Origin of life: Who, or what, is responsible?

Re “Bad science, bad theology,” Opinion, Aug. 15

This debate over intelligent design as an alternative creation theory to evolution is bogus. First, evolution is a fact, not a theory. It’s taught that way in college and proved every day. If you don’t believe it, you don’t believe that insects adapt to pesticides or that viruses mutate and become more virulent over time. Religious people have all rights to their beliefs, but here’s a thought: Instead of trying to find a way to disprove the fact of evolution, why don’t you find a way to prove the theory of God?

DONNIE DALE

Altadena

*

On the subject of intelligent design, Michael McGough misses the point. Intelligent design is surely intended to provide an instrument for public dialogue regarding the possibility that God established the universe, including planet Earth.

Of course to have a design, there must be a designer. Does this make it a subversive, clandestine, camouflaged argument? It is a challenge to the absurdity asserted or implied by the majority of Darwinists that everything that exists is a colossal accident coupled with an exclusivist strategy to suppress all references to God or the Bible in the public square.

FOSTER H. SHANNON

Alhambra

*

McGough describes intelligent design as “the latest alternative to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.” Au contraire. ID is not necessarily an alternative to evolution. Surely an intelligent designer of life would use something like evolution as the design tool of choice. Fossils are simply God’s lab notes.

MICHAEL WITMER

Pomona