“I WONDER what Darwin would have thought”, writes Walt Jackson (Letters Aug 7).

I’m sure he would still be wondering, as he did in his time, “Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradation, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?”
Darwin was never an atheist, but turned his back on the Christian faith because of all the suffering he saw in the world.
Acceptance of the Genesis record would have taught him that death and suffering were to be expected in a fallen world. It would also have given him the answer to why he could find no evidence of transitional stages in the fossil record – because God made everything ‘according to its kind’, each incapable of changing into a totally different kind.
As for Mr Banfield’s ‘rational humanism’ (Aug 7), I would urge him not to be so dismissive, but to examine the credentials of the Bible, and especially the Gospel message which has its foundations in Genesis.
Properly understood, it reduces humanism to the realm of the totally irrational.
R H Ashton
Woodland Place
Pengam