Citizens Say

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 180, 20 October 1927, Page 10

Citizens Say

(To the Editor.)

A CORRECTION Sir, I wish to correct an error which appeared in THE SUN last week in the Police Court news. It Was stated that my son, Thomas Marshbanks, was convicted at the age of seven years. At that.age he was not even at school and not in Auckland. He is now 35, not 27. His wrongdoing was caused by drink and he was never an offender as a little boy who knelt at his mother’s knee. Will you kindly publish this and spare me from the insulting remarks that have been passed. HIS MOTHER. THE WORK OF THE GANGER Sir,— In reply to “Ratepayer’s letter in last Wednesday’s paper, I would like to point out to him and his brother critics the injustice they do by rushing into print without giving full particulars. A ganger with a large number of men is unable to take the pick and shovel in his hands as he has to attend the laying-out of work, receiving materials, etc., and looking after his men. This is absolutely necessary. A ganger with only a few men is quite capable of doing a certain amount of manual work, and in most cases does so; in fact, I know some of Mount Albert’s gangers do more heavy work than the average worker, and do their other work as well. There are some gangers, as “Ratepayer” states, who do not take off their coats, but they are mostly gangers with big gangs of . men. If “Ratepayer’* has a complaint, why not call his warden’s attention or if he wants to publish it, let him name the ganger or the road on which the work is being carried out so inefficiently. Because he has a complaint against one ganger he should not damn the lot of us, as it causes no end of suspicion and trouble. ONE OF THE GANGERS. GENESIS AND COSMOGONY Sir, — That the writings commonly ascribed to Moses are of doubtful authenticity I not only admit but maintain. Mr. J. Sim is wrong in his notion that all competent investigators are satisfied that the cosmogony given in Genesis is not of Moses. But Mr. Sim would say that the famous scholars I could name to the contrary are not “competent,” because they do not agree with his rash dogmatism. The Book of Genesis does not give the age of man as 6,000 years. Man may have been for countless ages on the earth, according to Genesis, before historic characters are introduced. The ambiguity of the Hebrew text permits this view. I do not recognise any infallible human authority. But I do maintain that, in respect of telic interpretation, the account of the evolution of the cosmos in Genesis 1:1 is in advance of the more deistic evolution of Darwin. Palev’s teleological argument has never been refuted, and I notice that Canon Barnes takes a like telic view of evolution; also Sir Arthur Keith is one with me in maintaining “that men of the very first intellect do not see any difficulty in reconciling religious belief with the truth of science.” So Mr. Sim and his secularist friends are quite behind the times. J. G. HUGHES.

FALCON ISLAND Sir, — A year or so ago I spoke o£ Falcon Island in a lecture, but it was not till last month that I ventured to give the time for its appearance as noon on the 2nd inst. Apparently that time was quite right, for the island was first seen by the inter-island cutter Tailovoni, and the flashes of the eruption seen from Nukualofa on the morning of the 3rd. Another important point is that the volcano shows periodicity of discharge, such as I have always maintained active volcanoes must, more or,

less, show, the periodicity varying in different parts of the world. In this case the unequal intervals between outbursts are all multiples of the period for that place. I am satisfied that the island has now come to stay. In the comparatively near future other islands will appear in the Tasman Sea and off the East Coast of our North Island. The first of these may be expected in 1960, if not earlier. Some people have fear of renewed activity of the Auckland volcanoes. The possibility of these ever bursting out again is exceedingly remote, however. Nature has no need for a volcanic vent near Auckland at the present time. And should such need ever arise, the outburst would almost certainly start un- | der water on one side of the isthmus. FREDERICK R. FIELD. | Auckland. SCIENCE AND RELIGION I Sir,— Mr. J. G. Hughes’s reasoning is difficult to follow. He says that he opened this correspondence by an attack on Sir Arthur Keith. But it was the scientic opinions of Sir Arthur Keith that he attacked, not the man, and my reply was in defence of those opinions. So far the discussion was entirely academic, and no personalities were introduced until Mr. Hughes published his letter in reply to mine. Further, it is hard to understand how my reply could work greater damage to his business by reason of my anonymity than if I had signed my name. Mr. Hughes should have considered the possible damage resulting from replies before entering the lists of THE SUN, and used a nom de guerre himself. Much irrelevant recrimination would thus have been avoided. Mr. Hughes suggests that I am peeved about a certain Bible in schools controversy. He is welcome to that gratifying belief, and also to the notion that he worsted me, but it is strange that he did not then raise righteous objection to tilting with an anonymous correspondent. I wonder why? On the matter at issue, Mr. Hughes makes two definite but unsupported statements. One. that the Darwinian theory of evolution, “which was simply a supposition,” is sadly out of date. Quite impersonally, let me say that that assertion cannot be supported by evidence. It is true there are several explanations of evolution with a following among biologists, but we hove it on the authority of Professor t?ir Arthur Keith that those scientists engaged in the tracing of man’s pedigree, i.e., anthropologists, are Darwinians almost without exception. (R.P.A. Annual, 1922, page 11.) That authoritative statement has yet to be challenged, so that it is evident Mr. Hughes is mistaken. It is obvious that the scientists of to-day, with 50 added years of research, have in one left Darwin behind, but all alike acknowledge their immense debt to him, and a great many of the most eminent endorse the validity of his theory of natural selection.

Mr. Hughes’s’ second assertion is that ther e is no conflict between science and religion. The easiest way to settle that is to find out what scientists believe [about religion. The following table is l compiled from Professor J. H. Leuba's ‘\Belief in God and Immortality,” 1916. the most comprehensive modern inquirv mt ? A he reli &ious beliefs of scientists, and the table takes into account more than 1,000 leading scientists.

Belief Belief God, immortality. Physical Scientists . per c ? " c - Historians °2 Sociologists .. .. .. " %7 Biologists ... oPsychologists * ’ "g Ti e T , of . th<JKe figures, tv ho win assert that between religion and science there is no conflict. A.E.C. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS R.J. (Waihi) —Your letter is much too long for publication.—Ed. JHE SUN.