Letter: Who's afraid of a debate on Darwin?

I DO NOT believe, nor have I ever suggested, that the Earth is 10,000 years old ('Darwin's theory still the fittest', 13 September). I present in my book scientific evidence that current methods of geochronometry are flawed and that it is impossible at present to say with any confidence how old the Earth is.

I was, though, fascinated to learn from Steve Connor's article that the New Statesman's intemperate review by Dr Richard Dawkins was written 'lest the paper commission someone else who would treat it as a serious scientific treatise'. What terrible consequence for Western civilisation do Connor and Dr Dawkins think might follow if the scientific issues raised in my book were debated instead of being petulantly dismissed?

My book is nothing to do with creationism or fundamentalism. It is about the fact that growing numbers of scientists in many disciplines have expressed serious doubts about the lack of scientific rigour in neo-Darwinist evolutionary biology.

Richard Milton

Tonbridge, Kent