LITERALISM, NOT EVOLUTION, IN RETREAT
(Investigator 119, 2008 March)
Garry Lockwood (The Advertiser 9/1/08) says that evolutionary ideas suffered some kind of setback in the 1980s but is wrong.
It’s there in New Scientist, Time, National Geographic, Year 12 Biology and in Richard Dawkins’ books.
Garry may not have noticed that biblical literalism and dogma have been in retreat for almost exactly 150 years.
In 1858 Darwin still had good reason to fear a strong community backlash and the laws of blasphemy and sedition, Queen Victoria being head of the Church of England, but eventually co-published decades of research with Alfred Wallace.
As a maths/computing lecturer, Garry may not be au fait with biological evidence supporting evolution. Dawkins has repeatedly debated 'believers' (it's in his job description) and I recommend Garry read his God vs Science dismantling (Time, 13/11/06) of Dr Francis Collins, Director of the Genome Project and evangelical Christian, who offered "God is mysterious"!
John H Williams