Madam, - Dr Patrick Mitchel ("The 'delusion' that science can explain everything" August 28th), made a number of points made which must be seriously questioned.
Firstly, Dr Mitchel claims that Prof Richard Dawkins's belief in natural selection is a "faith". This is wholly false. Faith can neither be proved nor disproved by any objective standards, as Dr Mitchel rightly points out.
Prof Dawkins bases his beliefs on overwhelming evidence, and scientific research; he has pointed out many times that if some piece of evidence came forth that disproved natural selection, he would abandon his belief wholly. That is the scientific method, not faith.
There is also the claim of the "historical accuracy of the gospels", which ignores the huge volume of scholarly work in the fields of biblical criticism, theology and archeology (John Dominic Crossan and Robin Lane Fox are just two examples) which indicate that the gospels, and indeed the Bible as a whole, are far from historical in the sense in which any objective person would use that word.
Most contentiously of all, Dr Mitchel claims that "science itself grew out of a Christian framework of thought". This ignores the major influence of the Ancient Greeks, from whom Christian thinkers borrowed and plagiarised heavily, and the Muslim societies which defended and developed the scientific method while Christian Europe fell into the anarchy of the Dark Ages.
A great deal of modern science rests upon the shoulders of Darwin, who was an agnostic, and Einstein, who was Jewish, and indeed an agnostic.
"Christian thought's" bitter opposition to men of science like Galileo goes without saying.
Finally there is the spurious claim that "many scientists who are Christians look at the same evidence as Dawkins. . ." and conclude that there is a God.
This would seem to indicate that there are significant numbers of Christian, or at least "religious" scientists.
To quote just one survey, taken in 1998, of those scientists elected to the USA's elite National Academy of Sciences, only 7 per cent believed in a personal God. Religious scientists are rare and anachronistic in the modern world.
One can only hope that the next time Dr Mitchel attempts to comment on the world of science, he will not base his argument on such wholly falsifiable evidence. - Yours, etc,
PAUL GREALISH, Wellpark Grove, Galway