In his review of Darwin Day in America by John G. West (“Man on Holiday,” Reviews, December), Fr. Michael P. Orsi’s concerns and opinions are unassailable.  Yet in the course of representing the book’s statements, he repeats an outrageous falsehood that should not go uncontested.  Father Orsi writes that “West points out that there is actually scant evidence for . . . the gradual evolutionary change in species that Darwin himself postulated.  In other words, no ‘missing link’ has ever been found.”  But according to most paleontologists and biologists, many missing links have been found, and the pace of discovery of them is increasing.  I refer interested readers to two new books: Why Evolution Is True, by Jerry Coyne (Viking, 2009), a general explanation, and Your Inner Fish, by Neil Shubin (Pantheon, 2008), which is particularly concerned with the evolution of the animal body.

The Intelligent Design movement, of which the Discovery Institute is a propagandizing appendage, maintains the canard of the missing link, apparently on the theory that, if you shout the same lie long enough, it will be believed.  What do they think such ubiquitously trumpeted discoveries as that of “Lucy” by paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johanson, who is about to publish his fourth book on the subject (Lucy’s Legacy, Crown, 2009), are, if not the finding of missing links?

Specious science isn’t the way to counter atheism—“Darwinian” or otherwise.  We must leave the Intelligent Design crowd with their fellow arms-waving, “praise”-chanting megachurch and so-called evangelical-Christian heresiarchs, and turn to Aristotle to route the minions of Darkness.  See Edward Feser’s The Last Superstition (St. Augustine’s Press, 2008) for genuine enlightenment and inspiration; then on to the Philosopher.

—Ray Olson
Chicago, IL

Fr. Orsi Replies:

Mr. Olson’s concerns would be justified if there were indeed hard data of a “missing link” that were being ignored.  The fact is that, while there are many hominids that seem to be proto-human, there is no fossil that identifies a transformation either in bone structure or in genetic make-up where one becomes the other.

We can say nothing definitely about “Lucy,” who existed between three and four million years ago, other than she walked upright—a trait chimpanzees and humanoids share.  Nevertheless, there is a definitive break between Australopithecus aphaeresis (Lucy) and humans, with no indication of the former morphing into the other.  In other words, the lines of descent remain distinct.

It is important to note that evolution is a theory.  It does not have solid proof (hard data) to prove humans evolved from apes.  Paleontologists are still seeking the missing link between ancestral humans and monkeys, if it indeed exists.  Therefore, Mr. West, the author of Darwin Day in America, is quite correct in his assertion.

Those who believe in human evolution are basing their supposition on an unproved premise, while those who hold to Intelligent Design are basing their theory on probability and inference.  Neither of these theories has the hard data that the scientific method requires.  However, neither of these approaches to man’s origin would disprove his uniqueness.