Letter: Darwin's survival

Sir: Steve Connor's article promoting Charles Darwin as man of the millennium (24 August) is dead on track and would be an intellectual triumph if we could pull it off, particularly in this country where Homo religiosus still largely rules the roost, and evolution by natural selection is considered the work of the devil.

Charles Darwin not only discovered the one unifying principle for all modern biology, but also told us what we are, where we came from, and how we got here. Who can compete with all that?

ERIC T PENGELLEY

Professor Emeritus of Evolution and Ecology

University of California, Davis, USA