I WOULD be very interested for Graham Butler (Oxford Mail, May 21) to explain exactly why he has the fantastical notion that we are descended from animals.

Of course, he is not alone in his belief because, for many decades, we have taught our children that the great hoax of evolution is proven fact.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite the best efforts of Prof Dawkins et al, millions of people worldwide, including highly-educated scientists, are not swallowing it.

On a similar, related, matter I see that scientists have managed to manufacture a new living organism. Well, not really. They took a living organism – a bacterium – and swapped some of its DNA.

This may be clever but it is nowhere near to manufacturing life. However we describe ‘life’, it is a non-material phenomenon which only God can provide.

Primeval soups and phoney science notwithstanding, ‘microbes to man’ remains only a desperate fantasy for the determined atheist to hang on to.

Alan Bourne, Steventon Road, Drayton, Abingdon