Your letter of February 9th, while entertaining, contained several strange assertions. First, you stated that intelligent design and global warming are legal and ethical matters, not scientific ones. It would seem to me that these are qualities that we choose to give them, not ones which are intrinsic to them; the existence of electricity could just as easily be an ethical issue, if society decided to make it one (ie, if its implications pissed off enough people in swing vote states to make them call their congressmen).
However, I did appreciate the irony of an architectural engineer chastising a mechanical engineer for debating about biology, because it was not his field. This irony only increased when you briefly tossed out the 2nd Law of thermodynamics as proof of Mr. Scott?s ignorance. I presume this was a veiled reference to the idea that the 2nd Law of thermodynamics disproves evolution, which Mr. Scott seems to not be aware of. Unfortunately, this assertion is false. The law states that order does not increase IN A CLOSED SYSTEM. The Earth is not a closed system, as we happen to have the Sun providing large amounts of energy to us (and giving us this nice weather). If you doubt that the complexity of a system can increase when it is being fed energy by the sun, try planting a lima bean in a cup filled with dirt and see what happens.
Erik Dawley
Architecture junior