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Meetings are held the 2nd Saturday of every month (Sept. thru June) at the: Maurice M. Pine Public Library 10-01 Fair Lawn Ave., Fair Lawn, NJ
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Letter to The Villadom Times Dear Editor, In his column of May 1,2002 John Koster yet again affirms his belief in the supernatural, shows his lack of understanding of science and makes broad generalizations about entire groups of people. His staunch defense of the supernatural is a perfect explanation of why he denigrates science. His blinding faith in this conflicts dramatically with any scientific advances of the last 400-500 years. While man’s knowledge of nature, the universe and “all things” is infinitesimally small compared to what can be learned, it is at least above that which we knew 1,000 years ago. As a matter of fact, man’s knowledge is growing geometrically. Everyday science discovers new and amazing things. One major advance took place in Victorian England last century. The Theory Of Evolution, as put forward by Darwin, Wallace, Huxley and others is an example of this growth in knowledge. Modern science has refined the works of these scientists, but has not rejected it. Mr. Koster not only rejects it, but he draws on bad science and outmoded superstitions to defend his position. One can dissect his column line by line, and the fallacy of his thinking is clear from so many of his positions and defenses. But let us look at one important point that I find stunning in its brashness and inaccuracy. To start with, Mr. Koster states “Georgian and Victorian fathers routinely abused their sons in ways which we would today recognize as pathological.” This is quite a generalization of millions of people. As usual his historical knowledge is sorely lacking. Normally when a generalization like this is made it would be labeled at least politically incorrect, if not racist (yes, one can be racist to white Georgians or Victorians)! He then goes on to propose a theory that because of this abuse these sons “projected the hostility toward their fathers into a repressed hostility toward religion, and then use science as an avenue to attack religion.” Absurd, the 19th century scientists used science to learn about the world and the universe in which they lived. They used objective scientific method to try and understand and explain things in nature that previously could only be explained by resorting to the supernatural. There has never been valid scientific proof that there is an afterlife or that ESP exists. It is not simply Evolution that Mr. Koster dismisses with his arcane ideas. It’s also genetics, cosmology, mathematics, paleontology, history, physics, chemistry, archeology, anthropology and all fact-finding sciences. Mr. Koster then continues with his theory and states that these 19th century scientists were clinically depressed and unbalanced. Again, this is an absurd and unfounded generalization. Would he also classify some of the more recent famous scientists that same way because they agree with their 19th century predecessors? Were/are Einstein, Hawking or Penrose and others also abused by their fathers and were/are they clinically depressed and unbalanced? I think not! People of Mr. Koster’s mindset have tried many ways to “prove” their beliefs, but hard science has never backed them up. This has made them lash out and use these generalizations that when examined only hurt their cause. Here I make a couple of requests. The first is that Mr. Koster open his mind to real science and not go blindly along in his beliefs in pseudo-science and pseudo-history. Even the Pope, a fairly religious, conservative man, has said that the Theory Of Evolution must now be considered more than a hypothesis. Another plea has to do with a statement Mr. Koster made about a student of his. I don’t know what Mr. Koster does for a living, but I respectfully request that if he has students he does not infect them with an idea of blindly following a set of faith-only based principles. I urge him to teach them to open their minds, ask questions, examine all sides of a topic prior to coming a conclusion on it, and to be led by the principles of an inquisitive mind. One last note. Mr. Koster talks about a book he wrote in 1988 that is out of print now, “The Atheist Syndrome”. If anyone has a copy of it, can I borrow it? Andy Rosen |
