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Darwin didn't recant

This is with reference to the letter on Charles Darwin's alleged astonishment at how his unformed ideas about evolution took like wildfire and people made a religion of it (Dec. 5). Christian evangelists (Lady Elizabeth Hope was one) have been promoting this piece of revisionist history. But Darwin's daughter Henrietta herself has stated: "Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier ... The whole story has no foundation whatever."

K. Ashok Vardhan Shetty,

Chennai

The proponents of Intelligent Design should be ready to swallow a bit of their own medicine. Who or what designed the designer? Scientists know that if proof of God's existence is hard to come by, proof of his non-existence is harder. A comment in American Scientist puts the matter in perspective. "The hand of God may well be all around us, but it is not, nor it can be, the task of science to dust for fingerprints."

Titus John,

Thiruvalla, Kerala

Many in the scientific community regard the blending of science with God to be inconceivable and irrational. Since human thinking and curiosity do not have limits, the modern day scientific community must employ new hypothesis in research on nature's amazing process of evolution to arrive at the truth of the permanence of life, rather than be bound by Darwin's theory.

Aravind Sridhar,

New Delhi

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