FISH FUNDAMENTALS

In his “X-Files” commentary, Tim Appelo has his symbols crossed (“The Sun Is Out There,” June 21). “We live in an age,” he wrote, “when fundamentalists slap footed fish bumper stickers reading ‘Darwin’ on their cars and seize school boards to teach creationism to kids.”

The “footed fish bumper stickers” aren’t fundamentalist, creationist commentaries. They are just the opposite, a response to the foot-free fish symbol--the ichthus--that Christians have used for centuries to designate their belief in “Jesus Christ, Son of God Savior” (in Greek, the initial letters of those words spell out “fish,” hence the use of the symbol).

The footed fish, obviously in the process of evolving into a land creature, is the Darwinian, pro-evolution counterpoint. A proud rationalist would have one on her bumper; no creationist would.

CARROLL LACHNIT

Long Beach

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“Darwin” fish are a support of evolution and can be found in almost any women’s bookstore, not to mention the back of the Village Voice and the Erotic Bakery in Seattle (where I bought my first fish and many for my friends). These are hardly establishments frequented by fundamentalists and, being based in Seattle himself, I’m surprised Appelo didn’t know this.

To be honest, I’m not sure what “Darwin” fish have to do with “The X-Files,” but I wanted to let Appelo know they are not part of the mysticism that “America gobbled up . . . and clamored for more.” If one must attach a meaning to them, they are a symbol of free thinking. Perhaps it is my own particular paranoia that I even needed to write this letter, but, hey, the truth is out there somewhere and we shouldn’t let anything stand in the way of our quest for it.

SUSAN KEILL

Hollywood