching with no indication how they plan to increase the fish population in the river if and when the dams are breached.
The Northwest Fish Symposium provided substantial professional science-based information by fish experts which corroborated the fact fish and dams can survive and recover in abundant numbers with barging of smolts and proper spilling over the dams, keeping gas saturation under 110%.
Don’t keep telling us fish are going to return in abundance if dams are removed as the lower Snake River was never an abundant spawning ground for salmon. Destroying the livelihood, transportation, power generation, current fishing and recreating provided by these dams is an insult to our generation who built dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers. We built them for the benefit of all ... and, just because of so-called salmon gods, the current generation of political activists wants to prove its power by removal of the dams. It is a dereliction of duty to the public in general.
Marvin J. Entel
Clarkston
A big problem
I think I discovered one of America’s biggest problems.
There are a large number of young people in this country who don’t know where the Panama Canal is, who fought in the Mexican-American War, what a quarter of an hour is or how many states there are in the USA.
Here is the problem: They have the right to vote.
Steve Pogue
Genesee
