Man's Roots
To the Editors:
Your article on man's origins [Nov. 7] was fascinating. I find it somewhat strange that religious people refuse to accept the idea of evolution while accepting without apparent murmur other scientific knowledge. Such people hold out against evolution because they think it discredits the Bible. I believe Christianity would certainly survive if everyone frankly conceded that Adam and Eve were mythological characters.
Terrell E. Stewart
Columbus, Ga.
I believe that man was created in the image of God. If Mr. Leakey and the other anthropologists want to claim kinship with the apes and gorillas and monkeys, that's their pleasure.
Luz Gonzales
Springfield, Ohio
When I see God, I don't expect to be in the presence of an ape.
George Krick Jr.
Duncannon, Pa.
The missing link, of course, is the Bible, which tells us not only where we came from, but, what is more important, where we are going.
Gerald Rilling
Port Huron, Mich.
What if Leakey, or anyone else, should discover an intact Australopithecus africanus with only 23 ribs?
W. Smith O'Brien
St. Petersburg, Fla.
Seeing the term believe so frequently in your article, I was confused as to whether I was reading a theological treatise or a scientific monograph. To throw out the missing-link evolutionary theory and replace it with a more modern concept (based on an archaeological discovery in 1975 and supported by 3 million critical years of missing evidence) is even more ludicrous than to ask a non-Biblicist to believe the Genesis account of creation.
May I submit that should this modern concept of evolution be tried in a court of law, the case would be dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence.
(The Rev.) Terry Lothian
Somerville, N.J.
Don't look back: the Fundamentalist contingent is in hot pursuit. The conscientious scholarship of a Leakey notwithstanding, there are millions of people who still pray that any truth of evolution will not become generally known or believed.
Walter S. Boone
Valdese, N.C.
There just has to be more to wisdom than brain size.
Here we have old Homo habilis ensuring the survival of our species for 2 million years on the one hand, and on the other our "civilized" leaders, with twice the brain size, just waiting for a propitious day to blow us into eternal extinction with atom bombs.
Paul Liston
Seattle
Social Security Woes
The Social Security system is in financial trouble [Nov. 7] because the Congress has made it a general welfare fund, a process that has gone largely unnoticed by the average worker. Liberal legislators have discovered how easy it is to pass general welfare legislation under the Social Security (read old-age pension) banner. Giving away old-age pensions to college kids et al. continues.
John D. Van Dyke
Burlingame, Calif.