Darwin can be made to justify anything

FIONA QUILL (Irish Examiner, January 28) has taken it upon herself to tell us about how ‘evolution’ has shaped this and ‘evolution’ has caused that, citing as reference Desmond Morris.

This kind of 'scholarship', if it can be called that, falls under the title of evolutionary psychology, wherein everything about humanity is animalised to fit in with the evolutionary creation myth.

It is common now to Darwinise every statement about what and who we are, it is common, but unscientific. As a critic of evolutionary theory, all Fiona's article does is to state an obvious fact both parents (opposite sexes) are important for children and then mention it as part of an evolutionary story.

If Fiona wants to play this game, why not also mention, that (evolutionarily speaking) rape plays a beneficial role for unsuccessful males (The Natural History of Rape by Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer), so rape is evolutionarily good, and as evolution makes us, how dare society say one is not allowed to rape? And how about Steven Pinker, evolutionist and professor of psychology who wrote "Why they kill their babies" (The New York Times (November 2, 1997)) a justification for infanticide.

It's about time the Irish Examiner examined its content.

Marwan Boustany,

3, Somerton Park,

Ballinlough,

Cork.