FOR more than 2,000 years, the theory of knowledge has been the exclusive preserve of philosophy. From Plato to Wittgenstein, philosophers have struggled alone to explain how we can be certain of the future, or the past, or indeed of anything at all. But over the last couple of decades this monopoly has been coming under increasing threat from biologists. Many specialists in human evolution now feel that 'evolutionary epistemology' can solve many of the problems that have stumped philosophers for generations.

On 9 April two extraordinary species will thunder the four miles and four furlongs of the Aintree course in the Grand National. In the eyes of most 19th-century and many early 20th-century biologists, these two species demonstrate that evolution has a sense of direction and has laboured without deviation to provide the epitome of running power in the horse, and the apotheosis of intelligent life in the human being.

MOULDY bread has helped scientists solve one of life's mysteries - how it began.

RICHARD Dawkins, the subject of last week's Profile, has asked us to make clear that he is married to Lalla Ward.

EVEN a layman can see that Richard Dawkins' metaphor of a 'selfish' gene (personification, motive, greed) is not so different from the biblical metaphors he appears to have difficulty with ('Darwin's disciple', 2 January).

Sir: Given that I explicitly referred to his 'humorous satire', it is irritating to be accused of missing Canon Ward's joke about people nave enough to believe in the Magi (Letters, 28 December and 3 January).

Sir: Keith Ward (letter, 28 December) is disappointed in Richard Dawkins's failure to realise that a remark in his earlier letter was by way of a joke. The late Tom Driberg had an idea for avoiding such misunderstandings, namely, the use of a typeface slanted the opposite way to italics. He suggested it should be known as 'ironics'.

'HE'S THE most evangelical atheist I've ever met,' said a senior Oxford theology don. 'He's left people like me feeling very embattled and under attack. Charming when you meet him, of course, but quite certain that religion is a false hypothesis and Darwin had a better explanation.'

1884 August Weismann points out that sex is not essential for reproduction.

WOMEN'S periods may have evolved as a way of ridding the body of bacteria introduced by sexual intercourse, according to Margie Profet, a biologist at the University of California at Berkeley. Ms Profet says in New Scientist that the way female mammals are fertilised allows entry of bacteria that cling to the sperm's neck and tail; menstruation wards off infections of the uterus that could spread to the fallopian tubes.

Sir: Wendy Baskett and Hugh Montefiore (Letters, 13 August) miss the point in their criticism of Richard Dawkins's view of religious education in schools. Scientific explanations of the origin and development of life need not be infallible but can at least be weighed against available evidence. Darwinism is a case in point. Although it has been questioned as the sole mechanism of evolution, numerous observations leave little doubt that Darwinian evolution does occur.

A British marine biologist and his wife died in a helicopter crash off the Australian coast. Professor Mike Laverack, 62, a former St Andrew's University academic, was carrying out research on the Great Barrier Reef. He and his wife, Maureen, were on board the helicopter when it plunged into the sea. The pilot was also killed.

ONE OF the world's rarest plants has chosen as its habitat a damp boulder in deepest Derbyshire.

SO BIOLOGIST Anne Moir ('Boys will be boys', 16 May) thinks it is 'intellectually dishonest' to deny that men are, visually and spatially, genetically superior to women. Presumably this means that women gymnasts and interior designers are genetic aberrations. Funny how these aberrations always seem to occur in areas society deems to be suitably feminine.