Anonymous and clueless
I have noticed with growing amusement the correlation between poorly argued, imprecise writing and the fanatically religious inclination of the writer.
The pattern emerges in writing of various kinds, from letters in the Mail & Guardian to speeches written for public figures. The more dogmatic a writer is on the subject of faith, the worse the spelling, grammar, punctuation and logical arguing skills.
A case in point was the anonymous letter ”Darwin vs Adam and Eve” in last week’s M&G, which states that the umbilical cord is factual evidence of Adam and Eve as the originators of the human species.
One wonders whether, in this world view, Down’s syndrome and other genetic defects are also taken as evidence for the theory, given all the incest that must have happened in the first few centuries after Adam and Eve were ”created”.
In another letter, Simon Adams rants about the article ”The goddess of the Israelites”. From the three columns wasted on his letter, I could not pick up much in the way of an argument.
The standard of writing in the M&G is superior to that of other South African newspapers. Is it not damaging to your credibility to publish letters that would find a more comfortable home in People magazine? — Chris Martin, Durban
‘Anonymous” claims the navel is the seal of God’s creation of our personal humanity as children of God. But if the Creator made the first man and woman, surely they had no belly buttons. Rather strange, then, that He would work outside the ”pattern”, with Adam and Eve having no human imprint.
Also consider the implications of who the children of Adam and Eve married, if they were the first humans! — Rosemary Gravenor, Durban
![]()
It wasn’t until I approached the end of ”Darwin vs Adam and Eve” that I realised no parody was intended in the idea of the belly button as evidence of creation. ”Anonymous” apparently believes that Adam and Eve walked the Earth.
Science is the investigation and theoretical explanation of phenomena, and its theories are constantly being questioned, revised and even rejected as new evidence comes to light. The theory of evolution is an aspect of science that remains consistent with the evidence discovered since Darwin.
Creationism, on the other hand, is stated as fact. All the evidence refuting it is either ignored or misinterpreted. There is no evidence to support the creation myth, and many Christians acknowledge it is, at best, an allegory.
In the United States people like ”Anonymous” are lobbying for equal time in school classes for creationism and evolution and, in so doing, are dragging us back to the Dark Ages.
Let us hope the same does not happen in South Africa. The Earth is not flat, and neither is it the centre of a universe created in six days, 6 000 years ago. — Peter Gibb, Durban
![]()
After reading ”Anonymous”, I wonder if scientific progress counts for anything. DNA is not only strong supporting evidence for the theory of evolution — it is surely also evidence for the fact that human beings are not descended from a single pair, the legendary Adam and Eve.
It is insulting to scientists who have dedicated their lives to making important biological discoveries that such people use them to support their backward religious beliefs. — Alex Myers, Cape Town
![]()
At first I wondered why ”Anonymous’s” letter merited publication. But then I thought how clever — weaving the umbilical cord image into a subtle parody of fundamentalist/creationist thinking.
The ”indelible imprint” of my own navel lets me contemplate the common ancestry human beings share with other placental mammals.
It’s good to be reminded now and again of the outlandish theories out there. — Chris Lawrence, Cape Town
![]()
Culling 6 000 a lunatic pursuit
Your reporter, Fiona Macleod, wants to know the difference between South African National Parks’s ”preferred management densities” approach to elephant numbers in national parks, and the concept of ”carrying capacity”. They are as different as night and day.
Carrying capacity is an outdated commercial agricultural concept that suggests a fixed number of animals that can be carried by a defined piece of land, for example, a grazing camp. Preferred management densities places emphasis on the desired ecological state or condition of the environment, using a number of variables such as vegetation health, soil compaction and animal-human conflicts. It is based on the premise that ecosystems are complex, non-linear, dynamic and self-organised, and permeated by uncertainties and discontinuities.
The revision of our elephant management plan, currently in progress, embraces the basis of preserving the natural composition, structure and functions of the ecosystems by allowing natural cycles to take their course as far as they may be accommodated within the spatial constraints of our parks.
However, where the population trends of animals are not affected by medium-term climatic cycles, intervention becomes necessary. The preferred management density approach is in line with this.
The scientific advisory group is working on the zones or management densities, given the concerns raised by communities and the Sabi Sands on zoning in the 1999 proposed plan. It would be presumptuous and irresponsible for me to thumb suck numbers to please whomsoever.
It is early days to begin a number-crunching exercise, given the fact that the government has not yet approved elephant culling as a management tool, and that the scientific group is still reworking the plan.
Even if we were to get approval and the densities were determined, to cull 6 000 elephants — as the M&G suggests is on the cards — would be a lunatic pursuit of extreme proportions. — David Mabunda, chief executive, South African National Parks
![]()
Neither condemn nor condone
Paul Kokowski (Letters, September 30) says ”there are neither grounds in the church nor the secular world to condone homosexuality”. Neither are there grounds to condemn it, which I assume he wishes us to do.
Sex researcher Alfred Kinsey believed that up to 10% of male Americans were mainly or exclusively homosexual. This figure has now been lowered to about one in 50 men: 2%.
Statistically this means that exclusive homosexuality is extremely uncommon and, therefore, to be statistically pedantic, not ”normal”. But this word also has the normative implication of ”not right”, when it should mean no such thing.
Homosexuality cannot be condemned any more than any other maintained feature or behavioural trait — red hair, colour-blindness, preference for chocolate ice cream, or anything else one wishes to select. — Dr Bill Bateman, department of zoology and entomology, University of Pretoria
![]()
Flag must boost Africanism
Our flag is a democratic compromise with vastly wider acceptance than white supremacy’s oranje-blanje-blou. But the flag debaters have missed the next step forward. Visit post-nationalist Germany and see how the German flag is almost always flown alongside the EU flag.
After a century of Pan-Africanism, this vision remains confined to intellectuals, while the shanty towns riot against makwerekwere.
The South African flag should always be flown alongside the African Union flag, to popularise the concept of continental unification. And we need more popular celebations of May 25 as Africa Day. — Keith Gottschalk, Cape Town
![]()
Stronger TAC is needed
Health Ministry spokes-person Sibani Mngadi’s attack on Congress of South African Trade Unions leader Zwelinzima Vavi and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is yet another sad episode in the ministry’s failure to respond effectively and decisively to the HIV/Aids epidemic, and to lift the public health service out of the mess Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has created.
The TAC should be saluted by every-one: it has mobilised tens of thousands of conscious, vocal, active and mostly young people (70% of them are young women) into an organised social force with influence. This has not happened in other sectors.
This is not to glorify the TAC as angels. The organisation’s own national congress two weeks ago frankly discussed its mistakes and weaknesses, including insufficient work on prevention, and the failure to sustain campaigns in local areas.
Focusing on the TAC must not make us forget the other heroes and heroines of our country: the thousands of community-based -networks and groups carrying out prevention work, home-based care and treatment literacy, as well as providing social support for families living with HIV/Aids, many of them living in poverty and without services.
These groups bear the burden of unpaid labour shifted on to them by the failure of Mngadi’s department to provide a high-quality, efficient and free public health service, in which workers serve under decent and fair working conditions.
Such ideal conditions are enjoyed by Mngadi and others of the small elite in the ministry’s head office.
In Khayelitsha and Queenstown, community groups have started to include the churches and even branches of the South African Communist Party in their work, a fact which the Mail & Guardian editorial (”Not a shame, an honour”, September 30) does not mention.
The inspiration provided by the TAC will hopefully lay the basis for galvanising more community-based and left-wing organisations to understand the need to act now, and do more, to accelerate the roll-out of anti-retroviral drugs as part of a comprehensive HIV/Aids programme, and to provide a quality public health service and food security for all. This requires an even stronger TAC. — Mazibuko K Jara, deputy national secretary, Young Communist League, Cape Town
![]()
Before the recap, fix the drivers
Last month, my friend Irene Broekman was killed when a speeding taxi driver, whose passengers had begged him to slow down, allegedly accelerated even more, lost control of his vehicle and crashed into her.
Irene was a loving, vibrant and creative wife, mother, educator and friend who could not be spared by her family or her colleagues and students at Wits University. Hers is not an isolated case.
Last week, when a taxi driver tried to overtake a bakkie, its driver and several of the 32 preschool children in the taxi were killed. According to the radio, the taxi driver ran away.
Every day, the media report taxi accidents and family and friends grieve; every day, other road users survive near-misses. Every day, South Africans accept law-breaking by taxi drivers as an inevitable road hazard, rather than a preventable aberration.
Friends, family and colleagues of Irene urge those in authority in, or with influence over, the taxi industry to give driver training and behaviour urgent attention before the start of taxi recapitalisation, when newer, bigger and more powerful vehicles will be in the control of the same drivers.
Perhaps taxi drivers could be tested annually when vehicle licences are renewed, or a national toll-free hotline instituted by the police or taxi associations to which poor driving could be reported and monitored. Driver attitude is at least as important as new taxis. — Pat Hill, Mondeor, Johannesburg
![]()
Nothing sinister
The one mistake Brett Kebble made was to be a capitalist who chose to do business with black, young and marginalised people. For that he is crucified, as if there was something sinister about his business dealings.
The global market is not based purely on ”market principles”. Political power determines what to trade, with whom and for whose benefit.
Can the media analysts tell us how capitalists prosper, except by associating with the right people who can influence the agenda of their capital accumulation? Kebble assisted young black people who would -otherwise have remained forever on the fringes of the economy. — Phillip Musekwa, Germiston
![]()
E-mail a letter to the editor
Please include your name and address. Letters must be received by 5pm Monday. Be as brief as possible. The editor reserves the right to edit letters and to withhold from publication any letter which he believes contains factual inaccuracies, or is based on misrepresentation.