The typical Democratic strategy of "attach a solution to a problem that has nothing to do with the source of the problem" is again shown by the ignorant ramblings of John Bice ("Creationism in schools at fault for nation's dwindling science skills," SN 4/25). Does he not realize that students are beginning to fail at school long before the building of a strong scientific background? Does he really believe that we learn about genetics and chemical reactions before we learn the basics of math and science? The real cause behind the failings of our current education system is due to one reason, the failure of parenting.

Parents send their children off to school every day expecting the teachers to raise and nurture the kids, but then throw a fit if any type of discipline is handed down. "My little angel can't fail math class because it will hurt his self-esteem and I will have to sue the district." Maybe if the parents would make their child study at home and not play video games all night then they wouldn't be in this situation. But far be it from you to take advice from a (gasp) Republican. Let's just push these children through to the next grade and they can catch up later.

In regards to your dismissal of creationism as a fallacy, your examples are laughable. At its core, evolution is random; you cannot get away from this. Natural selection may be a process for picking a favorable mutation, but randomness must still create this mutation. Seeing as most random mutations are either lethal to an organism or are "silent," I cannot see how some "scientists" still believe (yes believe, not know) that this is plausible. Bacteria do gain resistance from antibiotics all of the time; in medicine we have to fight this on a daily basis. No matter how many of these resistant bacteria survive, though, we have never seen a strain of Staphylococcus aureus suddenly change to Actinobacillus pleuropneumonia and we never will. Resistance is a change within an already existing system.

Creationists have never doubted nor debated this fact, and anyone who does is clueless. I encourage you to stop discounting creationism as a "non-science" and look at all aspects of it. I guarantee you will see that the "leap of faith" used by creationists is unquestionably alive and vibrant in the theory of evolution.

Darren Wright
second-year veterinary medicine student