Madam, - My thanks to Prof William Reville for his excellent article on the clash between science and religion (Science Today, October 11th).
When faced with such a barrage of anti-theistic rhetoric as we are today, one could be forgiven for concluding that science and religion were mutually exclusive points of view. This position has largely arisen from the minority of closed-minded extremists on both sides of the debate.
We sorely need more voices like that of Prof Reville to represent the vast majority who sit squarely in the middle ground:those who live their faith quietly and allow it to guide their actions without excluding reasoned thought, and those who have no faith but respect the beliefs of others. - Yours, etc,
WILLIAM O'CONNELL, University of Queensland, Australia
Madam, - Will you for God's sake tell your science columnist William Reville to stop banging on about religion? We don't accept science lessons from our religious correspondents, and we certainly do not want to hear sermons from scientists.
Of course science and speculation are no strangers. It would be of some interest to read Dr Reville's refutation of the conclusion reached by Primack and Abrams in their book The View from the Centre of the Universe: that, for material reasons, intelligence can occur only in beings of a size close to that of humans, and that universal intelligence is therefore an idealisation of human intelligence. - Yours, etc,
ANDREW ROBINSON, Marlborough Road, Dublin 4
Madam, Prof William Reville writes in his column of October 11th that "science is silent on God". Quite. Given that the title of the page which carries his writings is Science Today, I would prefer if he too were silent on God and limited his writing to matters of science. - Yours, etc,
PETER SCULLY, Caltragh Heights, Sligo