The Stop Sign, Part 2

The Stop Sign, Part 2

Encouraged by the professor, and hoping to stand his ground in what he felt would be a decisive give and take, Billy Lynch pushed on.

“No disagreement there professor. We put up stop signs to encourage people to stop. So my next question, if I may, is this: Why do you want people to stop?

Although he was feeling the urge to quickly do away with the question, Dr. Wilson sensed that he should continue.

“I would want people to stop because if they didn’t stop, they might get hurt, even killed,” he said. The students’ attention switched from Wilson to Lynch, wondering where this was leading.

“True enough,” said Lynch. “I believe we can agree that this would be likely. I simply wonder why you care that people not be hurt or killed if they fail to observe a stop sign.”

The professor quickly responded: “You don’t want people to get hurt or killed, do you?”

Billy Lynch began to feel pressured to respond as the professor expected but he knew there was a better way.

“Meaning no disrespect Professor Wilson, but it is not my role to provide an answer since you were the one who asked for questions. It is to you that I am looking for an answer to my concern. Here I am wondering why you care if someone gets hurt or killed at a stop sign…and your answer should not be in the form of a question to me. I know how I would respond but I wonder about your response.”

The class was a little stunned at Lynch’s bravado. He was actually putting the professor in the hot seat and this fact was not lost on Professor Wilson. He was being asked something very important, but didn’t really know what to say. Neither Professor Wilson nor the other students knew much about Billy. They didn’t know that he was a brilliant young man, having entered college at the age of 16, after quickly going through a home school program taught by his mother. It was at her knees that he had learned to be alert and to think deeply about ideas. He had, at her insistence, heard all about evolution and its many faults. He had been encouraged to study carefully the evidence for evolution and, in the process, had come to see that the evidence for evolution was actually interpretations which had been turned around as evidence; that the concept of evolution was nothing more than a clever scheme to deny the existence and work of God. He had a big advantage over his classmates who had been nearly forced to accept, what some have called, “an adult fairy tale” in order to graduate.


“You are right, absolutely right Mr. Lynch. I did ask for questions and this is what you’ve done. It is up to me to provide answers. When it comes to not wanting anyone to be hurt or killed because they fail to observe and obey a stop sign, I believe my answer is that I wouldn’t like it. And that is my final answer.”

This brought a few laughs from throughout the lecture hall as they recalled the now famous line from a popular TV quiz program.


Dan Schobert, W9MFG@charter.net