Letters: No need to choose between creation and evolution

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I don't understand why some people think that they have to choose between evolution or a creator God.

Surely if God does exist he can use any method he wishes to create.

There are many leading scientists who believe evolution and have a belief in a creator God. The two beliefs are not incompatible.

Antony Flew (Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater): "It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design."

Albert Einstein: "The more I study science, the more I believe in God."

Charles Darwin, as quoted in his autobiography: "When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist."

Fred Hoyle: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

John C. Lennox: "There is a real conflict, but it is not science versus religion. It is theism versus atheism, and there are scientists on both sides."

These are the few quotes I could fit into this letter. There are hundreds more online.

You do not have to choose between the two.

DAVID CARMAN
Rotorua

I would like to reply to both Pauline Inwood and GJ Philip that science or scientists don't know everything, or assert that they know this or that, rather they like to say we don't know this or that, let's find out. That is why in science, you have so many theories/postulates.

Darwin's "origin of species" or evolution theory is one, relativity/quantum mechanics is another, and what about bonding theories in chemistry, at least four (or more). Theories are to be tested/modified/debated, not to be believed. That makes scientists a sceptical bunch. I gather there are seven to eight different theories about the origin of life, being debated and tested. The idea of a designer/creator would surely ends our search for truth.

STEVE CHOU
Rotorua