Dear Editor:

I really did not intend to respond to Michael Rother's "The Final Word on Evolution'' which appeared June 25. But his McCarthyistic statements need rebuttal for the sake of those who would believe him. His first paragraph states, "Most people do not understand the damage that has been caused by the teaching of evolution.''He equates teaching of evolution to teaching communism. He sites Dr. Alan Bloom who has written about social and political issues, never anything about evolution. Mr. Rother goes off on a tangent with political issues. He also referred to W. Cleon Skousen's "The Naked Communist.'' This book also is off the subject, or more like way out in left field, which Mr. Rother does not seem to understand.Evolution, as proposed by Charles Darwin, is simply the change of species throughout time. Naturally, it is caused by natural selection. Artificially, it is caused by selective breeding by man. Darwin never proposed it solved the origin of life. Hawking and Dawkins speculated on that long afterward.Evolution means the act of changing. lt has nothing to do with communism, atheism, degeneracy, promiscuity, spousal abuse, child abuse, homosexuality, and porn addiction. These are rants by fanatics, fundamentalists, lunatics, and paranoid schizophrenics who are disillusioned into thinking there is sacrilegious evil in the teaching of evolution. The discovery of evolution is no more sacrilegious than the discovery of heliocentricity, yet the church burned people for proposing it. Fortunately, the church no longer has such power.J.A. LankalisTamaqua