An Open Letter

We recently received an Open Letter from a concerned Camfrog user Dr_Atkins who has asked us to publish a letter.


Dear friends ,

The freedom of religious expression and the right to free speech are two of the core foundations of a democratic society and must be protected at all costs.

But what happens when the two collide ?

Recently others and I have a noticed an increase in fundementalist faith rooms on Camfrog.

For some people the Creation, as a matter of religious belief, gives a meaning to life. Nevertheless, we are worried about the possible ill-effects of the spread of creationist ideas within Camfrog and about the consequences for our species. If we are not careful, creationism could become a threat to human rights which is a key concern.

Creationists question the scientific character of certain items of knowledge and argue that the theory of evolution is only one interpretation among others. They accuse scientists of not providing enough evidence to establish the theory of evolution as scientifically valid. On the contrary, they defend their own statements as scientific. None of this stands up to objective analysis.

We are witnessing a growth of modes of thought which, the better to impose religious dogma, are attacking the very core of the knowledge that we have patiently built up on nature, evolution, our origins and our place in the universe.

There is a real risk of a serious confusion being introduced into our children’s minds between what has to do with convictions, beliefs, ideals of all sorts and what has to do with science, and of the advent of an "all things are equal" attitude, which may seem appealing and tolerant but is actually disastrous.

Evolution is not simply a matter of the evolution of humans and of populations. Denying it could have serious consequences for the development of our societies. Advances in medical research with the aim of effectively combating infectious diseases such as AIDS are impossible if every principle of evolution is denied. One cannot be fully aware of the risks involved in the significant decline in biodiversity and climate change if the mechanisms of evolution are not understood.

Our modern world is based on a long history, of which the development of science and technology forms an important part. However, the scientific approach is still not well understood and this is liable to encourage the development of all manner of fundamentalism and extremism. The total rejection of science is definitely one of the most serious threats to human rights and civic rights.

The war on the theory of evolution and on its proponents most often originates in forms of religious extremism which are closely allied to extreme right-wing political movements. The creationist movements possess real political power. The fact of the matter, and this has been exposed on several occasions, is that some advocates of strict creationism are out to replace democracy by theocracy.

All leading representatives of the main monotheistic religions have adopted a much more moderate attitude. Pope Benedict XVI, for example, as his predecessor Pope John-Paul II, today praises the role of the sciences in the evolution of humanity and recognises that the theory of evolution is "more than a hypothesis".

The most intransigent of the supporters of creationism claim that the world was created by God in six days and maintain that the transformist or evolutionist theories that conflict with the Bible, according to which God created each plant or animal species individually, can only be lies. They say that science is wrong because, in the strictest possible sense, the Bible says something else – which reminds us, incidentally, of the trial of a man called Galileo.

Prohibiting the teaching of key theories, such as evolution, is totally against children’s educational interests. Education has a duty to be a means of enabling children, young people and adults to become important players in the transformation of societies, whereas adopting a denialist stance on scientifically proven theories constitutes a brake on education and the intellectual and personal development of thousands of children.

The knowledge it provides cannot be arbitrarily challenged. By denying proven facts, the creationist ideas do not contribute to the transformation of societies but to making them become archaic.

The creationists are in fact supporters of a radical return to the past, which could prove particularly harmful in the long term for all our societies. This is therefore a crucial issue.

As we have seen, evolution is not simply a matter of the evolution of humans and populations. It now pervades the whole of science and is one of its fundamental principles, so it appears legitimate to consider the consequences that denying evolution could have on the development of our societies. How, for example, can advances be made in medical research with the aim of effectively combating diseases like AIDS if every principle of evolution is denied? Basically, evolution pervades all medical research. How can we consider living in a world without medicine? That appears absurd, but removing the teaching of evolution from the curriculum, as advocated by the creationists, could result in a considerable reduction in, if not the end of, medical research.

In addition, the "scientific" approach adopted by the creationists to put forward and support their ideas is itself a particularly dangerous instrument of mental manipulation: presenting a thesis as a scientific theory without providing any evidence can be compared to an attempt to manipulate minds for purposes that are, moreover, scarcely virtuous. As Charles Otis Whitman, an American zoologist (1842-1910) wrote, "Facts without theory is chaos, but theory without facts is fantasy". Accordingly, as G. Lecointre notes, any clever manipulator relies on "facts" alone.

The science of evolution, like any science, does not claim to answer the question "why things are" but simply seeks to consider how they work.

Finally, there are, especially in the United States, a number of aberrations inherent in the denialism practised against evolution and in the accompanying proselytising. A documentary film by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, entitled Jesus Camp and released in the United States in autumn 2006, provides evidence of them. It shows a Pentecostal minister, Becky Fisher, who has opened in a North Dakota forest a holiday camp overtly devoted to the indoctrination of children. In front of the camera, she explains that from the age of 7 to 9 a human being can be made to believe anything and that that remains engraved in their brain for life. Fisher says she found her model among the Muslim fundamentalists. This documentary reveals all the violence and fanaticism of the most radical of the creationist movements and the effectiveness with which they succeed in manipulating human beings.

I urge the Encounter_God and House_Of_The_Lord rooms, who are known to be extremist Creationist rooms to become 18+ rooms and protect our children from the dangerous owners who teach these denialist stances.