DNA Tinkering

James P. Pinkerton apparently knows even less about science than he does about the charms of the Harry Potter novels (“Coming Attraction: Mutant Human Beings,” Commentary, July 18). For example, despite their wide variation in size and shape, all dogs belong to a single species; consequently, 10,000 years of selective breeding still does not produce an animal that is not in essence a dog.

Instead of asking how long it will be before humans themselves start evolving, he might better ask when human evolution “stopped” (it hasn’t, really). Because it is far from conclusive that a branch of Homo sapiens “muscled” Neanderthals out of existence, it is more fiction than science for him to speculate that either human-induced genetic tinkering or natural Darwinian processes would inevitably result in societal disruption or conflicts between ordinary people and “new and improved humans.”

OLLAMON ALEXANDER

Pasadena