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To the Editor:
Adam Frank, in "Welcome to the Age of Denial" (Op-Ed, Aug. 22), seems bitter that no one is listening to him and his fellow astrophysicists. After all, they have found the truth.
Let me remind Dr. Frank that the theory of relativity is still a theory, as is the Big Bang theory. As a physician in private practice for almost 25 years, I have made it a point to have an open discourse with my patients when they question medical or scientific fact. Too often I have seen outcomes defy those facts.
Let those of us who may have been educated in the ivory towers of academia abandon the notion that we belong to a society that holds knowledge of the universal truths of humankind and the cosmos. They should be used as guidelines rather than as intransigent blocks to creative approaches and thought.
The universal truth that I live by is the understanding that the challenges of everyday life have a way of creating individual realities that, to scientists, may fly in the face of logic and fact; however, they are logical and factual to those who experience and live with them.
CHARLES F. GLASSMAN
Pomona, N.Y., Aug. 22, 2013
The writer is an internist.
To the Editor:
That we have fallen into an age of denial is a symptom of the longstanding battle of faith versus reason; faith's passion usually wins over reason's sobriety. We scientists can be our own worst enemies by failing to communicate our passion for discovery, a fire that burns as bright as a creationist's zeal. Carl Sagan knew that; now it's our turn to drag us out of this unfortunate state of affairs.
JEFFREY H. TONEY
Union, N.J., Aug. 22, 2013
The writer, a former pharmaceutical researcher, is provost and vice president for academic affairs at Kean University.
To the Editor:
Adam Frank correctly laments some Americans' disdain of scientific fact. But he less correctly lumps creationists together for scorn and praises scientists without qualification. He quite ignores the middle, where I live.
Our love for science and keen belief in God are both firm and reasonable. We are annoyed by the assumption that hard-wired science will learn about everything that can be known. We are amused by scientific exuberance like that of Carl Sagan, who stated as a scientific fact that the physical universe is all there is, all there ever was, all there ever will be. So at least for us in the middle, add scientific hubris to the list of forces that have eroded confidence in science.
(Rev.)
JOSEPH A. TETLOW
St. Louis, Aug. 22, 2013
The writer, a Jesuit priest, is writer in residence at Jesuit Hall, Saint Louis University.
To the Editor:
Anti-science complaints are most often aimed at the creationism espoused by religious conservatives, but there's rarely a word about the left's dubious opposition to engineering marvels like nuclear energy, environmentally friendly oil drilling, and solutions to climate change that involve technology instead of changes to personal behavior.
As someone who studied physics as an undergraduate and graduate student, I believe that we hear little about anti-science behavior on the left because the prejudices and outcomes it embraces are more popular than those of the right wing. Their anti-science charges are built on ideologically convenient, cherry-picked examples like those of Adam Frank.
MICHAEL LONG
Burke, Va., Aug. 22, 2013
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