To the editor:

I would like to invite Paul Atchley (Public Forum, Dec. 16) to do some open-minded consideration of the old definition of science that governed the teaching of science until recently. It says, first of all, that science is a human activity, so we can rule out anything done by amoebae, chimpanzees, archangels or anything of that sort. We can’t, however, rule out primitive cultures because they are human, and they do seek natural explanations for what they observe in the world around them.

So I reckon that by that definition the theory of some primitive culture that I have read about who thought that the world is supported on the back of a great turtle is science in their culture. It was certainly a human activity that led them to that conclusion, although that activity might have been a priest having a good chew or sniff of a favorite hallucinogen.

It’s also a natural explanation in their world because turtles are perfectly natural. It looks to me like all the conditions of the old definition of science are met by that society. So do you still want to claim that the old definition of science is superior to the new one?

Teresa A. Gordon,

Baldwin