Sir, - Dr Dominique Tassot (July 18th), claims "evolution theory is about to collapse". Creationists have been suggesting this for years. If this collapse is to occur (though a random look at major journals such as Nature would suggest this as highly unlikely), it will come from within science, not from the nonsensical arguments put forward in Dr Tassot's piece.
Do creationists really think that several generations of biologists would stand over a body of ideas that disobeyed one of the fundamental laws of nature?
Would the physicists stand idly by and allow this charade to endure? Creationists have been endlessly pulled up on this point, yet they persevere with this lie. And the reason? They are not addressing scientists. Their propaganda is directed at lay people, particularly politicians, people who do not have the necessary knowledge to question this nonsense, but will accept it as it compliments a literal interpretation of the Bible and because evolution is "evil and atheistic". Sadly, in America at least, their influence is growing.
The claim that transitional fossils are non-existent is also pure fabrication. The fossil record is far from complete, with only around a quarter-of-a-million fossil species described from all of Earth's history (there are possibly 10 million or more species alive on Earth today).
Many gaps do exist, but the broad temporal order is clear, and concurs with the evolutionary patterns from other sources such as morphology.
However, there are plenty of examples of transitional fossils, among the most complete being the sequence from synapsid reptiles to mammals (far above the species level), with the step-by-step changes in the jaw and ear structures (among others) beautifully illustrated. Other well-known examples include the horse group and Archaeopteryx.
Five or six new species of dinosaurs, complete with feathers and wishbones, have been described in China over the last five years. Darwin acknowledged the paucity of the fossil record, and did not base his ideas upon it, but instead used biogeography, reproduction, survival, artificial breeding and morphology to make his case. However, an abundance of new supporting evidence has turned up in the fossil record since 1859.
As to Dr Tassot's claims for Noah's Flood geology (not explicitly stated), does she really think that geologists were not aware that flooding rivers deposit large amounts of sediment in a short space of time. Anyone living on the flood plains of many major European rivers over the past few winters could have told you that.
Finally, our present, conservative Catholic leader, Pope John Paul II, declared in the mid-1990s that evolution was more than just a theory, and not at odds with a Christian view of life. Is this man not supposed to be on a one-to-one basis with the Almighty? - Yours etc.,
John Meehan, Mountcharles, Co Donegal.