To the editor:

I feel that the minuscule article regarding the lecture of Richard Dawkins sells the public, those who did not have the good fortune to see him speak firsthand, sadly short.

I first must question if the author received a program from the event, or even attended at all. Dawkins outright stated he was not a physicist. He quoted many of his “colleagues” – perhaps so by means of British academia – in his work, but is listed in the program as an “evolutionary theorist and an ethologist,” someone who studies animal behavior. I’m sure he had stated during the lecture that he was not a physicist.

Secondly, characterizing his lecture as “taking shots” at intelligent design theory belies what the lecture was really about. The article makes Dawkins sound as petty as the other side when in actuality he systematically broke down and exposed the flaws of intelligent design and creationism in a scientific manner and offered evidence for the inconsistencies (inconsistency being tame for the attributes of the theories of the other side).

Lastly, I am troubled by the apparent disregard of both the author, Ron Knox, of this article and the Lawrence Journal-World to a leading scientist, best-selling author and, as it seemed Monday night, a rallying figure in the fight to keep science scientific. He deserves more than an eighth of the last page of the Lawrence and State section. But then again, you may only have known the impact if you were there.

Scott Chaussee,

Lawrence