Science 'sect' is right

Upon reading your letter, in which you attempt to unconvincingly convince us that 'Andy the Atheist' and his views on evolution are wrong, showing off the full extent of your somewhat lacking scientific knowledge, I was compelled to respond to politely point out the areas of ignorance.

First and foremost, I would like to correct your idea that evolution is merely a theory. In science, a theory is not just a guess, not a hunch or hypothesis but a well-substantiated, well-documented scientific explanation for a huge set of facts and evidence.

The theory of evolution is way up there in terms of credibility with the likes of the theory of gravity and the theory of relativity. So, yes, evolution is a theory, but it is not merely a theory, it is triumphantly a theory.

Your letter then went on to denigrate the 'sect' who promote their 'belief' of evolution in 'schools etc.' and 'sell it as fact'. Firstly, might I enquire as to who this 'sect' is? Science teachers? Lecturers? University professors? Woe betide anyone who tries to teach young people sound, unbiased facts about the world around them, right?

After this, you attempted to pick holes in another very reputable scientific theory. You pettily put down Andy for believing that the Big Bang created the universe and you imply that the idea of 'light ripples' proving this is, to you, preposterous. Unfortunately for you, these light ripples are gravitational waves found in cosmic background microwave radiation and do actually provide even more strong, reliable evidence for the Big Bang theory.

So, in response to your letter, where you ask 'in a world that cannot even feed itself, let alone cure all diseases, are you really sure that we are in a position to know what ripples, might or might not have done 13 billion years ago?' I would say that, yes, we really are. The fact that there are those who go starving and those who die of diseases in the world has absolutely nothing to do with physics and what modern physicists are able to discover about the universe. The two are completely discrete and I'm honestly at a loss as to why they should be brought up in the same sentence.

Past this point in your letter, everything descends into incomprehensible hogwash in which you return to your original topic of evolution, describing it as 'flimsy speculation' and citing 'out and out fraud'. To back this up, you cite the fact that Charles Darwin's Origin of Species has had its name revised, which really is not a compelling argument and I'm not entirely sure of its relevance.

Then, abandoning your futile attempts to back up your claims, you profess the theory of evolution to be a 'damaging, blinkered view of life'. I candidly confess that I do not understand what you mean by this and can only assume that you say it out of loyalty to a religion, whose holy book probably directly contradicts this scientific theory.

To this, I would ask you to consider just two questions:

How many wars have been fought over scientific theories?

Now, how many wars have been fought over religious beliefs?

To me, it seems that evolution, whose principles are based on observable, physical evidence as opposed to thousand-year-old scriptures that just may have come from someone who claimed to know the word of the (conveniently) 'one true God' is a vastly less dangerous, less blinkered view of life.

Mr Henry, I honestly don't mean to devalue any of your beliefs nor do I mean to change them, I would merely ask that before you jump to defend your faith in the future that you do so with a little bit of foreknowledge.

A student, aged 15¾

o.jab@outlook.com.