Scientists agree, Christianity welcomes research ‘

‘Religion Teaches False Truths,’ a letter in Wednesday’s paper, argues that Christianity is responsible for slowing the progress of scientific ideas and discoveries. I submit that Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Leibniz, Newton, Linnaeus, Euler, Faraday, Mendel, Pasteur, Kelvin, Cantor, Fleming, Smalley, von Weizs’auml;cker and Jaki (to name a few) would disagree. These Christians are responsible for revolutionary scientific developments. Copernicus, for example, presented some of the earliest evidence of a heliocentric universe (a model which he interpreted as being in harmony with Christianity). The Catholic Church at the time attempted to suppress this model, because it (mistakenly) interpreted figurative statements in the Bible to be making a scientific claim. Was the problem caused by Christianity? No; it was caused by a misinterpretation and subsequent refusal to welcome opposing evidence. Copernicus and Galileo challenged the prevailing view, which was false. These men better represented Christianity through their actions, because Christians try to understand the truth (and obey it, when truth calls them to action). True Christianity has never suppressed truth. Christians who believe that God created the Earth will welcome further research into and understanding of the origins of the universe, for example; if we’re right, the results will only reinforce faith. Advocates of good science, if their dedication is to evidence rather than theories, will welcome and support Christians who use scientific methods to look for truth.

Ben Bingham

senior, nuclear engineering ‘ Try making a newspaper ‘ Monday’s editorial on the 6,000 runner cap for the KKC was flawed. Here’s a few

ideas: the logistics of registering more than 6,000 runners the day of the race; public safety (perhaps somebody previously drowned in a sea of vomit from 6,001 runners in a similar race); human resources; maximum glaze-to-doughnut ratio output from Krispy Kreme; or maybe the KKC board is culturally tolerant and an ancient Mayan inscription prophesized the Sun God Kinich-Ahau would come down from the sky and consume the fertility god Chac so no crops could be harvested again should the number of 6,000 participants be reached in a race for a foreseen doughnut. Who knows? But no one will continue to know unless you do your job: journalism. You can’t just say, ‘Well, we don’t know the ‘blatant reason’ why this is, but it should totally be changed.’ If it were blatant, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, right? This isn’t your diary. It’s a newspaper. Besides the sports section and a few features, Technician consists of glorified mouths who learned to use spell check. The best article written in the last year was by David McKnight, the street fiddler, on the dangers of selling out to government and

corporations. It had inarguable facts, information and logical points. Go ask him to proofread for you. I don’t think Woodward and Bernstein would have had the success they did if the best point in their article was ‘Nixon gives us the heebie-jeebies.’

Bryan Maxwell

junior, civil engineering ‘ Editorial failed to ask the right question ‘ We are deeply disappointed with the ‘Reconsider 6,000 runners’ editorial in Monday’s Technician. It did not carve out the time to pose the question, ‘Why cap the burgeoning tradition at 6,000 entrants?’ to one of the race’s co-chairs before publishing the editorial. In fact, Kalie Porterfield and Logan Dawson both made plain the reason behind the participant cap to a Technician reporter via a phone interview before the article was published. ‘ As was clearly explained during these interviews, the number of runners is limited to 6,000 by mandate of the Raleigh Police Department in consideration of runner safety. The roads that encompass the race route cannot accommodate additional runners without posing substantial risk to participants. ‘ As leaders of a student organization ourselves, we understand that the contributors to Technician are not professionals, but individuals whose journalism is secondary to their student responsibilities. That being said, this is not the first time Technician has documented incorrect facts, jumbled interviewee statements or presented the Krispy Kreme Challenge in an unnecessarily negative light. The race is an N.C. State tradition, and as a part of the University community we would have expected a greater sense of support from your organization.

If nothing else, we would have expected the authors of these articles to put forth minimal effort to find the facts before a piece is published.

‘ Kalie Porterfield

senior, mechanical engineering

2010 Krispy Kreme Challenge co-chair