The Opinion article by William Provine is self-contradictory and in error based on history and philosophy. As a historian of science, Mr. Provine might well review the lives of such fathers of modem science as Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, and James Clark Maxwell. Their motivation for pursuing their studies of the natural world came from a view of God as the creator whose essential attribute is goodness. And as a result, the physical universe created by God manifests the attributes of beauty and order. Galileo said that “the Holy Scriptures and Nature are both produced by the Word of God, the former is the result of the dictation of the Holy Spirit, and the latter is the most obedient agent of the ordinances of God.”
Many scientists of recent history have become preoccupied by secondary causes (the natural ...
