On the other hand …

Spectrum/Bill Siedler

In Pastor Ron Hamman's nearly unintelligible creationist rant (Spectrum, 1/21), he says he wants the Valley to host a creationism vs. evolution debate because it would "really put the Valley on the map!"

He then makes the claim that evolution cannot properly be called a scientific "theory" like gravity or thermodynamics. Lastly, he says that in 1990 somebody issued a $10,000 challenge to anyone who could show scientific proof of evolution.

The prize still sits in a bank, unclaimed, says Hamman, and has now accumulated enough interest to be a $250,000 prize today. Allow me to respond: First, the Valley is already on the "map," but sadly, it's mostly due to our reputation as an enclave for believers of things that strain credulity, like the Rev. Hamman.

Second, Nobel Prize in physics winner Murray Gell-Mann says that in science, "theory" means, "A coherent system of rules and principles … an established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena." Gell-Mann says evolution is scientific theory. I'll take Gell-Mann's definition over the Rev. Hamman's any day. It is Biblical creation that isn't a theory, scientific or otherwise, but a story that most religious people throughout the world believe to be a spiritually symbolic, not literal, representation of life's beginnings.

What I would like to find out though, is where to find that bank with the $.25 million in it. If Pastor Hamman knows where you can make $240,000 in interest over 15 years on a $10,000 investment, that's the place I want my

pass-book savings account.

Bill Siedler is a teacher and a Wasilla resident.