From Rhiannon Miller
Your special report on God mentioned the human tendency to describe events in terms of agents, even when we know this is not truly the case (17 March, p 38). I have often thought that this tendency causes problems for people struggling to understand how evolution works.
We talk of antelopes evolving longer legs to escape from lions, of coloration evolving for camouflage, of evolutionary strategies and arms races, not to mention selfish genes. It is as if the antelopes deliberately set out to evolve longer legs; and it is not surprising that some people, realising that no creature actually sits down to figure out an evolutionary strategy, think evolution is nonsense.
Perth, UK
